Argentina a place for another medicine

  • 2015

On a long table covered by two woven ponchos and a wiphala flag, a group of boys have bottles with colored liquids, lemons, garlic; jars with chamomile, horsetail, passionflower, jarilla, fennel and dozens of other dissected plants. Vaporous infusions and a pot that melts beeswax on a stove flood the space of aromas and bring warmth to the hall of an old building that lets in the icy July blizzard through its iron doors. In the Faculty of Medicine (UBA), students and curious people approach the traditional medicine workshop Ñaupa ñaupa, which for four years has taught a group of advanced students and graduates of medicine, nursing, pharmacy and anthropology. There they bring together their diverse knowledge with the intention of recovering the science of native peoples and giving them a space in the faculty that more doctors form in the country.

Emiliano Molina grew up healing with tinctures, poultices and infusions that his mother, healer, prepared with plants in the region. When he grew up and wanted to continue practicing and sharing the knowledge inherited from ancient generations, his mother told him that to devote himself to that and be taken seriously he had to be a doctor. This is how Molina began her career in the UBA and today she only needs a few finals to receive her title. "The whole race was comparing or growing at the same time, translating from one medicine to the other, bringing knowledge from one side to the other, " he told Page / 12. When the group in which he militates (May 29) gave him support, Molina decided to bring to light his ancestral knowledge in the form of a workshop. “First with a lot of fear, with a lot of shyness. What will happen? How will students react? Will they come? Are they interested? I wondered. Although today many people use traditional medicines, there are many prejudices, much to believe or not. ”

The call was growing throughout the four years of monthly meetings and at the last meeting, held on July 10, attendees filled the width of the entrance hall of the faculty, in front of the main hall. In the improvised work table in the common space in which the group usually concentrates its militancy, Molina and other colleagues listed the properties of some medicinal plants in the country and abounded in the scientific reason, basting explanations about neurotransmitters and membranes, citing papers and cutting-edge research "It's not about believing or not, " added Rodrigo Bazzi, another medical student who is part of the workshop. The prejudice comes from not knowing that many of the medications that the doctor prescribes for us are derived from plants. ”

The workshops say that the biggest contradiction with "Western medicine" has nothing to do with the technical fundamentals, but with the doctor-patient relationship, increasingly limited to the mechanical detection of the symptom and the prescription of some industrial drug that manages to placate it. immediately. “In ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine) the last thing they ask you is why you came, what hurts. They ask you about your family, your links with society, what happens to you, what do you do, what are your interests, ”Molina explained. “Here in the faculty they pretend that medicine is an exact science, and it is not. It has exact tools, but it never ceases to be a social science, because we are talking about people; people traversed by a system that exploits them working, ”added Molina. "Medicine today is dedicated to arranging workers to return to the system and continue producing."

“It would be foolish to believe that we have to discard Western medicine, because the worldview and the way of life that the people of the original peoples had was totally different from what we have today and I can tell you that if you feel bad, take a Chamomile tea, but I know that if you take an Ibupirac, the pain will go away. Traditional medicine has other times and you may have to go to work yes or yes because, if not, they throw you out, ”Bazzi clarified, continuing to insist on keeping track of the adverse effects of the medications we take. daily and be alert to the career of large pharmaceutical laboratories to find pathologies in all human states and sell cures for each of them.

The organizers of the Ñaupa ñaupa are planning to publish a material that will gather not only the recipes shared in the workshop and what was presented by their organizers, but also the experiences that the participants were contributing throughout the meetings. On the other hand, the intention is to achieve soon some degree of institutional recognition and that the workshop can take the form of a free chair or, at least, have a classroom for its dictation.

Soon to obtain their medical degree, the workshop organizers reflected on their future professional performance and insisted on the feasibility of reconciling the two worldviews. "The lesson we want to take is that the doctor is trained from both the scientific and the traditional, which is also science, another way of doing science, " Molina summarized. "I am very interested in being able to give options to the person who approaches me as a doctor, or to whom I approach, " Bazzi added. I think it is necessary to say 'you can have this tea or this pill', but give it the knowledge and that this person does what he feels, wants and seems necessary. ”

Report: Delfina Torres Cabreros.

Source: http://www.pagina12.com.ar/

Source: https://ciseiweb.wordpress.com/

Argentina a place for another medicine

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