1678107544 A girl from Ojo de Agua in Cabacu became a

A girl from Ojo de Agua in Cabacú became a scientist

More than 10 kilometers from the city of Baracoa is the settlement of Ojo de Agua, in Cabacú, province of Guantánamo, where was born the doctor of medical sciences Damaris Fuentes Pelier, first and second degree specialist in ophthalmology, neuro-ophthalmologist, working at the Doctor works Juan Bruno Zayas Clinical Surgical Hospital in Santiago de Cuba.

I recently met her at a colloquium organized by the Federation of Cuban Women on the challenges and realities of women in 2000.

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This young and enduring lady of peasant origin presented the audience with her challenges, which were many, from her peasant origins to a large family, the adventures of crossing a river and going to school, her forays into sewing to meet her mother support, and also, like, along with his brothers, they worked with their father herding goats, drying cocoa and picking coffee.

She came to medical science through vocation, perseverance and opportunity, later connected another important career as a mother, culminating in two children, and faced other challenges in this area of ​​life.

Doctor Damaris Fuentes shows in her long service sheet that she is a full professor who received awards from the CITMA delegates in the same year from the Cuban Academy of Sciences, awarded for the first time in this institution in the province of Santiago de will be Cuba, Annual Health Prize 2021 and 2022 and Relevant Science and Technology Forum Prize in the Health Sector from 2020 to present.

dr Damaris would have many anecdotes to share about her professional experiences, but Commander Fidel Castro’s visit to Santiago de Cuba in the 1990s, in the midst of special times and after completing her national training as a neuro-ophthalmologist, put an asterisk in her work.

She says that she was traveling with the leader of the revolution in the Juan Bruno Zayas and the commander was interested in the evolution of patients who had visual and neuro-ophthalmological disorders, as the number increased each time, in the face of a practically new disease in their then Specialization, this motivated her to conduct research in Santiago de Cuba with major health implications related to the epidemiological and clinical evolution of patients with Cuban epidemic of optic neuropathy.

Out of curiosity, I wanted to ask him what is left of the girl from Cabacú before the scientist.

My roots remain, my parents’ efforts, the customs, I like the coconut nougat, the schnitzels that my mother and my aunt Rosa made, the dolls that my sister and I had from a plant called the pinuela, whenever I felt like it Returning to Origins I came to Aguadilla, a place where my school was, and I remember when a cyclone ripped off the roof and we were left outdoors. I look at the new school with pride, I remember my neighbors, the honey river, where we used to go to wash under the bridge.

The scientist has completed three missions to Mozambique, Algeria and China, where she learned about the customs of these countries and was able to assess the advances in Cuban medicine. She has also participated in various international conferences in Colombia, Mexico and Hong Kong, where she has presented papers that have enabled her professional growth, and she believes that I am still the girl of Ojo de Agua in Cabacú, but now off of science, and thanks the revolution for all the ways to make it happen.