Amanda Lucia (Lucie) De Jager

Received my degree and decided to stay on in Witbank after my completing my community service so as to acquire more skills in private sector ( especially as Witbank provided more hands-on experience than working in a big city)

Met my husband in Witbank but due to his work and also to benefit my career we moved to Secunda where I was able to gain substantially more knowledge working as a permanent locum at a well established practice alongside a very experienced GP.

During the time in his practice I also gained a lot of experience with admitting patients to hospital and caring for them myself as in 2004 only a limited amount of specialists were available.

To gain new knowledge and experience I moved to theater assisting orthopedic surgeons ( one specializing in spinal surgery which has interested me since I graduated)

My general knowledge in the field of orthopedics greatly increased and has helped me in the years following my return to general practice.

After emigrating to the Netherlands I greatly missed my profession but was unable to register without writing extensive medical exams.

Due to unfortunate circumstances I had to return to SA on my own and I now have to restart my career. I really love my work and making new connections with not only patients but also people such as colleagues and all the different people involved in running a practice.

I am from an Afrikaans family, but have always enjoyed reading mainly English and with a year living in the Netherlands my English developed further.

I don't have official qualifications in Dutch but understand it well.

One of my subjects at school was German and I used to be quite fluent in German. By not using the language I've unfortunately lot of German vocabulary but if spoken slowly I can understand the gist of a conversation.