OCTOBER 18. DIA DO MEDICO. BRASIL AND REMEMBERING THE GREAT CUBAN PHYSICIAN CARLOS FINLAY

 

Statue of Cristo Redentor in Rio de Janeiro lit up to pay homage to Dia do Medico on October 18th, 2020. 

I received this message from Brasil.

[08:20, 18/10/2020] : Você me mostrou um lado da medicina que eu não conhecia

[08:21, 18/10/2020] : Antropologia?

[08:22, 18/10/2020] : Pode ser, mas você usa a medicina para praticar o amor, isso é único, é seu e é lindo demais

I was so fortunate to have {Dr} Brown as my teacher in the clinic in the middle of the country, near a town which did not even have a cafe!

When an Indian is sitting in front of you, you really do not know who that person is, he could be the chief of the Eagle Clan and know more about everything you would ever know, but does not matter who is in front of you, show RESPECT to the Indian and if possible LOVE them.

To this day, Dr B, I remember those words and I feel a strong sense of love for the Indigenous people ..

Within the confines of a consultation room, you cannot show your love. You can provide a service attending to whatever it ails them. 

Among the Indigenous peoples regardless of where I am with them, I know that I am half the treatment and my relationship is the Medicine.

The reason the day of the Doctors is on October 18 in Catholic Brazil is that they celebrate the day of Saint Luke on that day and he was supposed to have been a Physician.

In the rest of Latin America where thy speak Spanish, the day of the doctors is on December 3rd, the birthday of the Cuban Physician. Carlos Finlay

Dr Carlos Finlay was a Cuban Physician, educated in France, England and then USA where he became a physician and returned to Cuba. 

He was the first one to think of the household mosquito, Aedes Aegypti as the carrier for the vector for Yellow Fever. The Americans who invaded and set up the epidemiology unit in la Habana under dr Walter Reed did not believe him first. 

Dr Walter Reed got a hospital named after him and Dr Finlay lives on in the heart of every single Cuban in the island ...even to this day..

The spirit of Carlos Finlay lives on in the ISLAND of Cuba and in the heart of the DOCTORS and NURSES working there.

Just today, my sister who lives in Vedado, needed medical attention of the Family Practitioner of the Polyclinic in the neighbourhood. A doctor and a Nurse arrive and wanted to rehydrate her, gave her an IV replacement of water and spent some time with her. She feels much better..

I am very proud of the Cuban Health Care System..

Greetings from Havana, Cuba

I have the greatest of respect for the Doctors and Nurses and other workers of the Cuban Health Care system.