Cristina smiles and thanks with the self-confidence of an Andalusian accent somewhat blurred by the years she has been in Toledo. She often receives many compliments from her patients and knows how to accept them with humility, with the empathy that she feels whenever she has to inform a patient of breast cancer. “There is nothing scarier than being in a dark room, with a door ajar and waiting for a diagnosis.” The radiologist, head of the Breast Unit of the Toledo Hospital Complex, is very clear that these moments are hard and often unexpected because many of them come for a routine mammogram without symptoms.
Cristina does not hide behind reports, or complex and sophisticated devices. For many years she has been determined “to approach radiology in a different way”, to bring it closer to the patient and, above all, she is aware that she and the rest of the radiologists are the first to act, with which she considers essential to take care of that first contact with the patient, transmitting information, but also “serenity and scientific hope” about breast pathology because 90% of these cancers are cured and treatments are increasingly advanced and personalized.
Cristina doesn’t like that feeling of being a doctor in a gown, whether she’s wearing it or not. She is very positive, she has learned over the years that her patients are “great fighters” who face the disease “with courage” and offers them all possible support at a professional level in that beginning of the path to overcome a disease with important incidence, about 270 cases per year in the province of Toledo. His mission ends when he leaves his patients in the hands of other specialists “who work as a team” and will take care of the pathology treatment.
The messages help and sometimes surprise. This is what happened to Cristina when she learned a few days ago that the regional government will recognize her career, her professionalism and her humanity today, International Women’s Day, a distinction that she will share with five other women who stand out in the region, including , Boticaria García, a well-known pharmacist, or Verónica Miguel, a reference in research. It is not the first time that she has received recognition from the administrations of this importance, she also received the title of Honorary Citizen from the Toledo City Council in 2018.
Cristina is very grateful for this gesture and believes that the best way to celebrate it is “enjoying life as much as possible and continuing to work.” And take the opportunity to launch a couple of messages for them, for patients who have pending to come to the unit for a review, for whom the letter has not yet arrived or their appointment has been delayed due to the pandemic. The unit is working at full capacity, even with reinforcement in the afternoons, and appreciates the involvement of the Hospital Complex Management to try to correct as soon as possible the stoppage suffered by health care in the first wave, since all resources were used to the epidemic, except for urgent cases and those that could not be delayed. Romero explains that what happened last spring has not happened again despite the waves and strong hospital pressure and continues with its activity, strictly complying with sanitary measures to avoid infections.
Cristina never forgets her patients and needs to thank their patience and courage at the beginning of the pandemic, when they had to stay home waiting for an operation. So the professionals helped the patients as best they could so that they did not suffer from this uncertain situation. “The women of Castilla-La Mancha and Spain are ten,” he insists without losing his smile.
“They have to be calm because there have been no infections here,” insists Cristina. He believes that at this time we must also remember the importance of gynecological examinations because the pandemic is causing a lot of fear. «If a woman receives the letter to go to the Breast Unit, she has to come and not leave it even if she is healthy or has no symptoms. Of course, so must “women who notice something on their chest.”
The Breast Unit is a veteran of the hospital. It has been underway for 20 years and it has been 10 years since the screening program was incorporated, “with very good results, a very significant reduction in mortality and a reduction in the waiting list,” explains the radiologist in charge of a well-known service, professionally valued and pioneering thanks to an experimental initiative to carry out radiation-free diagnostics. It is an experimental program through a sophisticated device called ‘mammowave’ that only five hospitals in Europe are testing.
For now, it is early to evaluate results because it was launched in October, but the doctor sees it as very positive and with many possibilities, although there is still a way to go for this cutting-edge tool to be commercialized.
treatments. Whenever possible, Dr. Romero asks that research be strengthened with the aim of improving treatments, deepening immunotherapy and achieving more personalized therapies. “With the Covid I have gotten the positive reading that the scale of values in general has changed,” he says. “The salary issue is not balanced, the announcement of millionaire contracts for athletes and people who are saving lives collect a thousand euros and with six-month contracts.” However, since the pandemic broke out, the importance that has been given to research to stop the virus and obtain a vaccine has been observed thanks to the funds of many countries.
She would like there to be more continuity in the investigation of breast cancer, a pathology that still holds secrets, requires a multidisciplinary approach and a more variety of treatments that make the disease chronic in the most serious or complex cases.
Cristina puts her gown back on to care for and hug her patients, although with Covid, that last gesture is imaginary.
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