(Source: ephemeral-dreamers, via thefatlouie)
“Fear is my consultant, not my boss.”
If you let your fears control your actions, you will be their slave. Once you act in spite of your fears, you gain freedom. Fear is important, though - it protects us from doing dangerous things. Not experiencing fear means being a moron. Real courage is being frightened to death, saying “thank you for the warning” and still going for it.
I always did what I was afraid of and grow much through this. Whether is was working in a Trauma Unit in South Africa, jumping out of an airplane or speaking in front of scores of people. Had I let fear control my actions, I would never had gone this far, never experienced so many special moments, never learned this much about life and myself.
Listen to your fears and use their advice to protect yourself - nothing more.
- This picture was taken in the beautiful waterfalls in Minas Gerais, Brasil - close to the city of Belo Horizonte; my current beloved home.
Ação Global 2012
So this is something that all my Public Health friends would love to see. Here in Brazil there is a TV-Channel called Globo and they (together with many other sponsors) have this event called “Ação Global” where a thousand professionals from different fields go to a poor region to provide a wealth of free services on an entire saturday. For the local people this is an amazing event. They had entertainment programs with dance, medical students dressed as clowns, capoeira, graffiti lessons, snakes and what not. And then there were free document services (many people there did not have an ID-card which is important to get jobs) and of course a lot of medical services. Being a Public Health and an MD-student I felt like a kid in a candy-store! They had hypertension-, hepatitis- and diabetes screening, mouth-hygiene courses for the kids, free haircuts, massage and so forth. I went with the transplant-team who was doing a great job at advocating organ- and blood donation. To be honest, I ended up not helping them much because the nurse in charge, Malvina (one of the loveliest person on earth) kept introducing me to many of volunteers and wanted me to see all the programs and shows. It was amazing. I’ve never seen such a big (over 30000 guests), safe, fun and well organized Public Health event like this. Congratulations to everyone who ever participated. I bow before you!
And the funniest part was: Two actors that I obviously had never heard of before came to advocate for this event: Andrea Horta and Max Fercondini. Both are/were soap opera actors. Max now has a show on TV about environmental issues. I had a few short chats with them and must say I really thought they were amazing people. Very nice personalities. The girls at the event started to become crazy about Max. And so he needed like 6-8 security-people to shield him. Later people would come up to me and ask if we were brothers. I said “No - I’m not even from the same country”. And then the answer always was: “But still… Would you mind if my friend takes a picture of you with me?” Andreia only needed one security guard. “Guys are just so much more decent when it comes to this” she said with her charming smile.
agaycaballero asked: This might sound a bit random, but I do admire your rants on Brazil. It's really nice to see a foreigner so concerned and respectful towards my country, for I wish Brazilians themselves opened their eyes and had similar views regards their own land. Thank you, seriously.
Hi! Thank you so much for your feedback. You can’t imagine how much I appreciate it. My main reason to come to Brazil was because I was always so impressed with the people from Brazil that I met in Europe and the US. You are a very special type of people and your guys’ charisma is very intriguing. So I’m very happy that my respect and concern towards Brazil really comes across in my writing! Licencia: Você é de onde? E o que vc esta fazendo? Um beijo do BH!
Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
“everybody wants to be someone’s here”
midtown nyc from midtown nyc.
(Rollei 35)
Power does not change a character. It shows a character.
— An officer friend from my old army times.
“You fear only what you don’t know.”
The medical people following my blog will enjoy this: I saw this 40 year old male patient yesterday - he has shistosomiasis obstructing is hepatic veins causing the typical backflow of the blood that I so far only new from typical first world diseases such as cirrhosis. When he first presented 10 years ago, people thought it might be a hernia but they soon identified it as a caput medusa. I was really worried when I saw this patient. He didn’t come to the outpatient department in over a year and a half and an old EGD showed small to medium sized esophageal varices. To make me feel even worse, the patients admits to rare episodes of nose-bleeding. I look at his old exams and discover low platelets. Blood pressure was normal. Worried, that he might bleed out into his esophagus when one of those varices ruptures, I present this case to my prof who is incredibly calm and relaxed about it. He eases me saying “Good thoughts, but your wrong. It’s because you guys don’t have these diseases.” Stunned, I look at the patient. He is having a good laugh at me. Not at all does he look any ill. “This patient is absolutely fine” says my Professor. “Look at the Leukocytes - I bet you they’re low as well.” he goes.
I check… and yes: They were. “It’s false low. Which is due to the oversized vessels. Let’s just order blood tests and let’s see him again in… what do you think?” “6 months?” I suggest. “Let’s do that!” He agrees. “And how about another EGD to check if the varices in the esophagus changed?” I suggest. The patients points at me and laughs his head off. We all start enjoying his entertainment. “No. It didn’t change. He’s stable.” Prof says. I finish my notes in the patient file and the following thought comes up “we’re only afraid of the things we don’t know.” Nice lesson learned. I stand up to say good bye to the patient and wish him well. He laughs again and says: “oh and when you go back to Germany - say hi to Beckenbauer”.
“I will my friend. I will.”
-I took the picture with permission of the patient and of Prof. Lambertucci, head of the DIP, ID Dept. at the Hospital das Clinicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.
The warm-up running route to my gym takes me through this nice little park of Belo Horizonte. It appears to me like a tamed jungle.
Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
—William of Ockham, Summa Logicae
