Since she was the first of her siblings to graduate from high school and had such a marked vocation, her parents decided to make an extra effort to give her access to university life in the capital. “My dad had three jobs and my mom, two. I moved to a pension in a shared room and studied eating rice,” she recalled regarding that shared load that today bears such visible results.
Alejandra graduated in the year 2000, and had already started her family two years earlier. For this reason, she knew how to hybridize her motherhood with a demanding profession almost from the beginning. “On a trip to the south, I fell in love with the valley, with Cipolletti and Neuquén, and I also visited San Martín de los Andes; there I decided that I wanted to come and live here,” he said regarding a decision that was also motivated by the good offer of medical residences of the province.
Perhaps because he knows what it’s like to be on the other side, he always treated each patient as if they were a family member. And although at the beginning he had leaned towards specializing in Medical Clinic, when he began his residency he switched to Intensive Care. “I like the adrenaline that patients in critical condition generate but, above all, apply all my knowledge to give those who are more seriously ill another chance,” she said.
Although she approved access to enter the Castro Rendón Hospital, the priority policy for Neuquén residents left her out of that program, so she opted to train in the private sector. After four years of residence, and faithful to that restless spirit of always looking for another challenge, the doctor herself also became interested in health management. Through postgraduate courses, she trained to learn how to organize teams and coordinate resources in operating rooms, hospitalization rooms, and intensive care units.
“After so many courses, the possibility of working in the Leben group arose for me. Luckily I found a family that believed a lot in me and my ability to work, and entrusted me with the opportunity to direct hospitalization and operating rooms since 2016,” he said. . “I value it because it is not often that large health organizations, and especially at a private level, trust a woman to carry out part of their companies,” she added.
Although health management is a field associated with male professionals, Oliva never felt a difference for being a woman. Thus, she focused on letting her own work define her, rather than her gender. “You are what you are through your actions and the results of it,” she stated. And her commitment to medicine, her ability to work and her undeniable love for her vocation spoke for her to make her one of the women doctors who were honored this year by the province’s Ministry of Health. from Neuquen.
A few days ago, when she received her distinction, Alejandra felt very strange. In her eyes, there are many Neuquén women who deserve that recognition along with her, because they carry out their profession with enthusiasm and commitment while taking care of other equally demanding roles: housework, maternity or the education of their children. children. For this reason, she felt the impulse to share a little of that prize with them and with all those who held her hand in her professional ascent.
Among them, her parents with multiple jobs, her partner who took on household chores when her profession required it, and her two daughters, who suffered as girls every time their mother missed a parents’ meeting or when she saw an empty chair at Christmas. and that today, almost adults, they are proud of Alejandra’s achievements and the privilege of seeing her strength in the front row.
During the recognition, she had the opportunity to meet other women doctors from Neuquén, and she was moved to hear their stories that repeat their resignation from daily life for a vocation that is inevitable for them. “I was lucky to be able to do something that I wanted very much and that I love, I love my job, I love being a doctor, I always felt happy, to be able to work and get paid to do what I like to do,” she said.
Perhaps because his love for health overflowed, he soon spread his taste for the field to his two daughters. The oldest decided to follow in her footsteps and is studying Medicine, while the youngest opted for Psychology. And Alejandra prefers not to give them so much advice: just that they use her passion as a beacon to dedicate themselves to a profession that makes them happy. “As long as they do it with love, they will be happy with what they do,” she said, adding that from a very young age she instilled in them that responsibility and commitment are the tools for daily work to have a successful future.
The woman doctor who planted a seed to perpetuate her legacy in the next generation, she assures that things are changing for women in health, although much remains to be done. For this reason, she considered that the government’s recognition is another necessary action to put women health workers at the center of the scene.
“There are many women who are brilliant and who might be in my place or in other important decision-making positions within health institutions,” he said, adding that these women are the same ones who also face their family and domestic roles, and who deserve be taken into account. “We have to aim to support and stand in solidarity with ourselves; when there are women holding a position, you have to support their place and respect their work in the same way that we do when those positions are held by men,” she added.
With this premise, and in a work context in which the inclusion of women in decision-making spaces has always been promoted, she is already working on passing the legacy on to one of her colleagues, Jorgelina Guyón, whom she considers her other half and deserving of another bit. of that distinction he received. “It is an example of work and commitment rarely seen,” she said.
Alejandra’s bond with medicine is tied to sad moments: the vocation that awoke when medical efforts ran out with one of her brothers seemed to repeat itself many years later. When she already had her diplomas as a medical therapist hanging on the wall, she lost another of her brothers. “The moral is that things sometimes happen to you and sometimes, even if you are the most specialized person, things do happen the same and you have no way to avoid them,” she said.
With years of therapy, he understood two fundamental things. First, understand that no matter how much effort is made with a patient, “this is not always enough, and the only way to cope is to have a calm soul to do everything possible.” And second, reinforcing empathy with the family, accompanying them during the nervousness of intensive care and also when a life shuts down and the pain grows in the waiting room.
“Accompanying the family that suffers for a loved one is also the role of a doctor,” Oliva said regarding the importance of containing and transmitting the information adequately. “One has to speak as a doctor but also as if the person admitted was a relative of ours,” she said, who knows better than anyone what it is like to crave news from a doctor in a waiting room.
Even with those scars on her back, Alejandra’s relationship with medicine also has happy moments, which go beyond promotions, postgraduate degrees and public recognition. Every Christmas, every Doctor’s Day, she receives dozens of messages from patients she may have treated many years ago, but who don’t want to forget the moment she saved their lives. “They visit me at the Imaging Clinic or they yell ‘doctor’ at me on the street,” she said, and a smile transpired in her voice.
With her dizzying pace of work, it is difficult for her to remember the names and faces of all her patients, who sometimes pass her on the street with a different face from the one they had in the intensive care unit. But she does remember almost all cases. “When they tell me what disease they had or what happened to them, I begin to remember everything, and some are patients that I had in the residence,” she clarified.
That affection is the fuel to also think regarding the future, which is why he is enthusiastic regarding the creation of medical residences within Leben Salud, which allows him to exercise his teaching role to transmit all his knowledge to future generations. And while she looks at the horizon of the coming years, her restless spirit remains active, which leads her to take sailing classes and Italian language to take on challenges that do not appear in intensive care but that encourage her to always push forward to keep growing.
