Albanian medicine lost one of its most prominent personalities on June 15, pediatrician, neonatologist and pedagogue Edi Tushe.
With over four decades in the service of children's health, he left behind a valuable professional and human legacy, being one of the most important contributors to the development of modern neonatology in Albania, to the care of newborns, and to the professional training of entire generations of doctors.
This Thursday, one of his closest collaborators for more than 10 years, laboratory physician Genta Dedej, was invited to the show "Rudina", and in this part of the show "In memoriam" for Professor Tushe, she expressed all her gratitude for his contribution over the years.
Dedej said that she was informed of the bitter news by a phone call while she was abroad and the words she heard on the other end of the phone were "The doctor, he left us."
"At that moment everything was suspended in the air and I sat down on a chair that I found there. Until I came, I cried about this moment for several days until I finally managed to return to the clinic and enter his office last night. When I entered his office last night, I opened the door to his room and everything was there, just as he left it on his last day."
The doctor explained that Professor Tushe had no prior signs to expect such bitter news because he was a strong man who did not complain even in his weakest moments.
"He was stoic in his difficult health moments, as any person can be. He had no chronic illness or any insufficiency or anything else. That's why we are shocked by what happened. It was a heart attack and within an hour the professor had an accident and passed away and there was not even time to give him first aid, because it was unexpected, unprepared. It happened very quickly. He did not manage to leave a legacy, despite the fact that his entire journey and his entire existence were full of messages and examples. We learned from him every day."
She particularly appreciated the calmness of doctor Edi Tushe in providing solutions and also highlighted his unusual approach in relation to the child and the parents.
"He said that a child has its own personality, is a small adult and he was dedicated to the family and not just the child. His visits lasted for minutes and the conversations he had with the parents were not only related to the acute problem the child had, but the doctor tried to understand the environment where the child was growing up and after understanding the parental mindset, he intervened there and this was the key to success. The visits with the doctor were calm, they were meaningful, they were comprehensive. That's why Dr. Edi was extraordinary."
The doctor also highlighted Professor Edi Tushe's approach as a lecturer in relation to students, as according to her, his energy was different from other lecturers.
"The doctor radiated a light and an energy that was different from other professors, and this feeling was not only felt by me as his student, but by all of us as a group. The way he explained the subject was so interesting and so engaging."
She also confessed that one of Professor Edi Tushe's hostages was his son and the complicated relationship with him.
"His biggest hostage was his son who never remembered and never wanted to... It's a divorce story, something happened that interrupted communication between father and son and this could not be fixed even after the doctor made a public appeal to one of the Albanian media. But I want to tell the doctor's son that he should be proud of his father and Dr. Edi would accept his son no matter what, wherever he was, whatever he had done and waited until the last day for a signal, but... This was the biggest hostage the doctor had and that took him with him to the next world."