Once a month, the members of Café Med meet in a restaurant to offer free consultations.
Iwan Santoro/SRF
Once a month in Lugano, patients can seek advice from medical specialists free of charge thanks to the “Café Med” initiative, run by retired doctors. Rather than prescriptions or certificates, the project offers something increasingly rare in healthcare: unhurried conversation.
The specialists involved include oncologists, radiologists, general practitioners, psychologists, dermatologists and cardiologists – all retired, and all volunteering their expertise. Once a month in the southern Swiss city, they hold free consultations from 2:30pm to 4:30pm.
Questions about chronic illness
“Patients often have questions about chronic issues like diabetes or heart conditions,” says retired radiologist and oncologist Antonella Richetti. “But there are also people with more serious illnesses, who want to know whether the treatment they are undergoing is appropriate, if there are alternatives, and if they are on the right path.”
Café Med is run by the informal academy “Menschenmedizin” (“people medicine”): founded in Zurich in 2017, it is now found in Basel, Bern, Chur, Lucerne, St. Gallen, Winterthur, Zurich, Lugano, Bellinzona and South Tyrol. Its services are always free of charge and focus on a holistic view of the individual.
Richetti stresses that Café Med does not offer traditional second opinions. The doctors do not conduct examinations or prescribe medication. “We try to clarify what people have not understood – what they still need in order to make an informed decision,” adds colleague Olivia Pagani. “It is a different kind of work to a normal doctor’s visit.”
No time pressure – and no costs
Patients appreciate the relaxed atmosphere. A 63-year-old woman from Lugano sought advice about her cholesterol levels. “In the practice, everything has to go quickly because the waiting room is full and the doctor explains everything in a hurry,” she says. “If you don’t understand straight away, you feel embarrassed to ask.”
A poster in front of the hotel restaurant invites potential patients not to coffee and cake, but to a free consultation.
Iwan Santoro/SRF
Seeing the Café Med initiative, she decided to try it. “It felt like counselling, but also just a conversation. I’m satisfied – and if I have more questions, I’ll come back.”
More humanity, less technology
Listening, explaining and advising are at the core of Café Med. This was the intention of the Akademie Menschenmedizin when it launched the project eight years ago: offering care without commercial interests, taking a holistic view of the patient.
Such human connection is increasingly missing in modern medicine, says retired cardiologist Ezio Foglia. “The young doctor who comes out of university at 28 hardly has the chance to learn one-to-one from the older doctor who says: ‘Come here, listen to this heart and tell me what you hear.’ That doesn’t happen anymore. The stethoscope we all know is no longer needed.”
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Foglia believes this shift towards technology contributes to rising healthcare costs. “It costs CHF100 ($124) to touch and examine a patient. But when we start doing all the technical tests, it costs CHF1,500 or more.”
A benefit for doctors too
The monthly sessions benefit not only patients but also the retired doctors. General practitioner Markus Huber values the exchange among colleagues from different specialisations.
On site, the atmosphere makes it clear: the conversations are as enriching for the doctors as they are for those who come for help.
Translated from German using DeepL/amva
