A physician and the pride of the Lázaro Peña Order.

When they placed the medal on his chest, he thought of the greatness of Lázaro Peña, of the Captain of the Working Class, of the union leader.

At 59 years of age, Dr. Arístides Lázaro García Herrera, Doctor in Medical Sciences, has just received the First Degree Lázaro Peña Order, thus completing a cycle of honoring his exemplary performance, a path of decorations that began with the Third Degree and then the Second Degree.

At every moment the emotion has been equally intense. It is a great honor to receive a merit of such magnitude.

When they placed the medal on his chest, he thought of the greatness of Lázaro Peña, of the Captain of the Working Class, of the union leader.

It is an enormous commitment with the country, the work, my colleagues… , and in his mind, the family, his parents, who educated me and sowed in me the necessary values to reach achievements like these; and in my wife, my children. Without them any triumph would be impossible, confesses the second degree specialist in Angiology and Vascular Surgery.

Happiness like this is always received before May Day. April is the month for the awarding of honorary degrees and decorations, one of the most important moments before the celebrations for International Workers’ Day.

Although none of them had the same hierarchy as the doctor’s, a total of 11 Lázaro Peña orders were awarded in the beautiful ceremony in Matanzas. Most of them were received by physicians from the Union of Civilian Defense Workers, all of them from the Mario Muñoz Monroy Military Hospital, the institution where he spent part of his early years in the specialty, awarded directly after graduating in 1989.

Since then, he has accumulated 36 years of attention to the people, of more than three decades dedicated to scientific research, exactly related to the vascular complications of Diabetes Mellitus, and of having participated for many years in the process of international extension of Heberprot-P®, with the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, he confessed with visible emotion.

Much remains, he says, to “continue offering the best of our wisdom, of the quality of our care”, both in Cuba and elsewhere, as he has already done in 14 technical missions, in 12 countries, and in other countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The doctor assumed a greater responsibility some time ago, when he was assigned the mission as rector of the University of Medical Sciences of Matanzas, essential in the formation of human resources in the territory, a house of high studies that is modern, humanist, revolutionary and inclusive.

Cover Photo: With the Lázaro Peña Order of the First Degree, the Doctor of Medical Sciences concludes a cycle of obtaining three of this high decoration. Photo: From the author.

Written by Eva Luna Acosta.