Former health minister Olivier Véran is going to put on a white coat again, but not the one he was expected to. Gone are the hospital and neurology unit, his original specialty. It's aesthetic medicine that the ex-government spokesperson, who was dismissed in Emannuel Macron's January reshuffle, plans to embrace. He'll work one day a week at a clinic in Paris's Champs-Elysées neighborhood, in addition to his duties as MP for Macron's Renaissance party.

The information, first published by French daily Le Figaro on March 18, may have been a private choice, but it has made its way into public debate – in medical ranks and beyond. It represents a crucial issue for caregivers, at a time when the healthcare system is cracking on all sides.

"It's a terrible irony," said Olivier Milleron of the Collectif inter-hôpitaux, a collective highlighting the issues France's public healthcare system faces. "It's sad to be doing cosmetic medicine for rich people when hospitals are in crisis and short of manpower, particularly in neurology. Not to mention the deplorable message of leaving the public sector for the for-profit private sector." "Scandalous!" reacted, on X, a spokesperson for the CGT-Santé union, Christophe Prudhomme. "A former minister can no longer be totally free to make his own choices," wrote Bernard Jomier, a doctor and Socialist senator. "Switching from neurology to aesthetic medicine makes sense as a financial choice. What a disastrous message."

While the Ordre des Médecins, the professional body that regulates the medical profession, did not wish to take a position on his personal career choice, it has questioned the "coherence" and "exemplarity" of such an option on the part of someone whose mission in 2020, in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis, was to defend hospitals and access to healthcare for the French. Before entering politics, Véran was head of neurology at Grenoble University Hospital.

"When you know the health crisis we're going through, with patients waiting months to get appointments, that these things are the consequences of the policies Véran has pursued, you still have the nerve to stay in your profession," said Jérôme Marty, president of the Union française pour une médecine libre, a union of liberal doctors, on RMC radio station.

Anticipating the criticism, Véran explained his decision, citing the difficulty of reconnecting with neurology "because the discipline has evolved very strongly in therapeutic terms," he told Agence France-Presse. He also said he had fears that the "minister label" would disrupt his "therapeutic relationship" with his future patients. He also defended his new field of practice: "It's 15% of the French adult population that has recourse to aesthetic medicine, and it's something that shouldn't be denigrated," citing those "French people (...) who suffer," whether because of a "scar on the face," "accelerated aging linked to the menopause" or "premature baldness."

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