Two outstanding women in state medicine were awarded by the Faculty of Medicine of the Autonomous University of Yucatan (Uady) for their career and being pioneers in their respective specialties.
They are doctors María Teresa Zapata Villalobos, the first Yucatecan graduate of the Uady to graduate in the specialty of Orthopedics and Traumatology, and Hilda Reyna Peralta Rosado, the first Yucatecan graduate of the Uady to do the specialty of Cardiology.
Within the framework of International Women’s Day, the faculty presented awards to the two specialists, who received the distinction from Dr. Alina Dioné Marín Cárdenas, academic secretary of the University’s Faculty of Medicine.
Dr. María Teresa Zapata graduated in 1983 from the specialty of Orthopedics, which she studied at the Magdalena de las Salinas Orthopedic Hospital of the IMSS in Mexico City.
She remembers that there were 18 members of her generation, 17 men and she was the only woman.
She relates that when she studied the specialty she never received discriminatory treatment from her male classmates, and that the treatment was extraordinary at all levels, since they lived with those in more advanced degrees, and she never felt a difference in terms of gender, since they had the same responsibilities and obligations, and at the same time the same privileges, because in order to enter and win surgery, for example, they had to compete with each other.
“The treatment was always respectful and equitable,” says the doctor.
He shares that at that time, when most of them had already graduated, they were hit by the tragic events of the 1985 earthquake and the San Juanico fire, so they faced a great challenge in caring for patients with extended work hours.
He says that in the same hospital where he graduated, he remained as a basic doctor for two years, and then decided to return to Mérida. At first he had a license from the IMSS, but then he joined the O’Horán Hospital as a specialist, where he worked for 26 years. 5 of these as director of the hospital during the government of Víctor Cervera Pacheco.
19 years ago he joined the faculty of the Faculty of Medicine of the Uady, the first nine years giving only one chair, Anatomy, because his work in the hospital required all his time, but 11 years ago, when he retired from the O’ Horán, joined the university full time.
Dr. Hilda Peralta Rosado graduated from the specialty in Adult Clinical Cardiology in 1996 and is a graduate of the Cardiology Hospital of the XXI Century National Medical Center, later, she did a postgraduate degree in Echocardiography.
She shares that since her childhood she was very interested in the heart, and at home her father, who was a medical representative, had books on medicine for all the products he handled, and when he read them, it was the ones referring to the heart that he liked the most. they attracted him, as something innate.
He specifies that before completing the specialty, he did a year of internal medicine, and then entered cardiology, in a generation made up of 17 doctors, five of whom were women.
Remember that in the R3 generation back then, there was only one woman.
She affirms that over the years the interest of women in doing the specialty of Cardiology has grown.
In Yucatan, he estimates that there are regarding 10 women cardiologists, and regarding 50 men.
Regarding the specialty, he points out that one of the things he likes the most is the echocardiography part, a diagnostic support technique, which is not only for the cardiologist, but also for other specialties, so being able to see the heart pumping, determining their status and thereby helping to make decisions regarding treatment, and that as a result the patient gets ahead, is something wonderful for her.
Cardiology also has a complex side, he explains, because when it comes to the heart and there is a serious situation, the heart does not wait and you have to act quickly, and on that act they have to make decisions looking for the best for the patient, so knowing that whether the patient gets ahead or not depends on that decision is really a very strong challenge.— IRIS MARGARITA CEBALLOS ALVARADO
