Summary

 

The guest of this episode is wearing many hats: Barbora Vágnerová, a graduate of the European Master’s in Human Rights and Democratisation, created her own company offering education opportunities for health care professionals, works for a foundation supporting palliative care for children and is a jazz singer.

 

Because of her own experience of caring for a sick relative, Barbora got involved in issues related to health and health care workers. She started her own company, which offers hospital placements in the Czech Republic for individuals interested in such a career in their own country and wanting to experience another health system. I always look for new challenges and like to think of problems and the solutions to that problem in a systemic way.

 

Since April 2022, additionally to her own company, she started working for the Vlček Family Foundation, a newly-established foundation focusing on palliative care for children. Barbora explains that palliative care for children should be encompassing, from the moment of diagnosis to the bereavement process. Palliative care might be an uncomfortable topic for a lot of people so we are trying to find other ways to communicate about it.  The objective of palliative care is to improve the quality of life of the children and their families. Children and families should be asked in every single meeting what they need.

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To illustrate the need for palliative care, Barbora mentioned this short video done by Doctor Jarred Rubenstein comparing palliative care with the fire department https://youtu.be/BbNi_-wYXJE 

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Barbora explains that what brings her joy in her work is the fact that my work makes sense and seeing that you can see the impact of your work (as part of a collective work) on the quality of life of families. 

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Her advice to younger graduates: 

• Do not be afraid to wear many hats!

• Explore different fields and gain new knowledge!

• Do not be shy to ask professionals you admire about their experiences, perspectives, and opinions! Ask the best professionals in the area you are interested in to give you advice! They are usually happy to share their knowledge.

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Barbora is a woman of multiple talents and sings in a jazz band J.J. Jazzmen and Barbora Vagnerova. At the end of the episode, there is an extract of the song Black Coffee from the album freshly released Do they play jazz in heaven. Music is my passion. Everyone should find their way to be stress free and receive energy.

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All information about her jazz gigs and albums can be found here: Barbora Vagnerova (barbora-vagnerova.com)

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