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Senior Physiologists' News |
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Letter to Harvey Sparks Oscar Scremin writes: “I turned 70 years old on September 27 this year and I received an invitation from you to tell my story for the APS Seniors Committee. I delayed it a bit because it is always painful to talk about why I left my native country, but here it is. “The year was 1976, and Argentina was sinking into the worst human rights catastrophe of its history. I was a physiologist, a member of the faculty at the Department of Physiology in the University of Rosario Medical School, and an established investigator within the Argentine National Research Council (CONICET). During a brief democratic interlude that lasted from 1973 to 1976, there was a period of intense activity between university faculty and students in the interest of redirecting both the curricula and purpose of the public higher education system in order to better serve the national interest. During this process, I was appointed Dean of the Medical School in Rosario. This didn’t last long. As the civilian government disintegrated, reactionary elements initiated the persecution of anyone that would try to defend democratic principles and soon after, a military coup installed a bloody dictatorship. Dissent was punished with kidnapping, disappearance, and death. Like many others, I was fired from all my positions and had to go into exile to escape a death squad. Many of the bravest that stayed on or could not leave were less fortunate. An estimated 30,000 perished at the hands of the horrible dictatorship that persisted until 1983. As we left the country, friends offered their home in Los Angeles for our family of five. This included my wife Erika, who had just graduated as an MD, and our children Luciano (5 years old), Tristan (2 years old) and Maria Aurelia (6 months old). Soon after, I was offered a job at the Physiology department of UCLA Medical School where I still teach today. We had the support of many people within and outside of the university in this country, to whom we are eternally grateful. While in Los Angeles, my wife Erika completed her medical specialty training in the VA-UCLA Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Service which she now chairs, and our children grew and became successful citizens. Luciano is a pilot with United Airlines, Tristan is a law student at the People’s College of Law in Los Angeles, and Maria Aurelia is a DO currently training in internal medicine at the VA/Cedars-Sinai residency program. Erika and I both work at the Greater Los Angeles VA Hospital that generously supports our research. This country is home to our family now, but the old country is still in our hearts. After many years of struggles, democracy is now flourishing in Argentina, human rights have been restored, and many of the assassins and kidnappers in the former dictatorship are being tried for their crimes. It is a democracy that has lasted for 25 years, indeed the longest uninterrupted democratic period without a military coup ever. Last year, on November 15, the authorities of the University of Rosario restored my faculty position and returned my former laboratory to me. It was an intensely emotional ceremony that reunited many of the people that left the country during those years, as well as some of the families of the disappeared. If you can handle Spanish, here is a link with some of the details http://www.portal.unr.edu.ar/periodico/secciones/2007/noviembre/____actodesagravio.htm. “Going back to the laboratory that day was like walking into a time machine. We found an empty room, with paint peeling and a leaky roof. What was once a bustling place with many research projects was now completely deserted. The biggest surprise was when we opened the doors under the counters. Some of our old equipment was still there, and had not been used in decades. Our exit from the lab had been very hurried, so we even found postcards addressed to friends abroad we had written and didn’t have time to mail. I have attached a picture of the moment when Dante Chialvo (now at Northwestern University in Chicago) Hugo Besedovsky (now at Marburg University in Germany) and myself contemplated a Tektronix pulse generator we had used more than 30 years ago and still ticks! It was at that moment when the three of us decided to start an effort to change this morose state of affairs. Previously, we had all helped faculty and students of our alma mater with equipment, advice and also had hosted students and faculty of that Department in our labs in the US and Germany over the years, but we are now embarking on a journey to restore the present research environment so that Physiology can again shine in Rosario. We are volunteering time to train students and faculty and also are raising and providing funds to remodel the building, procure equipment, chemicals, glassware; everything needed for a standard physiology laboratory. As of today, new research projects are already underway. We founded a non-profit organization to receive donations of funds and equipment and the flow of resources has already begun. So much to do but hey, we are so young! We have a life (a second one) ahead of us and considering the statistics on physiologists in the senior division at the APS, it is going to be a long one! Thanks for the time and space given to our musings and we may be contacting you soon to see if you still have some old but good working physiology instruments on our wish list that you might be able to part with.”
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