In front of the XIA Argentine Congress of Diabetes

Abstract

As is often the case in all families as part of our growth as individuals, I once had a serious discussion with my parents regarding the specialty I had decided to choose. It was the end of the battered decade of the 1970s and, with the title fresh, still crisp under my arm, I let them know that it was my intention to dedicate myself to the care of patients with diabetes, and to make this disease my field of research. Guided obviously by feelings (both were first parents and then health professionals), they told me, with an extremely worried face: "How are you going to specialize in just one disease? Diabetes you are going to lose your job! " As we all know, unfortunately this fear is far from being a reality today and, worse still, diabetes mellitus is currently a source of concern and suffering for one in ten adults in our country, and a nightmare for health systems for the difficulties and costs inherent in caring for the nearly 400 million individuals who suffer from it worldwide, and for the efforts necessary to prevent a similar number of at-risk subjects from developing it in the not too distant future.