In All There Were Three Things By Fernando Pessoa

“From the interruptions, to make a new path, from falling, a dance step, from fear, a ladder from dream, a bridge…”
Excerpt from the poem “In All, There Were Three Things” by Fernando Pessoa

As human we have certain emotional traits, traits that make us unique. I like to call these traits inherent passions. These inherent passions are triggered when interruptions are brought into our life path, when a particular life event occurs and your perspective, your north suddenly changes. And so for me, the interruption that brought to light my inherent passion was the night my grandfather's life was disrupted by a stroke. This event not only changed my perspective towards life, but also towards the profession of Medicine. The moment when the doctors were trying to pull my grandfather out of the hands of death was when I became aware of my passion of helping those in need.
During my last two years of high school I served in a hospital as a part time nurse assistant. This experience served as the stepping stone that would lead me into my life path. Shortly after finishing serving as a part time nurse. An opportunity for studying in the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina (ELAM) became available; and luckily I was awarded and thus became part of the scholarship program. With all the vicissitudes that the Cuban regimen was dealing I could however adapt to the culture, and during the six years that I lived there, I learned a valuable lesson: good medicine should be performed when we have first the knowledge and then the determination to be compassionate with the affliction of patients, and to give the best of that one could ever give even when there are not enough resources