Inner View by Dra. Aridia Vásquez, MD, MS
This past March, I invited a young therapist who came back to our country to join me in one of my medical consultations and who was just beginning the professional path of working with Eating Disorders.
The patient, a teenager extremely tired from a long journey but we were already very close to the goal.
I did what I always do, first I rub my hands until they are warm enough before touching my patients to make sure they are not cold so that my contact does not hurt only on the skin in the physical examination.
We spoke with the firmness of knowing that there were things to do to move to another stage. I was happy for her hair that no longer falls out and we celebrate it, that her menstrual period was finally on its way, she already looks me in the eyes…. We both celebrate it too.
At the end of the consultation the young therapist asks me: Dr,Vasquez is this normal from the medical and nutritional side? I really had no idea what she was saying to me, she continues:
Why are you so close? I lived here, something that I don’t understand. There’s love.
I told her that it was not always like this, the illness of my patient in the beginning did not allow me to do what she saw today, however, with patience and faith the day arrives where at last we can clearly pass our life purposes to others.
I always chose to be a doctor.
Although it seems like an obvious option. My parents are both.
My mother is an Obstetrician Gynecologist and my father is an Ophthalmologist, that was a lot of what I saw through them, the gift of service, I never saw them complain regardless of the time to see their patients.
Back in the 80’s my parents owned a pharmacy.
I was 5 years old when I helped in the pharmacy and I kept asking everyone who was going to buy a medicine as if it were a clinical interview:
Why does it hurt?
Does it hurt a lot?
Long time ago?
Most of all, I remember the feeling of wanting to move the world so that it wouldn’t hurt anymore.
So I always chose to be a healer.
I studied Medicine and very quickly I specialized in Nutrition.
My maternal grandmother at the same time passed away when after 22 days of intensive care her organs began to collapse at the young age of 65 with a history of Binge Eating Disorder.
My brain did not understand, but our life purpose makes its way without asking permission.
I began to see more and more people in my daily practice with pain and anguish and I wondered if there is a way where I can be more useful. I specialized in Eating Disorders when in my country Dominican Republic it was a subject behind closed doors and full of shadows.
Passion and compassion is my work motto.
Passion to work hard every day giving everything sometimes in the midst of impotence as a professional and as human being to see at all costs a patient with an Eating Disorder heals.
Compassion so that the ego does not deceive us into believing that from our position we are untouchable.
I’m Dr. Aridia Vasquez, Specialist in Nutrition
Eating Disorders Specialist
Body Image Healer
And my life purpose is to heal.
