If he walked into this room today, he might not believe that this was ever his place.
New windows, which no longer shake with the wind, armchairs piled up, covered with strong, opaque plastic, lots of dust and a new window in the corner wall, now with a view of his favourite stadium, Sporting. The old doorbell remains on the floor, with a button at the foot of the table, which was used to call the secretary into the room. The old sofas in pink tones that have always been known for inhabiting that large space are already piled up in the hallway.
I met Luísa, his assistant for many years, after looking for the best solution to get to his room, now handed over to the Hospital for total works.
Lost on the 8th floor, I challenged the Hospital's Board of Directors' Communication advisor to get me to the said work that would prevent me from seeing it for the last time, next to the usual window where the swallows were always the first theme of our conversations. Between Pedro and I there was a healthy dispute of haggling over whether the work was under the management of the Hospital or the Faculty. The two entities have always cohabited like this, side by side, so often fused into one space. The proximity of spaces is what motivates us both.
In the turbulent passage of an ordinary morning inside a giant hospital, we pass by Neurosurgeon José Miguens, João Lobo Antunes' successor in Neurosurgery. Affable and helpful, he liked the idea of going to peek at the works on the 6th floor of Neurology and immediately warned, “the Professor is on his way out”, while we were talking softly, as the office where he was temporarily was right next to us.
We went down with Luísa to see the works. His living room, the common atrium and the old wooden corridor that always creaked in broad daylight. The old clock is still there. “What about the wooden chairs, and the photograph with the clinical team of father Lobo Antunes?”, I asked Luísa, between the sadness of the memories and the expectation of seeing what will come from there.
I photographed the room where he always welcomed me, with the promise that I would not surprise the Professor. Not without validating it with him first.
In this month that has just ended, one of the most remarkable academic and hospital journeys in history has also ended. Professor of Neurology and Director of the same area of Santa Maria, José Ferro, said goodbye to the place he entered in 1972 to practice his specialty.
On the 7th floor of the Hospital, in the classroom where so many cases are debated, José Ferro said goodbye to his clinical teams through a symbolic presentation, condensing the last 40 years between a before and after. From the paradigm shift of drugs, to the scarcity of medical tests and its current innovation. If the Hospital has undergone few structural changes in these many years, its city has gone from various illegal constructions to large, showy condominiums. At the time of the patient's status, in 1968, and of the most evident clinical victories, today the greatest contrast of all is that of the interaction between doctor and patient, which is no longer face to face, but done in a computer that mediates time and the clinical history. “However, empathy and compassion are the same,” he said as he showed slides containing brief sentences summarizing everything that has happened in his life.
The same man who wanted to be a Chemical Engineer and later a Psychiatrist ended up, already at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon, dedicating himself to research in Anatomy. As a junior assistant, he learned to skilfully dissect carotids, something he would return to later, but this time associated with strokes.
In November 1972, José Ferro decided to knock on the door of António Damásio's Laboratory and go to work. This relationship allowed him to help with the work of the theses by Damásio and Castro Caldas. It would be precisely on the correlations of Computed Tomography with Behavioural Neurology that he would write his own thesis.
He did the internship in Santa Maria and then moved to Alentejo, being responsible for school health in Arraiolos, where he did medical service in the periphery.
Having returned from Alentejo, he went back to do the Neurology internship in Santa Maria.
He stayed at the Faculty of Medicine where he was hired as an Assistant and for a while he worked in the area of Behavioural Neurology.
Over time, he devoted himself to Cerebral Vascular Disease, at a time when the country had little or nothing on the subject. Well known in the European and worldwide cerebrovascular milieu, he focused a lot on diseases of the brain's veins. Another focus of his research in recent years has been the neuropsychiatric consequences of strokes.
A man of strong convictions and sharp thinking, he became involved in politics. He was academic director, student representative on the Board of Directors, in the last years of the medical degree, and was also involved in the Board of the Student Association.
Much less interventional and more easily overcome by affections, the Professor received a strong applause from many who admire him intellectually. The declarations of friendship did not go unnoticed, however, in a man who always defended that he was essentially ruled by reason.
A signed Sporting ball and a frame with the whole team together would be just two more manifestations of anticipated nostalgia.
He left his building on 21 October, exactly one day before his 70th birthday.
He left without visible commotion. Some of the people closest to him commented in the now empty room, "I thought he was going to get emotional, but he held up very well and without breaking down." In public, he spoke with some humour and ended his last clinical class saying, “That's it, it's over”. But what he didn't say is that he was discreetly breaking down as he saw every patient for the last time and said goodbye, at the last clinical meeting where he delegated tasks. He didn't say that he became less rigid because life had taught him to soften his heart, and that did not mean being weak.
He left without saying goodbye to his office, where we had our mini talks about the Faculty, the Hospital and the life and flight of birds. He left without a last coffee and to call me to attention, “put your mask back on, you drank your coffee a long time ago”.
But before he left, he left a legacy, which will continue to honour his principles, commitments and ethics.
The clinician said goodbye to us. The Professor will say his farewell to the academy on 14 December at the Great Auditorium Lobo Antunes.
And that's it Professor, that's it. Because the rest, if you allow me, I was breaking slowly and without anyone noticing.
Thanks!
Joana Sousa
Editorial Team