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About one year after the pandemic began, there are those who think that there is still much work to be done to raise awareness in society of the work that doctors do. From any branch. Also of the sacrifices they make to put their dedication at the service of others. Among them, Enrique Moreno (81 years old), known as the famous doctor and who has embarked on the adventure of writing a book that he has named after his profession: The surgeon (The sphere of books).
He was the one who coordinated the liver transplant to Raphael (77) in 2003. Also in whose hands he put Cayetano Martínez de Irujo (57) after several intestinal interventions to stop these problems. Prince of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research in 1999 and an academic of the Royal National Academy of Medicine of Spain since 1995, has decided to show the world his long professional experience through a story, in a fictional tone, whose purpose is that the sacrifices made by their professional colleagues in the service of the citizenry (by pure vocation) are valued.
Enrique Moreno’s book cover.
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JALEOS He has talked by phone with the doctor about this work, but also about the relationship he maintains with those characters who, in the words of the protagonists, have saved their lives. He also reflects on those moments in which he has become the headline, precisely because he had known faces in his hands, and not because of the interventions themselves, which have been his day to day for more than half a century.
What led you to write this book?
On the one hand, the need to express in a hospital everything that happens in medicine. What one has lived without being any biography. And, on the other hand, seeing in the audiovisual media that the reality of what happens in the operating rooms is not reflected, the harshness of the surgery, the vicissitudes that it has, the illusion to cure … That makes one think that, perhaps, these audiovisual media, excellent on the other hand, are not advised by doctors in general or researchers.
Why did you decide to give it that touch of fiction instead of perhaps doing it, by way of an autobiography?
As a reader, I prefer something that has an interesting plot and invites you to continue reading, and the lives of doctors are not always interesting, because they have their normal life, with their family.
The work has 600 pages written in the old way: by hand.
The thing is that I always write by hand, even if it is later transcribed to a computer. Also scientific works. Personally, the computer seems like an extraordinary invention, but the screen is very distracting. I prefer that the mind is centered on a small table, with a light in front of it. That there is nothing that separates me from the plot. I think the author has to get inside the plot, between the characters.
It is still necessary, after what we have been living for a year, continue to remind people how important medical service is.
Undoubtedly. Important people, who are not only doctors and nurses, but also the sick themselves, have to be constantly remembered. Inside the hospital, many times, one of the nurses is forgotten, and his role is very important. You look for the surgeon or the internist, but you forget the researcher, laboratory experts, anatomists, physiologists … They all have an essential role and that is why they are within this novel. One realizes that, at times, one is giving oneself to the sick and one should also give oneself to the society that suffers and that has no possibilities of development.
What has been the most difficult moment of your career?
Dr. Moreno performing one of his interventions.
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Especially organ transplantation. And very especially surgery and treatment of tumors and advanced cancer in general. More than difficult, I have been absorbed for a long time by the subject of reoperations on patients who come to us undergoing surgery two, three, four times and that we have to go back and find the work and tear down walls, find the foundations and start in a different way .
And the most rewarding?
Any of the postoperative patients.
He has been introduced as ‘the surgeon of the famous’. How does one abstract, for example, that the person on the operating table is Raphael?
With absolute simplicity. I always say that, when entering the operating room, the lights are illuminating the patient and the team that will perform the surgery. When the patient is placed on the table, the lights illuminate him. And when the intervention begins, the lights only illuminate the disease. Therefore, we find ourselves with a disease. If we think that we are operating on a prime minister, a financier or a great artist, such as Raphael, we are lost. You have to do what you have to do, but with enough humility that a surgeon must have to know that it can go well or badly, but that we will do everything possible to make it the first. It is said: “The surgeon of the famous.” Is that the so-called famous or people with a great media influence, they get sick like a man who is there on the corner or the poor man who does not have any kind of heritage. Although it is more important in the media, for you, for the media.
Enrique Moreno surrounded by the press in an image from 2011.
Gtres.
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How have you handled your relationship with the press after intervening with these people, as you say, with media influence?
I want to remember an anecdote that the family of José María Ruiz-Mateos allows me to tell. As I got out of the elevator, without a robe and already wearing my coat, I met an excellent journalist who suddenly looked at me and asked: “Are you Dr. Moreno, who has operated on Ruiz-Mateos?” I answered no and asked him what he needed. He told me that he was coming to do an interview with him and, automatically, I turned around and said: “It’s that man who is entering the elevator.” The journalist, I suppose he has forgiven me. We treated the same when Raphael had surgery. The media were told, because they are important. It was convened and it was said under what conditions had been operated and what had happened. It was warned that all the information would be given, but they were asked not to walk through the corridors looking for a photograph in intensive care. They understood that we were all on the same team. Journalism is very important, the same to bring to society the consequences of the pandemic, the results of a vaccine
You were one of those in charge of accompanying Cayetano Martínez de Irujo in the presentation of his book. Hasn’t he asked her to return the honor? Where does your relationship with him come from?
What happens is that, now, with the mask, we were not going to be recognized. Well, Don Cayetano, who is so attractive and friendly, would be known perfectly, but not me. When he presented his book, De Cayetano a Cayetana, he asked me and I was delighted.
Both of them have confessed on more than one occasion that they owe their lives to him.
I believe that nobody owes us their lives. We are pieces that act within a team. So you could say that they owe their lives to the anesthetist, the immunologist … I always tell that, once, I had to catch a plane in San Francisco because otherwise the connections would have caused me a disaster, and I got into a taxi and him I told the taxi driver that I was paying the fine, but that I had to get to the airport. I will never forget it and, since then, I have said that the taxi driver is the most important figure in the world. Our level within society is not higher or lower than that of others, it is one of responsibility.
The doctor accompanying the count of Salvatierra during the presentation of his book.
Gtres.
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Is it understood that you have a friendship relationship with both Raphael and Cayetano?
Definitely. And no admiration. I have never had time in my life to go to the theater or to a show by an artist that I admired. On the other hand, sometime he has invited my wife and me, Raphael, to one of his concerts and I have been delighted. And somewhat ashamed, because the one who sits next to me is younger than me and can afford to dance to the rhythm of the music. And Cayetano is a charming man. He is a wonderful person, cultured and, on the other hand, very simple. If I left the hospital next to one of them, who do not leave at all because I do not have to accompany the sick, no one would look at me. They would ask Raphael for the signatures. And with Cayetano, I would be in tenth term. I would do the same in the place of those people.
Are you planning, in the short term, to store the scalpel?
The truth is that, at the moment, no. I hold up. I am very well and I remember a charming, humble and extraordinary person, who was Don Antonio Garrigues and Díaz-Cañabate. I operated on him for an inguinal hernia that had reappeared, and he passed away at 101, with a perfect head. I operated on him on a Friday and when I arrived on Saturday morning to visit him, he was gone. I asked the nurse and she replied that she had gone to the cafeteria. Sure enough, there he was having breakfast. I told him that it was the first time that a recently operated person had forced me to visit the cafeteria. Instead of laughing, he shrugged, apologized, and said, “The nurses have brought me breakfast in bed and I have never had breakfast in bed.”
What you have to do is write an experience book with famous people.
Well, if you think that people would read it, help me develop that idea and I am delighted to do so. We do the business.
[Más información: Cayetano Martínez de Irujo recibe el alta hospitalaria tras su operación intestinal]
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