Pierluigi Vergara: Neurosurgeon at the court of His Majesty

In recent decades, Italy has been the protagonist of a not exactly positive phenomenon known by all as brain drain. In fact, it happens more and more often that the young homegrown minds are forced to seek fortune abroad, as they are unable to fulfill themselves within national borders. And Pierluigi Vergara is one of many brains on the run from a country that is struggling more and more in generational turnover. This happens for various causes that can range from the lack of suitable structures for training and personal fulfillment, to the complex (and backward) system of climbing towards the top in a given sector.

History

Pierluigi Vergara is a young Italian Neurosurgeon transplanted to London in 2012. Lately he has made headlines for becoming one of the youngest Consultants ever in the United Kingdom. A role very similar to that known in Italy as Primary, albeit with some technical differences.

His story, told in a long interview with Vesuviolive.it, begins among the long benches of the Faculty of Medicine of the Federico II of Naples, where he graduated in Medicine and Surgery and subsequently the specialization in Neurosurgery in 2011. During his specialization, The young man from Campania also managed to carve out an experience of about a year in London at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, greatly improving his knowledge in the field of Spinal Neurosurgery.

Raised in Acerra, always linked to his Naples, Pierluigi thus finds himself with a respectable qualification, but aware of the enormous effort that he will have to bear even just to be taken into consideration at the Campania health facilities. Fortunately for him, the English experience of previous years allows him to receive a Fellowship proposal (a scholarship for graduates for research work) in the prestigious Cambridge. Without thinking twice, Pierluigi closes his life and hopes in a suitcase and moves to England with the aim of fulfilling himself.

After about a year, the Acerra neurosurgeon becomes Consultant of Neurosurgery at Addenbrooke's Hospital, and currently (at only 35 years old) he is one of the leading figures in the whole structure, with more than two hundred interventions every year, a series of young students trainees to train and responsible for projects concerning the innovative minimally invasive vertebral surgery.

Difficulties

For Pierluigi Vergara there are many things to improve in our country as regards the health sector. If the universities allow more than enough training, the post-graduate path and the insertion into the world of work present too many pitfalls, forcing young Italic minds to seek their fortune abroad. According to Pierluigi, the structures specialized in certain pathologies present in the area are excessive, thus wasting the workforce and the necessary equipment. Furthermore, the ability of a single center in knowing how to deal with various pathologies is undermined, while in other countries everything is concentrated in a few structures capable of coping with any type of emergency. Another shortcoming concerns the experience granted in the field to young surgeons, left to study in textbooks and with very few hours in the operating room, preventing them from completing their training.

But it is not our intention to open a debate on the issue. Let us rather enjoy another all-Italian excellence. Let's enjoy the youngest neurosurgeon at His Majesty's court, or Pierluigi Vergara.