IT WILL BE A NEW BEGINNING

Abstract

A few years ago, during an Otorhinolaryngology congress in Lima, I heard a very advanced Uruguayan specialist lecture. He only performed laryngeal surgeries. He told us, at the end of my life, as a doctor and surgeon, I know that I have helped my patients more with the words that have come out of my mouth than with what my hands have done.
We are living in a very special time, with a lot of technological advances and we are concerned that somehow this technology separates us a bit from visual, physical, verbal and, therefore, human contact with our patients. There you will find currents of methods that make diagnoses with extravagant systems or because of the tendency of some people to look for their symptoms on the internet, reaching generally erroneous and worrying conclusions.
Then I returned to my eyes and memories again to the university classrooms to keep in mind the advice of my old teachers. Very wise, very humanistic. Always remembering Hippocratic medicine.
Hippocrates was born on the island of Cos, in the Aegean Sea, almost two and a half centuries ago, but his medical advice is still as valid as if he were alive today.
The Hippocratic Corpus, which was the main medical treatise of antiquity, mentioned: life is short; art, long; the occasion, ephemeral.
Hippocratic medicine was based on three pillars.
Firstly, it separated religion from medicine, diseases were no longer considered divine punishment and, for this reason and secondly, we must work with evidence-based protocols, seeking the truth, with observation and comparison. Thirdly, the deep respect and ethics in the attention to our patients.
Hippocrates had many aphorisms that are valid today. He made a summary for good health, which could now be a publicity marketing: walking is the best medicine; have good nutrition; do exercises, not too much, not too little; seek fresh air; have rest; body cleansing; he said that all excess is bad; that you have to care for the sick person and his caregiver; that the body should be treated as a whole and not as parts, and many other aphorisms.
In his invocation to Apollo, in the Oath for young people who wanted to be doctors, he said in relation to his future performance: "if I do it well, they bless me; if I do it badly, they condemn me".
For this reason I want to advise my young colleagues to use all the advantages that innovative technologies offer us, but always together with caring care for our patients, listening carefully, understanding, advising, loving them sincerely.
In our Department of Medical Records of the Alcívar Hospital, the daily work is kept, it is the history of our Hospital, the history of our patients and the history of ourselves. Here the facts of the use of the highest technology embraced by the great human spirit of its doctors and collaborators, dedicated to calming the anguish and pain of our patients, are recorded.