Incredible outings behind the wheel of a dilapidated ambulance, medical intervention in a swingers club, hilarious search for a thesis subject, memorable evenings with a clinic head and friends… The new opus of the comic strip Vie de carabin* takes up the ingredients that made the success of the first three volumes.
Started in 2013, the series has more than 100,000 readers and a large community of followers on social networks. In this fourth volume, the author – whose pseudonym, Védécé, corresponds to the initials of Vie de carabin – narrates his last year of boarding school.
Le Point: Why are you so keen on your anonymity?
Védécé: It’s an effective way of guaranteeing my freedom of speech. I can share my life and experiences without risking being slapped on the wrist. At first, I was certain that I would be exposed because of my description of the conditions in the hospital. In reality, I have had a lot of testimonials from other medical students, all over France, who told me: “What you are describing corresponds exactly to what I am experiencing. » Even if, today, tongues are starting to loosen a little, medicine remains an environment where a certain omerta reigns. If one of us steps out of line too much, he risks being quickly called to order and being punished. I therefore carefully guard my anonymity.
If we read your comic book, between shifts and writing your thesis, you work eighty hours a week. How do you manage to find time for your work?
When something interesting happens to me during the day, I write it down on my phone. Everything I say in my books is inspired by my experience. Even very shocking or crazy scenes. It must be said that there is substance! To produce the previous volumes, where I was in charge of both the drawings and the scenario, I juggled a lot and slept little. My comics had a very artisanal side. This time, it’s a little different, because I handed over to a professional designer, Chully Bunny, who was able to improve the boards while keeping the somewhat “messy” spirit of my first albums.
When I started working at the hospital, I was a little naive. I really had the image of a certain excellence of the French hospital, with immaculate and bright corridors like the American series. Imagine the shock when I arrived in the services during my first internships! [He laughs.] I wanted to bear witness to this without sparing the doctors, who are not always attentive, nor the patients, who are sometimes aggressive or totally irresponsible. On the incivility front, the anecdotes I talk about in this last volume, such as patients mistaking Samu ambulances for free taxis, show that the situation has not improved at all.
As for the nursing staff, I said in the previous volume that there were four profiles of caregivers in the hospital: the idealist, who has a vocation for public service; the careerist, who dreams of being a professor; the incompetent, more protected in the public structure than in the liberal; and the slacker, because if you want to hide, it’s easier in the corridors of a hospital. These last three profiles have not disappeared. On the other hand, since Covid-19, more and more idealists have thrown in the towel. They realize that they are far too restricted in their practice. The big difference in comparison with previous years is these colleagues who would never have thought for a single second about becoming a liberal and who, ultimately, took the plunge, without regret.
