Alejandro Fernández Alpízar: We keep learning and improving in front of COVID-19

For Dr. Alejandro Fernández Alpízar, who is now offering his services at an isolation center in the province of Ciego de Avila, he will remember COVID-19 for the rest of his life because it has changed the end to his student days and the beginning of his professional ones.

Still fresh in his memory are his last months in the university, spent almost completely inside the hospital where he was making his first incursion into pediatrics right when the first outbreak of the epidemic hit the province and fear of totally unknown virus was rampant.

He started to work at the School of Medical Sciences, turned into an isolation center for suspected COVID-19 cases. He admits that there he felt a certain nostalgia for the happy days he shared with his classmates, but was also willing to do his best with determination and commitment to make up for his lack of experience.

“It is important to do psychological work with the patient since day one, because not everyone reacts the same way to the fact of being infected,” he said. “You have to be tactful when talking to them.”

Alejandro recalls a woman who was about to be dismissed. She was so stressed that she started feeling chest pains and they had to call an ambulances. Others fall into a state of denial and claim that the test was wrong, so as not to admit that they were positive to the virus, he remarks. In his short career, he has come up with his own strategies to ensure that the stay of those admitted goes as smoothly as possible.

Born to a family with close links to medical science, Alejandro holds to be grateful to his parents for letting him choose what to study and for supporting him in his decision to be on the front line in the fight against the coronavirus.

In strict compliance with the protocols designed for asymptomatic contacts of positive cases, Alejandro does not hesitate to assume the tasks demanded by the moment, away from his parents and his girlfriend, who works at an intensive care unit in another hospital also dedicated to the care of COVID-19 patients.

This doctor is ready to face the unforeseen, always with a smile for his patients because, he stressed, he tries to put himself in their place, aware that the pandemic spares no one.

Although he dreams of becoming a surgeon, he is now beginning his training in the specialty of General Integrated Medicine, convinced that what he needs to do right now is "to keep learning and improving in front of COVID-19".