I am fond of dealing with girls, teenagers, young women with all life ahead, more mature ones with interesting self awareness and old women with the wisdom of past experiences and the will to keep moving on with their lives. I welcome them with the curiosity of a traveler wishing to know all the hidden and evident aspects of the new destination.
To take women by the hand, leading them firmly and safely onward from the first steps of the adventure of their pregnancies; ever watchful to spot the pregnancies that turn complicated, but without alarming the mothers-to-be unnecessarily
The humility of the care giver. I think that it is a fundamental trait of the good physician. Humility toward the patient and toward her knowledge of herself. Humility which allows a true and deep listening of the patient’s ideas, fears and interpretation of her symptoms. Humility that leads to the awareness that it is not possible to know and remember everything and, as a consequence, it not possible to categorize all the symptoms in a simple way, with the aim of reassuring the physician more than the patient.
We need to accept that the correct diagnosis can be hidden and not clear, needing time and attempts and we need to explain it clearly to the patients, accepting their possible frustration about it.
I chose med school because I wanted to become a neuropsychiatrist for children. I wanted to deal with children closing up in themselves, trying to find a way to get in the exclusive universe where they locked themselves. I accepted to go through the study of the human body, although I thought of it as a tedious obstacle between my dream and me. I unexpectedly fell in love with the anatomy and physiology of our body, and every single chapter of human pathology meant like a full text of philosophy. I now like getting to know people, bearing clearly in my mind that the body and the soul, the mind, the heart (as anyone wants to call it) are a unique and sometimes the body falls sick in order to express feelings, emotions, problems we are not aware of.