By Natalia Herrera Marín
Natalia Herrera Marin
During my first week in Montreal, I was pleased to be at the Brenda Milner Centennial Symposium for cognitive neuroscience. It was amazing to see some of her students and listen to her. She has been teaching the core of mysteries of the brain and the exploration of senses, and every experience that I had there reminded me what she said all the time: “We are what we remember.”
I attended two specialized clinics by the movement disorders department and the epilepsy department. I also met nice doctors like Anne-Louise Lafontaine, Martin Veilleux, Eliane Kobayashi, and others from the movement disorder team, and fellows like Sophie Maltais, Sondos Al-Hindi, and Ali Naemi. I met the epilepsy staff and attended academic meetings with them.
Herrera Marin with colleagues at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital.
The meeting “Parkinson’s Disease: Our Common Fight” was held Sept. 18, 2018. They wanted to teach patients about motor and non-motor symptoms — how to face them, the necessary care, how to come back to the real world to work, sing, dance, etc. I was touched by a patient singing with a pianist; they showed that everything is possible with dreams and perseverance.
With this experience, I had the opportunity to interact with colleagues from different countries and see how they approach patients, no matter the culture, the religion, the language, or the technology that the country has. I learned that the most important thing is to listen to the patient, step by step. It is just to use the senses and to simplify the medicine that we explain to patients.
I would like to express my gratitude to Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital for welcoming me with their arms wide open. Every person was important for my learning.
Thanks to the World Federation of Neurology and the Canadian Neurological Society for choosing me and supporting me. •
