Juan Carlos Barodi: “Argentina’s prognosis is dire unless a miracle happens”

Argentina’s top surgeon just days after receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Conex Awards Juan Carlos Barodi This Friday he admitted that he was inspired by this recognition and gave his view on the current situation that Argentina is going through, which – he assures – worries him.

It was in an interview with Nelson Castro Radio Rivadavia, The doctor and inventor of the endoprosthesis approved of his decision to live in Buenos Aires, although he admitted that he understood young people who choose to leave. In this sense, he said he had little hope for the future: “I’m so worried”He is reported to have an extensive international career and has traveled to many countries around the world to practice his profession and teach at prestigious universities.

Known for, among other great achievements In 1982 he saved the lives of Pope Francis and former President Carlos MenemOn October 14, 1993, he said that he still had “a little hope for the recovery of the country” and that his dream was to return to where he had been when he was a boy. In his honor, he described Argentina “Serious, supportive and with good potential for everyone.”

-How did you feel when you received the award at Conex?

-When it was so hard for me to impose things from my country, it was incredible. It was really exciting. I made many advances, but the most significant was the treatment of aneurysms, which revolutionized the world’s aneurysm surgery today, which is the sixth leading cause of death today. It had a big impact: in April the president of the American College called me and said, ‘Young Carlos, a million-dollar case has been made in the world.’ What you think is ‘Gee, I helped people’. Because it reduced mortality to practically 0. It is a great satisfaction.

-With all your success around the world, why did you stay in Argentina, Professor Barodi?

-I was a full professor at the University of Washington, one of the top three medical schools in America. They treated me and paid me well, but the ray sensor told me I was getting too much. It said the radiation could cause cancer and the signal range on my device was dangerous. I had to convince myself that the projection with radiation was over for me because each procedure lasted half an hour while I was exposed to the rays. I had to stop there, but I already had so many disciples that the effect wouldn’t really matter, and they all acted like me.

Not only in St. Louis, but practically in every state of the United States, in all the countries of Europe, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay. The person who called me from Japan a month ago was very interesting. He was the president of an Asian surgical congress where he was my disciple. One day, while visiting Japan, he approached me and told me that he wanted to become one. As he spoke good English, I sent him to New York, and in a few years he was truly a brilliant man. But despite everything, he told me that at age 8 he missed his culture and returned to Tokyo. And one day he invited me to go to Tokyo with my wife and made me an honorary doctor at Tokyo University.

How do you experience this particular moment in Argentina, without neuroprostheses?

– I am very worried because by chance I was in Rome a few months ago and they invited me to dinner with the head of RAI. And he tells me: “Argentina’s history is very simple, before and after we send them a Duchenne scholarship recipient. You were first in GDP per capita in 1895, ahead of Canada and Australia, but in 1946, with the arrival of the Duchene scholar, you suddenly fell from 4th place overall to Africa. The production curve.”

Unfortunately Argentina had two of those periods and I believe we are in the second. I don’t know if we’re going out. It really saddens me because there are so many educated, good, hardworking people out there. But, on the other hand, they have done a lot of harm: they have created a lot of poverty, which makes me very depressed because I have done studies on the population growth of the poor and the prognosis is not good. Crime and drug addiction are on the rise and education levels are falling. 68% of the children are poor, malnourished, poorly educated and addicted to paco from the age of 10, which causes brain necrosis. IQ drops, and it’s dangerous to go out in Conurbano, Rosario. And it does not improve, rather, The prognosis – barring a miracle – is dire.

– Young medical students looking to leave the country to complete their degree, what do you think?

– The thing is Life prognosis is really very poor. Residents earn less than a prisoner, they earn more than the minimum pension, and that’s what I have. What is happening is disaster. I have some hope, maybe too littleBut I hope we were saved from what happened to us in recent years.

I was reading that you shouldn’t vote blank because Chavez was up because he won the blank ballot. He came out second, but as they (others) were empty, he came out first. And they’ve been there for 40 years, the poorest country in the world despite being the richest in oil. Lack of freedom, abuses, torture and everything we know about Venezuela. Not to mention Cuba. We don’t like it, but it just happens to us.

In whose hands are we going to leave Argentina when 68% are poor children? It has a projective value that creates anxiety

-They are our future elders, this is what our society will look like. With most of our society already impoverished and poorly educated, the trials of education can be devastating.

–This degeneracy implies neglect of merit. Because meritocracy, regardless of the individual, is predicated on society.

– I was young and it took me a long time to do what I did and it cost me effort. That’s what I always say. There is a book called “Out Lawyers” which says that to be successful you need to have an IQ, not too high, 120 is good enough, and you need to have emotional intelligence, but above all persistence. Law of 1000 days: if one does not persevere… this happened to me in everything, I didn’t have sponsors, I did it alone, I paid for the research myself, and in the end I succeeded in many things. did

– I know you can live comfortably like a king anywhere in the world, you live in Argentina

– Yes it is true.

-He served many people in power and never took advantage of it, that’s why he charges minimum. What is your dream?

– Yes, I collect the minimum pension. When I was a child it was my dream to visit a country. Because I love my country. My country is my home, where my family is, my relatives. My dream would be to see something I have already seen, namely a prosperous, supportive Argentina, with good opportunities for all. Because when it comes to social assistance, I think it’s important to provide opportunities for everyone. Because the injustice I saw when I worked in the fields was those poor children who had no opportunities. It is unfair. They hugged my leg and didn’t let go for lack of affection. If I had been born in their place, I would definitely have been socially awkward, hateful, uneducated, with no toughness in anything, and I feel sad because it’s so unfair not to give children a chance. They were brought because they didn’t choose to come, so one is responsible for what one chooses, and if one doesn’t choose it, I think it’s the responsibility of all of us.

That’s why I wanted to create a piece of legislation, which was eventually vetoed, called Responsible Breeding. I found that reproduction in Argentina was disproportionate: 4.7 boys per couple in the non-potential versus 1.9 in the general population. If one predicts that they first start having children in adolescence and then have more children, the population will double within two generations. It means that this is what our future as adults will look like.

In 2018 I did research on Pozo de la Cava and Merlot, and a few months ago I revisited those families and everything I predicted came true. As Tévez said, he is a man who inspires admiration in me because he came from such a lowly position. When they asked him about his childhood friends in Fuerte Apache, he said two things happened: They were dead or in prison. In 2018 I had a cadastre of villas and saw what happened to those families. Paco smokers now take cocaine, steal cell phones and ride motorcycles. And we had already predicted that the criminals were going to get out of there. Another study of teenage mothers found that 50% of children were delinquents.

Juan Carlos Barodi is known for saving the life of Pope Francis in 1982. During that year, the doctor was called by a cardiologist he knew to treat a sick priest, to whom many of his colleagues refused to attend. . He meets him in a clinic in the Parque Centenario and saves him: it’s Bergoglio.

In a conversation with Myrtle Legrand many years ago he told a story: “I have a very sick priest, and your colleagues have missed the point a little.”, said his friend, cardiologist Jose Diorio, when he asked Barodi for help. As he recalls, he “saw a priest with sunken eyes, dehydrated, in pain.”

On examining him, Barodi realized that the priest had herniated gall bladder and peritonitis. “He’s going to die”, he promised. The next day he intervened on Bergoglio, then an anonymous priest, who was walking again a week later.

“I can’t pay you”, he recalled today’s Pope Francis telling him after the surgery went well. “I didn’t come for the money, I came for the book,” Barodi replied History of Ignatius of LoyolaA copy signed by a priest he did not know who invited him to the Vatican in 2014 failed to pay him that time either.

On April 9, 2014, Barodi was at a congress in London and had a private audience with the Holy Father. It was on that occasion that Francisco himself reminded him of the night he, as Bergoglio, had saved his life.