Mary English: “The corpses speak, but you have to question them”

Mary Castellano. Jaén, 1948. She was the first woman in Spain who managed to be a professor at a Medical School 38 years ago. Specialized in Legal and Forensic Medicine, knows well the evil human. He was face-to-face with more of a killer.

Broke a glass ceiling by becoming the first woman in Spain that was awarded a chair in Medicine. It was in the University of Zaragoza in 1980.Yes. But I was not very conscious because in the year 1977 had done the oppositions of the medical examiner, and were successive steps which I gave. It was not a very radical. Then I joined the Royal Academy of Medicine, gave courses to train the Judicial Police and I was involved in cases of criminal investigation I had a lot of resonance. Among my disciples there were many women who were thriving scientifically, as something natural. Is there a lot of machismo in the university?Not what I saw as well. I have not found competitiveness in the evil sense, nor sweeps. With my teachers and classmates, we all had our space for the good of the legal medicine is that it is very diverse. What so many women have achieved has been with effort, work and renouncing the more social aspects than is sometimes associated with women.What the woman is required to more to reach the top?Women are very prepared and with lots of training have been given up to reach the peak because you have appreciated that that implies to renounce to family issues such as having more time with the children. At the time of assuming a deanship, a vice-chancellor’s office or presidency of a scientific society what you think because they assume the trips, dinners and outings that not all women want to assume for this concern not to lose time. The woman applies if you are going to do worthwhile. Men are more conceited and look at least that aspect.The Spanish university does not come out well off in the rankings.There are few universities in spain in those first posts that attract attention, among the first 10, but in general, almost all Spanish universities have a recognition quite remarkable.The regional government of Andalusia has launched a program that bears his name in order to facilitate the access to the university education of the professionals of the medicine. Is that enough?It would be sufficient if through this program we are taking the necessary places. The first year there are 30 seats, but they are not enough. Be effective if it is going to bring out more, which may be necessary to replace the jobs that we’re retiring. The program has been copied in other communities with a greater allocation of places.In Spain there is a brain drain.The spaniards, when they have gone out, have been very well recognised in research and in science. It is true that to recover to one of these researchers, with the same level of resources to be had outside, it is very difficult.Governments cut back on research, education, health…As they discover things at such a rapid pace, the needs always outweigh the resources. Our economy is not organized to generate enough wealth that requires research. In our administration, the management does not work well. Already we are seeing the big bucks that are spent on things unspeakable. Would have to prioritize better.It has squandered a lot of money in cases of corruption.Clear. I recently did a trip with a man who had had a position in Andalusia. It was a manager’s great if you got many money from Europe, and I said that many resources that they came to Andalusia, and I suppose in other communities will pass the same, being returned to the European Union because it had not managed at the right time and with the purposes for which it had asked. We do not know to manage. The politicians do not manage well, apart from that the money is going to where it should not be for cases of corruption.What is taken seriously by the governments education?Therefore, by what you see, not. The children here compared to Europe does not come out very well prepared. When you hear teachers levels pre-university are not satisfied. And that there are teachers great, but have had so many changes in education laws, and, above all, that each autonomous community has its own books, its own criteria… it’s a mess. There should be a pact of State to the national level by the education. It is necessary to have a professional orientation more lucid so that the study can serve to find work. The vocational training is very much neglected in Spain. Very well we’re not doing that. She is retired from this summer of its tasks in the University, but maintained the activity in the Real Academy of National Medicine, where he occupies the chair number 19 of Medicine Loyal . Why is it important to your field?Because it was the first medical specialty, that was in Spain in 1845. The professor of legal medicine was in Madrid then, don Pedro Mata, said that in rural areas there were crimes that are not esclarecían because there were no doctors with a knowledge of legal medicine. Gave courses for doctors to know the autopsy medico-legal, injury, criminal, poison… These doctors were to the courts of instruction of the people. In the TWENTIETH century, when it created the specialties, the legal medicine was among the first. But when all have been progressing, the legal and forensic medicine is going in reverse. The Ministry of Justice says that it only wants medical examiners to the courts, but we forget about the specialty as training for doctors who want to practice in the private sector, in the hospitals to safeguard the rights of patients, or in programs of family violence prevention, mediation in damage to health…forensic scientists say that the “body of the dead speaks”, but how do you do?We say that the corpses speak, but you have to question them, and how interrogas? Interpreting every sign, internal and external. If there is a deceased in a house that had a stove, a view if the corpse has a pink color, as if he were asleep. It could be for a possible carbon monoxide poisoning. Then there are that do the analysis that certify or not. A corpse gives data about what was the mechanism of death, when it happened and many other things that you need to know to interpret.Yeah, that’s what makes the difference between a natural death or a crime.With the toxic, for example, externally it may seem like a natural death, but by analyzing the biochemical reactions in the organism, or the specific toxic, identify the substance responsible for the death. With the wounds it’s the same thing. When a person will have taken a mortal blow, and then placed on the train tracks, you can determine which wounds were made when the person was alive and which when he had already died.The news about crimes are often among the most read on the ‘web’ of the media. The movies and series about killers also have a lot of success. doThere is attraction for evil?I called a lot of attention that the news include many events which are of a form not suitable for the general population because they give ideas. Why are interested? There is a lot of curiosity about how the mind works in people who have committed a horrible crime. To prevent violence it is necessary an education from the nursery in respect to the other person; this also means that people understand their own feelings and express them. I think that they do not teach us to know our feelings and emotions and to express them, which would facilitate the communication and resolution of conflicts in respect.Does the killer born or made?There are people with an inclination toward evil and to get to know some we say: there is evil; since the childhood have had behaviors do harm to people, destroy plants, mistreating animals, not to have compassion… these are the least. Others have criminal behaviors, but by the circumstances that we have been influencing. When you talk with a person who has antisocial behaviors there are times that you understand why that person has done so; other times, not, what you find is coldness emotional, lack of empathy, lack of remorse, inability to be corrected and up to satisfaction for the wrong that was done. Responding to the question, there is a little bit of everything, although at the extremes of the curve has people who are utterly bad and at the other end, good people, who have been drawn to something that seems incomprehensible in relation to his biography.The self-confessed murderer of Pioz, condemned the killing and butchering them for their aunts and uncles and cousins, has a psychopathic personality, but not all psychopaths become criminals.So it is. In psychiatry it is described initially several types of psychopathy, as personalities are extreme with respect to various psychological characteristics: apathetic, narcissistic, … Now, with softer language we talk about personality disorder and reserve the term “psychopath” to the anti-social, which we have described before. The story of the ‘whatsapp’ of the killer of Pioz, explaining to his friend the details are more gory crimes, is terrifying.That person enjoys with the injury, doing evil to the other, and the more innocent and vulnerable, the better. It is a degree of wickedness extreme, sadism, and the need of admiration for what you do. That’s not what we see nor in the animals. From his intelligence, man is capable of the greatest heroicidades and the greatest evils.A degree of evil so is almost incomprehensible.Years ago I saw a person as well. He was addicted to drugs, but in his behavior he knew what he was doing, he had to fund a psychopathic personality; killed their neighbors, a mother and her daughter. He was a person without repentance and no sign of humanity.How it is to stand face to face with a murderer as well?It is hard because you can’t understand a human behavior of these features. In many cases of criminals, analyzing the biography and the crime, you can understand these people, though not excused. You who has conducted research on family violence, why battered women do not leave their husbands?Because there are situations of psychological dependence with insecurity and immaturity that is compensated with the authoritarian attitude of the perpetrator. Other times it is a wrong attitude and fanciful with the hope that he will change; and we must not forget the economic dependence. However, women have a brain more plastic than men, and we adapt better to change, therefore, are becoming more prevalent women with 50, 60 or 70 years who report after decades of marriage because it is recognized as a person with dignity and rights that the other does not respect.Does a child who lives the abuse at home is doomed to be an abuser?It is said that the abused child has as much risk of being a perpetrator and many of the attackers, often, have suffered violence in childhood. But a child does not have to be doomed to do this. Can be re-educated to regain their best qualities, their safety, their affections and emotions. This is why we have a great social responsibility with victims of sexual violence and abuse, we are obliged to restore the confidence in the goodness and human solidarity.

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