Mercedes Batule Batule

She completed her primary studies at a small school in her native town, with a teacher who was also of Lebanese origin and very close to her parents. In 1942, at just nine years old, she entered a private Catholic school called Nuestra Señora de la Caridad, of which she was a founding student and where she graduated in 1946 as the most outstanding student. In 1949 she completed her secondary education at the Instituto de Holguín, graduating in 1951 as a Bachelor of Sciences and Letters.

That same year, 1951, she traveled to La Habana to study Medicine at the University, where she remained until 1956 when the University closed due to the political situation the country was experiencing. She returned to her hometown and worked as an Operator at the Telephone Company, until 1959 when, with the triumph of the Revolution, the University reopened and she was able to continue her medical studies.

In 1960 she completed her internship at the Hospital Clínico Quirúrgico "Joaquín Albarrán", graduating as a Doctor of Medicine on June 2, 1960, and after a three-month preparatory course for Rural Medicine, she completed her Rural Social Service in the Mulas neighborhood, in the municipality of Banes, until May 1961 when she returned to La Habana to begin her residency in Internal Medicine at the Hospital "General Calixto García".

During her residency she provided services at the National Hospital, now Enrique Cabrera. Appointed as an Ungraduated Instructor at the Provincial Teaching Hospital of Santiago de Cuba, she taught students from third to sixth years and residents for all three years until March 1964. During April and May of that same year, she worked as a resident in Internal Medicine at the Neurological Hospital, from there she returned to the Hospital "General Calixto García" where she graduated as a First-Grade Specialist in Internal Medicine, with a score of 100 points, on April 1, 1965.

From then on, she always worked at her beloved Hospital Universitario "General Calixto García" as a Specialist in Internal Medicine, performing clinical, teaching, research, and administrative duties, although she also taught at the Integral Polyclinic "9 de Abril", at the Emergency Hospital "Freyre de Andrade", among others.

In 1977 she obtained the title of Second-Grade Specialist in Internal Medicine and was promoted to the teaching category of Associate Professor. She achieved the scientific category of Doctor in Medical Sciences in 1985 and was promoted to the teaching category of Full Professor in 1989. Since 2000 she held the Special Status of Consultant Professor at the Superior Institute of Medical Sciences of La Habana.

Throughout her professional life she dedicated herself body and soul to providing, with wonderful gentleness, medical care of the highest quality, not only scientific but human, to all her patients. She also assumed the responsibilities that her social commitment obliged her to undertake, and in fulfilling them she demonstrated that rigor can be exercised without losing the gentleness in treatment, as an expression of respect for the full dignity of human beings, an ethical principle that, as a true Martian, she always exercised throughout her life. Thus she was Vice-Chief and Chief of the Ward, Chief of the Internal Medicine Service for 12 years, Responsible for the clinical-pathological meeting of the Internal Medicine Service, and President of the Therapeutics Committee—of which she had been a member since its creation—at the Hospital "General Calixto García".

She was a Member of the National Group of Internal Medicine and of the Provincial Commission on Asthma. In this latter activity she also served as responsible, for 15 years, for scientific research on asthma and environmental and meteorological factors, whose results, among other things, served as the basis for the Institute of Meteorology to apply its forecast program.

During her years of teaching she provided instruction in undergraduate and postgraduate programs, fundamentally at her Hospital General Calixto García; but she also did so for six months each time in Santiago de Cuba, Las Tunas, and Matanzas.

She advised and tutored work for Student Conferences and Residency Completion Thesis and participated in State Tribunals. She taught courses and workshops. She was National Advisor for courses directed by meetings for physicians in Rural Social Service.

She was also a member of the Examination Commission of her Hospital "General Calixto García", of the Evaluation Commission of Teaching Activities of the Faculty of Medicine, and Responsible for the Commission and Preparation of exams of Faculty Number One. She was a Member and President of the Promotion Tribunal and Ratification of Teaching Categories, respectively. Until her unfortunate death she was a Member of the Scientific Council of her Hospital.

She was also a Member of the Commission of Scientific Degrees of ISCM-H, of the National Tribunal for obtaining the Second Grade of the Specialty, of the Rector's Advisory Commission (CARE), of the National Jury for awarding the prize for the best scientific work of MINSAP, for 4 years.

With her unparalleled modesty and simplicity, she shared knowledge with students and professionals, thus standing out in her work as Advisor to the Student Magazine "16 de abril" and as co-author of the National Program of the Residency in Internal Medicine and in the preparation of the Book "Clinical Syndromes", under the direction of professor DrC Raimundo Llanio Navarro, in addition to 15 other publications as principal author in national and foreign journals.

She was an Associate Member of the Cuban Society of Gastroenterology, Full Member and Vice President of the Cuban Society of Internal Medicine, in which she had prominent executive participation in its National Congresses. Member of the Editorial Board of the Cuban Journal of Medicine. Member of the Society of Health Sciences Educators and Member of the National Red Cross. She was also a Member of the International Society of Internal Medicine.

Among the recognitions received were: Ten Years in Education, Distinction for Cuban Education. But the most important of all is that there is not a doctor or nurse trained at the Hospital General Calixto García during the revolutionary period who does not have to thank Professor Batule for her exemplary professional and teaching model. There is not a worker at her beloved hospital who does not have to thank her for the highest quality medical care, a warm smile, a gesture of solidarity, an understanding ear, a truly constructive critique. To all of this we could add that a great master of clinical medicine, Professor Fidel Ilizástigui Dupuy, said to a professor of the Faculty, when her illness was beginning: "If I really become ill and need a doctor, I beg you to call Mercedes".

The fatal accident that caused her death occurred on Wednesday, June 18, when she was heading to Hospital Hermanos Ameijeiras for a teaching activity, at 76 years of age, full of intellectual and physical activity that kept her always as the beautiful and sweet woman who embraced, with infinite love, the medical profession and the teaching of her science.

Her patients, their families, her students, her colleagues in profession and work, her family and friends, can never forget her, because the Second-Grade Specialist in Internal Medicine, Full Professor and Doctor in Medical Sciences, Mercedes Batule Batule, was above all a beautiful human being, and it is precisely that condition that makes her eternal in our memory.