Home » News » The Argentine who lives between wars, epidemics and catastrophes: “I am the doctor of the most forgotten people in the world”

The Argentine who lives between wars, epidemics and catastrophes: “I am the doctor of the most forgotten people in the world”

“My dream was to be the doctor of the most forgotten people in the world. And I am fulfilling it. ” Andrés Carot He doesn’t hide his emotion when he throws the phrase that defines it.

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The road that travels today from country to country, assisting people who need everything to survive, began much earlier. It was when in 2003 he received his medical degree from the National University of Córdoba, when five years later he finished his residency in general surgery and when for the first time he began collaborating in an NGO that dealt with children in street situations. “There I realized that helping vulnerable populations was what motivated me and excited me the most”, remember.

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While studying Medicine, he learned about the existence of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), an organization of medical-humanitarian action that assists people threatened by armed conflict, violence, epidemics or diseases, natural disasters and excluded from medical care. Andrés contacted them, passed a selection and training process and joined the NGO with the firm purpose of saving lives.

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MSF has more than 43,000 people in the world in more than 150 countries, is an organization non profit and achieves its financial independence thanks to the 6 million members They hold her.

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Andrés Carot has lived for ten years as a nomad jumping from one continent to another: “I work approximately six months a year on each mission,” he says. The tragedies of the world have already taken him to Haiti, Venezuela, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Cameroon, India, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Iraq.

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—What was your first destination with Doctors Without Borders?

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-Nigeria. It was an epidemic of meningitis. Although I am a surgeon, at that time Nigeria was suffering from a tremendous epidemic and many human resources were needed, so I had to study some meningitis guides and left. What I had to do was go through medical centers, large and rural hospitals, community centers, to see how many cases of meningitis there were. And at the same time, in places where there were no doctors, give basic courses on how to make the diagnosis of meningitis, what medications to prescribe and give support to people.

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“What do you like most about this job?”

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—In this work one transcends. The country becomes the world, it is no longer the country. I am equally affected by a crisis in Argentina than a crisis in South Sudan. On a human level it hits me the same. It is a job that, on the one hand, is extremely rewarding. I worked in several places with armed conflicts … And despite the distances, we all love in the same way, we all want peace, we all need food, we all need a roof and we all need medical assistance. So, that’s where I live the link in the field. Therefore, beyond language barriers, it is not difficult for me to communicate with people. Back to the room of severe malnutrition and you have little children who are very bad and with very apathetic faces, but hey, one enters and smiles and plays games. And to those who are more animated you make them draw … Those little acts raise a lot of people, parents, children and one too.

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– What is it like to come back after seeing so much pain?

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– In the first missions it is difficult when one returns to his house. Because you come from a war and your best friend’s main problem is that he can’t change the car. So it’s like it makes you very angry, you can’t believe that the other worries about such banal things. But well, as you go this way – and your life too – you realize that if your best friend did not live what I lived I can not make him aware of that. In Doctors Without Borders there is a mental health group for us, that we have talks when we return, to also manage frustration. When you are attending these populations where there is a lot of need and you leave, you know that these people will continue there … You return to your place, to live a better life, and feel like a kind of guilt.

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“You don’t like the term helping …”

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“I don’t like to use the word help because it’s like one gives and doesn’t receive.” I am going to collaborate. To work with another. I’m going to do my job, be a surgeon in other populations. I live it without pity, my patients don’t pity me. Yes, obviously, it makes me angry that they suffer such tremendous things that I never had to suffer. In Doctors Without Borders we do what we call “humanitarian action”. That within international aid it would become like a more emergent organization, we take care of emergencies. We do not take care of structural problems, or countries, but we help a specific population. We give a hand to try to get that population out of that moment of crisis.

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“What was the hardest thing you had to live?”

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– The most difficult may have been the first mission because of ignorance. Imagine that I went with my backpack to save the world and that’s not life. My first time was in Africa … I came to a country to work in a very large team, as one works in Doctors Without Borders, with many very different profiles. Work in a different language … Then you find your limits at every step. It’s like you think you have it clear and then you realize that it is not. So there you have to lower your head, you have to learn to ask, you have to let yourself help. And that was the most complicated at first. Later, to know some situations of life of the patients … But personally I think that the most fucked up for me was my first mission.

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“What did you learn in these experiences?”

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—I learned to be grateful to life, mainly. Actually, I appreciate the luck I had. I believe that by doing this work one realizes the luck he has. In my particular case I was very lucky to be born in a family that could contain me, that could give me a lot of love, that could send me to university to study. And that there are many people who may have personally put many more batteries than me, but they do not have those conditions, they live in a displaced persons camp, living a totally unworthy life. That’s why I just have to thank you. And collaborate.

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