SUMMARY OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL BOOK “BLACK PEARL – HISTORY OF A PATH”
My name is Elaine Pereira da Silva, I was born in 1963, in the city of São Paulo, I am black. My mother, who died in 1989, was a maid. My father, a bricklayer, died in 2005. Since I was ten years old, despite the current poverty, I dreamed of being a doctor. My mother always encouraged me to study.
I started working at the age of fourteen and, when I finished high school, I realized that dreams are not a ticket to enter medical school. I tried to put up with that, studying Biology, and I graduated in 1985. The desire to be a doctor, however, continued. One of the phrases that guides my life is this fragment of the song “Clube da Esquina n° 2”, from Lô Borges: “Because they were called men, they were also called dreams and dreams do not age”.
After finishing the Biology course, I started working as a teacher in the evenings and took a preparatory course in the morning to enter the university. I did it for six months, in 1986, and I didn't get approved for medicine. The following year, I did a whole year and, at the end, I was approved for two private colleges: PUC/SP and PUC Campinas. In order to enroll in the first one only, I had to sell an old car, which I had bought with my teacher's salary. The money ran out and, twelve days later, I was forced to request a leave of absence and go back to the preparatory course. After another whole year of studying, I was approved for Santa Casa, Unesp and Unicamp, the one I so much dreamed about.
From then on, I stopped teaching and started living my dream: studying medicine. It was, then, the year of grace, 1989. Living free of charge at Unicamp's Student House, and with a small grant from SSS (Student Support Service), I studied diligently. I was in the 5th year of the course, in 1993, when I was admitted to the intensive care unit at Unicamp, due to medical negligence on the part of one of my professors, who did not diagnose me in time. Another very serious phrase in my life: “Doctor error, the earth covers.”
There I stayed four days in a coma, intubated, breathing through machines, almost dead. But it would not yet be at this moment, nor at the other two times within these years when I would see the face of death very closely, that the earth would cover me. Why? When I was in the preparatory course, I had promised God that if I managed to become a doctor, I would care for people like me, who had no money. I truly believe that it was this promise that guaranteed my life years later.
My diagnosis is Neurocysticercosis, the disease of the Taenia Solium worm in the brain. Over the years, I have on my resume of this disease: twice in coma, a brain injury that would cause me mental childishness (excess of joy), loss of recent memory for three years, excessive sleepiness that, fortunately, were greatly alleviated after months of struggle. I also count three neurosurgeries, wheelchair, crutches (also medical negligence), eighteen hospitalizations, numerous visits to the Emergency Room, three years of study lost and discrimination on every possible, imaginable and also unimaginable level. However, I usually say that “God is a father, he is not a stepfather and he is not a racist”. He wanted me to finish a book after all this with a 300% victory over a brain injury and its implications in a racist, classist and sexist society.
What are the balances of this fight?
1. Since 1997 I have had my medical degree, conquered with blood, sweat and tears at one of the most prestigious universities in Brazil: Unicamp.
2. I have my registration with the RCM (Regional Council of Medicine).
3. I have my mental health attested in a medical report by the then Head of Neuroclinic at Unicamp – the same professor who saw me with an emotional outburst, in 1993.
4. Since I graduated, I keep my promise: I do volunteer medical work in the poor community of Vila Brandina, in Campinas – SP.
5. I worked as a General Clinic, permanently employed, in the Municipality of Campinas for five years. I was approved at the medical examination, without hiding my illness. Only 65 were approved. I am 30th place.
6. In 1998 I did my sixth magnetic resonance imaging of the brain and, finally, it was confirmed that my cysticercus was dying and that my health problem was on the way to being resolved.
7. For years, I carried a big sorrow, due to the millions of aggressions suffered in society for being black, poor, sick and wanting to be a doctor. When I technically won the biggest fight of my life, externally, God came and took most of the hurt away, so that the victory would also be in the main place – inside of me. This was essential, because what brought me back on my feet again was not the lack of love from the 500, it was the LOVE from half a dozen, mainly from the greatest friends of my life: Dr. Fabrício, a student in my first class in 1989, who did not leave me, like most people, in the worst period of my life, and Professor Dr. Jamiro, who is a father to me, and works in the same favela as me, for more than 30 years.
8. And, to end on a golden note, most of my patients – both in the poor community and at the health center – really liked my care, and verbalized this, to make me happier.
This true fairy tale is published in my autobiographical book entitled “Black Pearl – History of a Path” (Pérola Negra - A história de um caminho).
The book flap was written by the writer Rubem Alves.
The book ends here.
Let's now briefly update this story.
I worked in the country's public health network for seven years and I was discriminated against during all this time, due to my life story and my way of assisting my patients, slow and judicious, seeking to avoid mistakes.
I was a permanently employed physician at the City of Campinas for five years. I suffered and won two unfair and even criminal dismissal processes. Exhausted, I left Campinas. I worked in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul for three months and then got another job in the south of the state of São Paulo, in Taquarituba, where I earned very well. However, I remained black and honest, which complicates the life of a doctor in the public health service in Brazil. I was there for eleven months, when I lost my job due to a monstrosity in March 2005.
Weary of war, I returned to Campinas, to be close to my friends. I was a social security (National Social Security) recipient for two and a half years. I returned to devoting myself to voluntary medical work in the community of Vila Brandina. I launched the book in April 2006 and, since then, I have given motivational talks to the general public. This story was reported in the spoken, written and broadcast media - regional, national and international. In January 2008, I was admitted as a family doctor in the public health network of Monte Mor - SP, where I had already lectured. I worked there for almost three months, and lost my job because I couldn't bear the burden of providing technical quality care to a large number of patients. I asked for another doctor to help me, and I was dismissed, weeks later…
I was invited by the PMDB (a political party) to be a candidate for city councilor in Campinas, in 2008, but I didn't have either the time or money to make the campaign – the result was a fiasco... I stayed in private medicine, as an examiner physician in Occupational Medicine, from 2008 to 2010 when, due to a deterioration in my health (physical and psychosomatic problems that are sequels to this story), I had to stop working.
In 2013, the Congo-French filmmaker Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda, with professional incursions in Europe, Africa and North America (see Google) embraced our project. He really liked our project, and would direct the documentary “Pérola Negra”, whose script was written by journalist Carla Lopes. We were approved by the Brazilian Rouanet Law in 2014, but we were unable to get sponsorship in a timely manner, and the project lapsed.
I am available to speak wherever possible. I attended postgraduate classes in Medical Expertise in 2013. I was approved in a public tender to be a General Practice physician in the city of Paulínia – SP and I took on this position in January 2014, which made me very happy! From 2015 to early 2020, when the pandemic hit, I worked in Geriatrics at Paulínia City Hall, in Palliative Care.
In 2019, I was one of the first eighty women called upon by the German Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs to found a women's network, the Unidas Network. It is a network to address issues related to women's issues in the world. The network is made up of women from Latin America, the Caribbean and Germany. The first meeting was in Salvador/BA, and was attended by Minister Heiko Maas, of Foreign Affairs of Germany. On the plane, on the way to Salvador, I met Mr. Douglas Prehl, who was one of the superintendents of Banco Santander Brasil. When he found out about my story, he suggested that I launch the book in the United States, considering that this would open the door to a film based on the story. He also provided the English version of the book, which was revised by the Brazilian journalist Marina Clélia Duarte Viana, who has lived in Germany since 2006. Soon, we will launch the e-books "Black Pearl – History of a Path” both in portuguese and english, on Amazon Brazil and USA.
The beginning of 2020 brought the world to a halt due to the pandemic and, from April of that year, my family began to face serious health problems. First, I got sick, for reasons undetectable by traditional medicine. Afterwards, my husband Roberto began to have serious health problems. Also the health of my dog Sofia deteriorated. I managed to save my family, thanks to my medical knowledge, but it made my already fragile health much worse, and I became unable to do my job. In October 2021, I managed to return, but I was still very affected by everything I had experienced, that I came back under the condition of total restriction of doing traditional medical care. I started doing only bureaucratic work in health and. Due to these restrictions, in April 2022, I received an extremely offensive and racist anonymous note: I was called a monkey, a whore, a naughty, etc. This fact hurt me a lot, but it was what forced the head of the Health Department to fulfill what I had been requesting since I returned: to get me out of that place of work. In May, I was transferred to the Health Teleservice, at the Paulínia City Hall, and it was the place where I had the least trouble working as a doctor.
The struggles to care for my family's health, however, continued. And, at the beginning of July 2023, I lost my strength, my clinical condition worsened and I was removed from work again, because even that light work was difficult because my sleep got much worse.
And it was at the end of that month that I went to the pharmacy in my neighborhood and, through an informal conversation with the employee there, talking about my story, I was approached by the filmmaker Guil Macedo. He searches for inspiring stories to film and take to the world! And then, finally, I smiled again: he embraced the cause and the “Black Pearl” movie project and has big plans for it! The sky is not the limit!!!
My website is www.draelaine.com where my interview with Jô Soares in 2006 can be seen, reprised in 2007 and also another one, made with EPTV in 2009. There is also a documentary by TV Record (Roda da Vida – more than 40 minutes) made by Rodrigo Faro in 2016 (brief reprise in 2018 and 2019) and, on my blog, there are 2 videos of me, in the Brazilian Senate, in 2013, with 2 senators (Paulo Paim and Eduardo M. Suplicy) talking about the project of the movies.
My lecture “Dreams do not age!” is on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDMjWyzuFdU&t=72s
Thank you for your attention and I look forward to hearing from you.
Elaine P. Silva
