The joy of learning.

 

I often ask myself how I can develop and evolve what I do. From saying thanks until the surgery of an aneurysm. The answer that seems to be constant is the ability to get excited about knowing the implications of my actions but what is the use of knowing it without feeling the joy of transmitting that emotion for learning and multiplying it in the example of others; I know that because one day, I was a child in medicine and today a teenager who still wants to meet the superheroes of the thousands of patients who live today thanks to them, I am one of those survivors.

 

I live in Nicaragua, Central America. I have grown in my life thanks to my family, I have sought to understand life through the teachings of my father and enjoy neurosurgery for those who need it.

 

It has been a very exciting year since I arrived to Japan, discovering so many answers to find more questions that encourage me to keep looking for why. Why should I know what my country needs, why work harder, why be more rigorous with myself, why be a solid link and encourage many more people to improve the health conditions of my country, the conditions of our life; a link like Dr. Akio Hyodo has been for 8 years from his first visit to my country just a week before the Fukushima earthquake, just when I started my journey in this profession.

 

In Nicaragua there are countless setbacks to solve but seeing the leadership that exists in Japan to mitigate the problems common to humanity, I can only wonder for every detail resolved persistently, even the smallest of these but that hide the answer to create a society of excellence.

 

Nicaragua has only 2 endovascular neurosurgeons for 6 million inhabitants. People with access to health insurance do not add up to 50% of the population, so many of them are treated in a free public hospital with limited staff and little advanced technology. Very few are treated by neuroendovascular procedures and the disadvantage that this represents. There is no effective network of care against stroke, in addition to the reduced education of what we can achieve to avoid disabling sequelae due to a stroke, a single member of the family without the capacity to continue his work places the future of his dependents in somebody else. It is not possible that for a 35-year-old adult to be invalidated by an illness that is treatable in other countries, to remain bedridden while his wife or even children go out to work for a salary that does not foresee a good future. Therefore the vicious cycle of despair will continue for them.

 

How much in the lives of these people can we change, how can we contribute to the society and place one of many bricks that are missing and thanks to the knowledge that is learned from those who know and have contributed to the future of a country that sounds so far away.

 

I need to work with the enthusiasm that will be transmitted with the spread of knowledge that has started here at the Dokkyo Hospital, Saitama Medical Center. I hope that from this seed not only a tree will be born but entire forests that give shade and rest to the humans beings who have the most pain.

 

What I have learned here has been from you, professors, specialists, residents, nurses, not only about this profession but about life, the look of each one transmits the teachings of past lives, the customs that have formed this nation, the expressions in the eyes of a people that for eons developed what they now communicate to the world, cooperative and non-competitive work because feeling good makes things better.

 

The joy of exchanging tears for eyes filled with hope, for fighting pain through lips that exclaim smiles, for a tomorrow that gives health to entire families, for the nation.

 

Improve what you do is achieved only with the determination to want to do and that desire can only arise from the emotion of discovering, feeling and loving everything that surrounds us.

 

It is not only my learning, it is feeling it and at the same time that without abusing of the capabilities, the first thing I must do is fight without a let-up until the difficulties are solved no matter how complicated they may seem, no matter how tedious they turn to our lives, no matter how scarce the technological resources are. The first and the last thing will always be the effort, the effort to take the initial step and the final sigh.

 

The future will depend on the ability to get excited by the knowledge and the transmission of that emotion, emotions that emerge from eating Takoyaki on the shore of Lake Yamanakako and observing the snow peak of Mount Fuji through the rain of the sakura until seeing the patient leaving the hospital with his family.

 

I realize that my responsibility is greater every day and for that, thank you very much.

 

Thank you very much to all.

 

 

Edgar Herrera.