Dr. Velena Radošević, a specialist in fetal medicine, talks about a calling that needs no media attention, her relationship with patients, and why she believes gynecology is primarily a women's field.
In a café near Petrova Hospital, after weeks of persuasion, one of Zagreb's most sought-after gynecologists agreed to an interview. Dr. Velena Radošević, a specialist in gynecology and obstetrics with a subspecialty in fetal medicine, was nearly as hard to convince as it is to book an appointment with the most in-demand doctor. "My place is in the delivery room and the clinic. Our calling doesn't need media attention," she told the journalist from Gloria, who eventually succeeded in persuading her, with the promise that the interview would empower women.
At the very start of the meeting, she revealed how intense her daily work is. "Today we had 19 births. And I delivered my colleague, a doctor-that's always a particularly emotional event," said Dr. Radošević, and the journalist noted that her eyes sparkled, not from fatigue, but from excitement and emotion.
The specialist who has been with thousands of women in their most vulnerable moments and welcomed thousands of new lives says that this deep sense of calling was born on a cold December day. "The last exam in medical school-gynecology and obstetrics-I passed on December 23rd. As I was leaving Petrova, I thought: 'This is where I'll work,'" she recalled.
Dr. Radošević spent the first four years of her life in Gospić, where her parents, while building a house in Zagreb, entrusted her to her grandparents for care and to build up her immunity. The central figure of that period was her grandmother Danica, a woman with only four years of primary school who raised a son who became an electrical engineer and a daughter who became a dentist.
"She was our anchor, our strength, and our courage. The center of the whole family in a way that few can be," describes Dr. Radošević. Alongside her, her father played a key role, and his words shaped her more than anything: "You are free to go wherever your mind and passion lead you. Never doubt that."
Although she was convinced until the last moment that she would study molecular biology and discover a cure for cancer, a fateful conversation with her school friend's father, a professor of anatomy, changed her path. "Medicine can give you the space and time to deeply explore yourself and your interests. You can choose science, you can go into the pharmaceutical industry, into classical medicine-but you'll make that decision six years more mature. You'll gain clarity," he told her then. She applied to both molecular biology and medicine, and a better score on the entrance exam led her to medicine.
At first glance, the delivery room seemed too intense for her. "I didn't even weigh 50 kilos then. I looked at those surgeons and thought-this isn't for me," she recalls. She considered endocrinology and even spent time at an experimental growth hormone unit in London, but the sense of calling she felt in front of Petrova has never faded.
Dr. Radošević describes the special relationship that develops between a gynecologist and her patient. "Women entrust you with their bodies and their children, but they also bring fear, shame, secrets, longings, and hope," she says. She adds that even in the 21st century, women come with topics about their bodies and sexuality that they've been ashamed of for years, which she attributes to a deeply ingrained cultural silence passed down through generations.
Asked whether gynecology is predominantly a women's field, she answers without hesitation: "I openly assert that gynecology is primarily a women's field." She explains that male colleagues, no matter how excellent they are as doctors, cannot understand certain things in the same way because they haven't experienced them, such as PMS, ovulation, or the fear of loss during pregnancy. At the same time, she emphasizes that this is not an attack on male colleagues, from whom she herself has learned.
She also commented on the position of women in the medical hierarchy: "All leadership positions in medicine are statistically held by men-that's a fact, not my feeling." Speaking about women's health, she highlighted: "Women are healthiest around age twenty-five-healthy eggs, healthy body."
Despite the challenges, Dr. Radošević remains dedicated to her calling. "Doing what I truly love," she says of what she considers her greatest achievement. She finds her balance in strength training three times a week, which she calls her therapy, and in a weekly massage. She has traveled to Japan, China, South Africa, Vietnam, Cambodia, and the west coast of America, and recently Copenhagen delighted her. Australia, she says, she's saving for the future, while she plans to spend her old age in Gospić, the place of her early years and deep roots.
