Aloys Giesen, a family doctor in the Netherlands, makes home visits to patients who are vulnerable because of chronic, acute, or terminal illnesses.
Credit: Marlena Waldthausen/Vox

NIJMEGEN, NETHERLANDS — Dr. Elise Nillesen walks briskly toward a compact SUV striped in red and yellow, the evening twilight fading. She slides into the passenger seat, stethoscope tucked in her handbag and a small pharmacy in the trunk, and heads off into the chilly November night.

With her driver, Henry, who is trained in basic medical care, Nillesen roves the small Dutch city of Nijmegen as a one-woman primary health care clinic. Once they leave the hospital building that serves as home base, where Henry has set up a makeshift bed so he can catch some sleep between calls, they won’t return for hours.

The night starts at a block of rowhouses where a man is enduring severe pain. Nillesen recommends some diagnostic tests and tells him to call his regular doctor in the morning, to whom she will also send notes.

En […]