Came for the job - stayed for St.Gallen
What is home? Barbara and Ansgar Felbecker ask themselves this question time and again. The medical couple originally come from Germany, but have now been working at the Cantonal Hospital in St.Gallen for many years. Have the two found their new home in the city of Gallen?
Ansgar and Barbara Felbecker, both physicians, he is a senior physician at the Clinic for Neurology at the Cantonal Hospital in St.Gallen, she is a senior physician at the same hospital. He comes from northern Germany, she from southern Germany. They met and fell in love while studying in Ulm. Today, however, the couple lives with their three children in a small house on the outskirts of St. Gallen. But it wasn't bratwursts, OLMA or the FCSG that were the deciding factors for their emigration. Both came to Switzerland because of the job.
The culture shock failed to materialize
"I was already in St.Gallen during my residency starting in 2004, and I really liked it here even then," says the 45-year-old. At the time, his wife was still in training in Germany. She doesn't move here until 2009, when she is pregnant with the first of their three children. "Coming to St.Gallen was a professional decision. We didn't think in terms of national borders. And there was no big culture shock either. This was greater when I came from northern Germany to Swabia." Right from the start, the Felbeckers felt well taken care of and welcome in the city of St. Gallen.
As neuromedics specialists, Ansgar and Barbara Felbecker are very busy. They both find the balance to their demanding everyday life in their common hobby: cycling. Both are active in St.Gallen cycling clubs - although both in different ones - Ansgar Felbecker is even vice president of the St.Gallen cycling club. "Club life is celebrated more here than in Germany. This has allowed us to make many contacts and build up a circle of friends," says Ansgar Felbecker. But the love of biking is just one of the many things that binds the family to the city of Gallen. "It's a nature town. One step and you're in on the hiking trail or can go biking. But it's also a cultural city with music schools for the kids and theater and museum visits for us. The city is big enough to find everything and small enough to have everything on your doorstep," says Ansgar Felbecker, and Barbara adds, "This mixture is very perfect for us as a family. I can think of few comparable places."
"The city is big enough to find everything and small enough to have everything on your doorstep."
Ansgar Felbecker, senior physician at the Clinic for Neurology at the Kanonsspital St.Gallen, on his adopted home of St.Gallen.
At the KSSG there is a sense of togetherness
However, the time in St.Gallen was not always unclouded for the doctor couple. In 2014, the Swiss population voted on the so-called "mass immigration initiative. One of the proponents' arguments was that there were too many German specialists in Switzerland who were snatching good jobs from the Swiss. "That has already hit us a bit. In our environment, we never sensed anything along those lines." Although voters in the city of St.Gallen opposed the initiative, it was approved nationwide. "That's when you start to question some things. 'Es hät z'viel Dütschi.' You get that saying in your head at some point," says Barbara Felbecker. In her circle of acquaintances, some foreigners working and living in Switzerland even decided to leave the country again because of the vote.
Not so the Felbeckers. Even though the mass immigration initiative put a damper on their emigration career, the reasons to stay in St.Gallen outweigh the disadvantages. Not least, it is the professional environment that was decisive for the couple in making this decision. "At the KSSG, there is a sense of "we" that we have never experienced in German hospitals. I've always felt so well taken care of here that I enjoyed being at work." There had also been job offers from other hospitals beforehand. But the KSSG was always one of the top addresses for both of them. "The neurological clinic at the KSSG can definitely keep up with the university clinics in Switzerland. That's why the hospital was always at the top of my list," says Ansgar Felbecker.
The Felbeckers have arrived in St.Gallen. A place to grow old? "It would hurt if we had to leave St.Gallen," they both say unanimously. Their children speak in the broadest St.Gallen dialect, their friends are locals, their life is green and white - and they would never have eaten bratwurst with mustard anyway. What is home for the Felbeckers? St.Gallen is home.
