“I’m in transport, we’ve had a lot of emergencies!” The ups and downs of life as a doctor in a text message. Yousrah Baadj is doing an internship at the Henri-Mondor intercommunal hospital center in Créteil. Since 2021, the young woman has been an intern at Assistance publique – Hôpitaux de Paris (APHP), in obstetrics and gynecology, the discipline which focuses on women and their unborn children.
“We are entering women’s private lives,” she says. They open up a lot to us, the emotional charge is significant…”
Yousrah found her way, perhaps inspired by her scientifically trained parents. If she admits to having had, when she was younger, “a lot of apprehension regarding the profession of doctor” due to the “inaccessible side”, she gradually managed to project herself beyond the glass ceiling.
The story begins in 1997 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in Yvelines. Yousrah is the second child of five siblings, of Algerian parents who immigrated to France. His family moved to Vitry the following year, to the 8-May-1945 district.
“I spent my time at the bookmobile,” she remembers. That was the start of the problems: I was always returning my books late!”
From Vitry to Manchester
As a child, she went to the Blaise-Pascal school, then spent her middle and high school years in the private sector, in Épin. It was then that, in 2014, she joined the Jeunes solidaires 94 association, which had just been born. A first experience of commitment rich in aid and mutual aid projects. A spirit of solidarity that she also develops with the judo-jujitsu club of the Entente sportive de Vitry, where she has been registered since the age of 5. “We are all from different backgrounds, but on the tatamis, we are all the same.” Upon leaving the baccalaureate, Yousrah was admitted to Paris-Cité University.
Then, in 2017, for her third year of medicine, she went to study in Manchester, United Kingdom. “One of the best experiences of my life,” she remembers, with a sparkle in her eyes. In the second year of college, after the competition, I felt like I was a kind of creepy social skimming. And there, I arrive in a world where everything is hyper multicultural, where we are interested in others…”
Passionate doctor, committed Vitriote
And in 2020, the covid shock. Returning to France, still an external student at that time, she was one of the elected representatives representing the students. She organized with comrades to deploy a reinforcement system of more than 400 students:
“I surveyed the requesting hospital services to assign them where they were needed… It was very difficult for everyone, we no longer saw our families. But this is the first time I felt useful.”
Yousrah doesn’t stop for a second. And it’s not over. A podcast fanatic, she decided to launch her own show in October 2022, Behind the footprint, with the objective of desacralizing the world of science. Among his guests: a forensic archaeologist, a neuroscience researcher or a climatologist… “I want that, in our society, everyone can feel legitimate to speak with someone who is not from their background. By decomplexing certain things, everyone can understand.” And break that damn glass ceiling.
Determined to “create hope rather than disillusionment” and wishing to address the young people of Vitry, Yousrah adds: “We lack models who look like us in our society. It’s up to us to embody them, we must not wait for someone to come and get us, we must dare!”
Portrait taken by Clément Aulnette
LANDMARKS
August 17, 1997 Born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in Yvelines.
1998 His family moves to Vitry, in the May 8, 1945 district. Then moved to the Gare/Jean-Jaurès district in 2008.
June 2016 Assignment to second year of medicine
Summer 2018 Travel to Japan with the judo-jujitsu section of the Vitry Sports Entente
Sept. 2021 Assignment in obstetrics and gynecology at APHP.
Oct. 2022 Podcast launch Behind the footprint.
2024-01-16 20:10:55
#Yousrah #Baadj #passionate #doctor #committed #Vitriote
