How d-r Devica Smilevska-Kapetanovic Became a Specialist General Practitioner with the AMC Amsterdam

Do not ask me why, but doctors, especially shrinks, wizards and witches, fortune tellers, healers, vets et all , well, they are nicely listed in the ghost-busters' chapter of my simple book of professional classification. That is not derogative. The financial wizards of the Financial Times and political analysts of the Economist are irrevocably tucked in the voodoo section, right at the end. I have a feeling that this is not the right opening for this post, but this came spontaneously, just as was my first reaction (admiration) to the news that my beloved friend Devica (means "Virgin" in Macedonian, though she is the physical of two grown up charming kids and a long-time spouse of a notorious womanizer Bruno Kapetanovic presently from Heemstede, otherwise an international entrepreneur of semi-Montenegrin roots from Skopje, Macedonia.

We met the other day, I think I did mention that here already, at Sasa and Valentina Vlaski's reception on occasion of Sveti Jovan or St. John's day. There she told me, not right away, but as a reply to a question (how's medicine?) and she was besides herself out of joy, and then, slowly, my reaction gave her wings, she, always so very calm and so very shy, gave in, spilled it ll and showed it. I mean she allowed herself to express, in her own very subtle, very modest, very noble way, the quiet joy of her success.

Ever since she and Bruno came here, some 17 years ago, she toiled, she learned Dutch and Latin, passed one after another exam, rose a beautiful daughter (now their Bruna is 16, a real young woman already) gave birth to a son (Danilo, 9, baptized after her father-in-law)and went through thin and thick with her man and still conquered everything and became yet another Macedonian specialist medical doctor highly esteemed with the Academish Medisch Centrum of Amsterdam. Yeas. And Yes again. I am so very proud with Devi!

But then, of course, there is more, much more to it than it meets the eye. All it takes is patience, especially on these orthodox occasions: the most interesting stories spoon slowly and one needs to be concentrated, otherwise a carefully extended hook for catching on a reference is missed and you are off the cliff. Thus, when I ask her what was her maiden name, she smiles imperceptibly and says Smilevska and sends a quick-look sonde, a probe to sense whether that rang a bell. It did not. I make a full of myself and go on to find, eventually, out that her Dad sat in the Presidency of the Union of Journalists of Macedonia, D-r Blaze Smislevski, the chair of the Commission of working and living conditions of the journalists.
Then, only then, the big picture explodes in front of my eyes. I remember her Dad perfectly well, I know that he worked with prof.d-r Ivan Mikulcic the father of my daughter-in-law who told me stories about the guy. What a world. And all that happens in a "woonkamer" of a house in Delft of Vermeer, some 3,000 km away from her Dad and my in-law!. But I know the house where her Dad lived as a kid, an amiable guy specialist in sport medicine.
Then her husband dives in and says:
-My father was very good friend with professor Mikulcic, too.
-What, the military secret services watched over the the shoulders of digging archaeologists? Shared the spoils of science, did they?
-You are daft. They drank together.
Now, I stop for a moment and reflect: Macedonia has given so many good doctors to the Netherlands. When I came here in 1989 as the Yugoslav National Tourist Office representative, Blagoja K. Janevski was a top-ranking professor with the Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden, ph.d. in medicine, world authority in radiology and one of his books (Angiography of the upper extremity) still sells all over internet (at +$200 apiece) as an indispensable tool for new radiologists! Pettish details? No, nei, nixon, non. That is quality. Now deceased, Vojkan Vuzevski was a pathology professor at Erasmus. d-r Igor. I. Tulevski not only graduated, he earned a ph.d. in medicine from the University of Amsterdam and (after B. K. Janevski is one of the most quoted Dutch medicine men for the last 10-20 years. That is how I measure quality of contribution to science, society, whatever. There are more: MD Filip B. Eftimov after graduating from UvA is working, at the AMC Amsterdam, on his specialization, I think in gynecology, dear him. MD Stefan V, Arsov (who my grandson refers to as "Frankenstein" because he thinks that Stefan gets kidneys from dead people to make a new body) has just begun his work as a nephrologyst with the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen on a most interesting project. And there is this charming pediatrist here in Amstelveen who has yet to tell me more what does she do now.

Well, I am looking for that party Devica and Bruno are going to throw soon to celebrate the big event, to meet all these ghost-busters of degrading flesh and ask Blaze Smilevski how do the journalists in Macedonia endure the run up to Europe!