Will, Excellence and Cardiology

I have my national heroes. Brazilians who, through their patriotism, their determination and the way they led their lives, became examples of what I one day want to be.

I have always admired medicine, especially those doctors who devote their efforts, their time and every cell of their own bodies to the pursuit of excellence. Among the specialties, one has always stirred my admiration: cardiology.

One of the names I carry as a reference is Enéas Carneiro. Many admired him for his intelligence, but I always saw in him something I consider even more important and less debatable: will.

Enéas had will. He knew what he wanted, defended his convictions and wished for a better Brazil. Beyond that, he dedicated part of his life to the study of the heart, becoming a cardiologist.

But life found a way to turn that admiration into something much deeper.

On November 13, 2025, my daughter Luna was born with a severe congenital heart disease. She had to undergo heart surgery at Hospital Vila da Serra, in Nova Lima, Minas Gerais.

At that moment, everything I admired in medicine stopped being something distant, almost abstract, and became part of my own story.

What I once admired, today I venerate.

I believe God blessed the team of cardiologists at that hospital. Men and women who devoted their lives to knowledge, to science and to the refinement of their skills and who, through everything the human being has been able to learn and develop, were given the opportunity to save my daughter’s life.

It is hard to find words that express the size of my gratitude. There is something deeply admirable in someone who dedicates their own existence to acquiring knowledge and skills that, one day, may mean the difference between life and death for another person.

I leave here my deepest respect and my eternal gratitude to healthcare professionals, especially the team that cared for Luna, and to everyone inside hospitals driven by a true intention and a greater purpose: saving lives.

If before I admired medicine for the knowledge and excellence of its professionals, today I also admire it for something no theory could ever teach me: the chance to keep watching my daughter grow.

“The most important fact that sets the human being apart from all its brothers and cousins on the phylogenetic scale is knowledge; only knowledge frees man, only through knowledge is man free and, being free, he can aspire to a better condition of life for himself and all his fellow beings. I can only understand a society in which knowledge is the foremost reason the government gives for the formation of the citizen. My message is a positive one: that man must know, must understand, and in understanding, he is free.”

— Dr. Enéas Ferreira Carneiro (Rio Branco, November 5, 1938 — Rio de Janeiro, May 6, 2007)