The life of Dr. Eneida Carballosa Peña has been accompanied by the vocation of teaching, because she considers that this is the best way to leave a mark in those who have been her students throughout her life as a teacher, since she enlisted as a literacy teacher of the Conrado Benítez Brigade, in the early years of the Revolution, until today, when despite her 77 years she continues to be useful to the specialty of Angiology, teaching staff of which she is part, at the Clinical Surgical Hospital Lucia Iñiguez Landin of Holguin.
With clear clarity, the also second degree specialist in Angiology and vascular surgery, remembers when she traveled to Havana, after concluding the Literacy Campaign, to enroll to study Medicine and met a friend in Ciudad Libertad, with whom she maintains communication and a fraternal friendship until today.
“We all arrived from different provinces, with our Conrado Benítez brigade uniform. Who I had next to me, coming from Yaguajay, later became a great friend who became an agronomist engineer and is currently a professor at the Agrarian University of Bayamo. I feel very close to that friendship because we have both gone through almost the same problems in life”.
Beginnings in Medicine
“Although I have been at Lucia Hospital since 2000, I come from the Vladimir Ilich Lenin University General Hospital, where I entered as a medical student when there were fourth-year students for the first time in 1968″.
“I was from the first scholarships of the Revolution, at that time two specialties were offered, Medicine and Agricultural Engineering. I chose Medicine because I always liked it. Then we came to the only medical university that existed in these provinces, in Santiago de Cuba. I enrolled in 1965 and stayed until my third year. At that time the Lenin Hospital was already operating in Holguin, inaugurated in 1965, so we started the fourth year in Holguin, as part of the first fourth year course of Medicine at the Lenin Hospital”.
“From that time I remember that we worked a lot, as nursing staff, as employees and as students. I graduated as a doctor in 1971 and took up Angiology directly, since I liked it very much when I rotated through the specialty”.
“To become an angiologist I worked hard, I gained a lot of experience, both in knowledge and in practical life. When I graduated, the hospital had a shortage of specialists, since only my professor, another doctor from Las Tunas and I were angiologists. Over the years, other specialists were trained and I left for Nicaro, in the municipality of Mayarí as part of the postgraduate service. There I assisted a large number of people from Nicaro, Mayarí and Guatemala. When I finished, I returned to Lenin where I continued as a specialist”.
“Then the Lucía Iñiguez Hospital was founded and we were transferred. We gained in comfort in the room, for the attention to the patients because it had very good material conditions. Thus, the specialty continued to advance until we were able to form a group of specialists. We increased in teaching categories and we have worked in this service together with the nurses”.
“I keep working even though I will be 77 years old in January. I am happy and proud to be that age and still sit here and be called a professor and be able to give some valuable answer to anyone who asks me.”
What does it mean to have dedicated more than 23 years of your life to Lucia Hospital?
“This hospital has been a balm, because I have had more connection with the patients and the staff around me. Here I have been able to teach diploma courses on primary care in the diabetic foot, of which I have been the main teacher. As this hospital has been the site of clinical trials, such as the Heberprot-P trial with the aim of improving the diabetic foot to gain quality of life for those affected.”
“We have done scientific papers for provincial and territorial conferences of the specialty, as well as for national workshops and congresses. I have participated in five Heberprot-P congresses. We have met many specialists from other provinces, which results in one also taking in knowledge, which results in more teaching, more integration of residents and new specialists. I feel satisfied, although I want to do more. That’s why I keep working.
How much has the specialty of Angiology grown since those early years with three professionals until today?
-This province has gained a lot because we achieved coverage of all municipalities with angiologists, including some with more than one specialist.
We have trained many residents from Holguín and Las Tunas. We have gained in technology and in patient care because first we had the Vascular Hemodynamics Laboratory, very important for care; we added a Doppler equipment, which before patients had to go to Las Tunas for this test. In the operating room a lot of operations have been performed. We would like to do more and in that sense we have very nice work projections, in terms of incorporating new surgical techniques.
It is true that due to the complex economic situation in which our country finds itself, residents have left, in fact the number of residents in the service has decreased.
I give everything for medicine. There is nothing nicer than seeing a patient get well after arriving serious and seeing them get better.
What experience has marked your personal and professional life?
“Care for children perhaps because this specialty tends to be more prevalent in adults. When we have been called to treat a child, one has been more impressed.”
“I remember the case of a little girl who arrived at the pediatric hospital because of an accident on a motorcycle with her parents. When she arrived, she was almost losing her life due to a very large vascular trauma, at the level of major vessels; she was a three-year-old girl. Despite the complications, we managed to save her, we took an interest in her, we went to see her on several occasions until she was discharged and made satisfactory progress”.
How do you link your personal life with your work?
“I have always had a lot of support. First of all, when I started, it was my mother and some nephews who lived with us in my house.
“I have always had a lot of support. First, when I started, it was my mother and some nephews who lived with us in my house. When I was doing my internship I married someone who was by my side for 50 years and always helped me, supported me in everything, for whatever I needed he was always by my side”.
“Even though he died and no longer exists between us, here I am and I am still going forward alone”.
What do you recommend to the population of Holguin to prevent the diseases treated by Angiology?
“The first thing to prevent these diseases is not to wait for the most severe manifestations and complications to appear. When someone detects an ulcer, they don’t have to wait until the foot gets dark.
“The first thing to prevent these diseases is not to wait for the most severe manifestations and complications to appear. When someone detects an ulcer, they don’t have to wait until the foot is black. No, when they start with an altered vein, a pain when walking, or standing, a cramp, a coldness in one of the extremities, a first lymphangitis to avoid complications. It is always better to prevent. There are Angiology offices in all health areas”.
So for Eneyda, although she has not had an easy life, marked by the impossibility of having children and the loss of her partner of more than five decades, she confesses that she has enjoyed to the fullest practicing the two professions she loves: medicine and teaching.
Therefore, if she had to rewrite her life story, she admits she would not hesitate to choose the professions that have brought her the greatest joy and satisfaction: forming a family, not by blood, but affectionate, which multiplies at every step with the new generations in which she has left a mark.
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