[Doctors, nurses and patients: dealing with contradictions, uncertainty and shortages during covid-19 in Mexico]. / Médicos, enfermeras y pacientes: entre las contradicciones, la incertidumbre y las carencias en tiempo de covid-19 en México.

The covid-19 pandemic revealed the innumerable shortages that have characterized the nation's inequitable and fragmentary health care system for decades. The main goal of the following reflections is to outline the precarity of working conditions for health care personnel in Mexico, as well as the contradictory statements issued as the epidemic developed in the country, a combination of factors that magnified uncertainty about the new disease and how to deal with it.

La pandemia de covid-19 puso al descubierto las innumerables carencias que durante décadas han formado parte del inequitativo y fragmentado sistema nacional de salud. Las siguientes reflexiones tienen como propósito central enunciar la fragilidad en la que labora el personal de salud en México, al igual que las contradictorias declaraciones que han acompañado el desarrollo de la pandemia en el país, una conjunción de elementos que han acentuado la incertidumbre frente a la nueva enfermedad y su manejo.

[Itinerant physicians, the art of healing and doctors in national history (Mexico City, 1877-1911)]. / Médicos ecuestres, el arte de curar y los galenos en la historia nacional (Ciudad de México, 1877-1911).

The uncertainty and mistrust towards the presence and activities of academic medical practitioners in Mexico City during the Porfirio Díaz government (1877-1911) convinced these professionals that is was essential to create, strengthen and transmit a respectable, competent and homogeneous image of the profession. To this purpose they recovered, recreated and adapted the ethical maxims of the occidental medical culture to their professional work, and rescued eminent medical figures of Mexico's convulse nineteenth century from being lost in the oblivion of history. Their goal - as it will be expounded in the following pages - was to respond, oppose and neutralize the criticism and disbelief expressed by the public against their professional performance.

Médicos ecuestres, el arte de curar y los galenos en la historia nacional (Ciudad de México, 1877-1911) / Itinerant physicians, the art of healing and doctors in national history (Mexico City, 1877-1911)

La incertidumbre y desconfianza que en ocasiones suscitó la presencia y actuación de los médicos diplomados en la ciudad de México durante el gobierno de Porfirio Díaz (1877-1911), condujo a que éstos profesionistas consideraran como esencial fortalecer, vigorizar y crear, hasta donde fuese posible, una imagen respetable, competente y homogénea de su labor profesional. Para ello, recurrieron, recrearon y adaptaron las máximas de ética médica de la cultura médica occidental a su labor profesional, y se abocaron a rescatar del olvido histórico a destacados médicos del convulso siglo diecinueve mexicano. Con ello, como se expondrá en este ensayo, anhelaban responder, reaccionar y neutralizar la incredulidad y la crítica que el público manifestaba en torno a su quehacer y desempeño profesional.

The uncertainty and mistrust towards the presence and activities of academic medical practitioners in Mexico City during the Porfirio Díaz government (1877-1911) convinced these professionals that is was essential to create, strengthen and transmit a respectable, competent and homogeneous image of the profession. To this purpose they recovered, recreated and adapted the ethical maxims of the occidental medical culture to their professional work, and rescued eminent medical figures of Mexico's convulse nineteenth century from being lost in the oblivion of history. Their goal - as it will be expounded in the following pages - was to respond, oppose and neutralize the criticism and disbelief expressed by the public against their professional performance.