Carmen Sanchez Alegria He has been practicing medicine for more than thirty years, a profession that he understands as a union between science and the human dimension. Because just received a San Fulgencio award and also, he shows it in his first book, love is the best medicinewhich he will present on the 10th in Las Claras and on the 23rd at the Official College of Physicians.
At only 4 years old I already wanted to be a doctor, why?
Possibly because I had a childhood from doctor to doctor and I was passionate about the look of doctors. The difference between the doctor who helped me improve and the one who was not the one who called me by my name, explained what he was going to do and smiled at me. I said that when I grew up I wanted to look like that man.
He says that there is no empathy subject in the career
Neither empathy nor how to accept death or deliver bad news. What you look forward to mythologizes and for me entering the main hall was something sacred. I arrived and bought all the books thanks to my father. He believed that he was going to find wisdom and you find data, knowledge, but nothing to do with what I was looking for.
So what is needed in the university?
It is necessary that they teach you from humility to know how to listen and resolve emotions because we are in contact with pain; to know how to manage it, but above all to call the patient by his name and to understand what Hippocrates said about curing sometimes, but always being there and learning the difference between curing and healing. I have learned that from my patients.
“Before starting to practice, doctors should be patient and see the difference between a face that smiles at us and someone who is looking at the computer and does not pay attention to us”
However, a doctor also becomes a patient
Clear. Before starting to practice, all doctors should be patients. We doctors should take off our white coat, put on a nightgown with our ass exposed, take off our stethoscope, which is a kind of power tool, feel pain and see the difference between a face that smiles at us and someone who is looking at the computer and he pays no attention to us, no matter how good he is. The power of a hand is magic and holding a patient’s hand heals far more than anything else.
Many doctors will say that she is crazy
Yes, and when you start to make comments, they impress you, but after 32 years they impress me little and many of those who laughed at me told me: “make me something of yours and don’t let these people find out.”
You have said that curing is different from healing, what is the difference?
Healing comes from outside, it is a process that depends on whether a doctor gives you a good diagnosis and gives you a good treatment, but healing is internal and, if you don’t combine that, the disease becomes chronic.
Why did you decide to write a book?
Because my patients, who are my best teachers, told me: doctor why don’t you write this and my husband, who is a writer, had been telling me for many years. I had been trying to shape the book for some time and then Penguin Random wrote me to propose a book on the holistic vision of Medicine. At first I thought it was phishing (laughs).
Why would I recommend it?
Because I, being a medical student, would have loved to read a similar book. It was my first reason, but now that there are patients who tell me that they have bought it and it is helping them, I say that the true healing resources are within us and they do not tell us and they are resources that complement medicine. What I reflect is what you have to do on your part so that the work that a doctor does is more effective.
But whoever reads the title may think that he is throwing stones at his own roof
I’m not saying that love is the only medicine, but a drug prescribed with love and with confidence has much more effect than prescribing a terrific drug to a patient whose eyes you haven’t even looked at.
“I see patients who need drugs for a divorce, an exam and we medicalize life and that is very dangerous”
In the book he talks about many trips he made instead of playing it safe, why?
Because since I wanted more, I went everywhere, wherever there was someone who was sensitive to suffering and who had tools to improve it. I came across all the cultures and the good thing is that, although they speak different languages, they all have something in common, which is love, which is connecting with us, that we are love and shamans, healers, healers, know it very well , love together with trust, acceptance, breathing, feeding, positive thoughts…
Do you think we tend to self-medicate a lot?
I think we don’t allow ourselves the luxury of being sad and sadness is as healthy an emotion as any other. What happens is that it is frowned upon and I see patients who need drugs for a divorce, an exam and we medicalize life and that is very dangerous because we get used to taking drugs all day. On the other hand, we always want to be as happy as we think others are, and if others take something, we want the same. In addition, we want the drug that will solve it in one day, all fast.
He says that the body warns when we have to stop
Always. We have a fantastic compass inside, but we have lost the connection with our body, which continues to send messages and, if we ignore it, it can surprise us with serious things. The brain, faced with chronic stress that it does not know how to control, chooses the disease and that is why it stops us.
Therefore, what should we do when something hurts?
First listen to the body because it hurts for something, pain is a signal. Consult the doctor for an accurate diagnosis, do not search the internet and, later, help us so that the pain goes away as soon as possible.
