Health interview
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Nacho Carmona
Mlaaga
Tuesday, 30 July 2024, 17:36
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Magdalena de Troya comes from a family of teachers, although she always had a clear idea of her future vocation: medicine. She is head of the dermatology department at the Costa del Sol Hospital in Marbella and directs Soludable, a project that promotes health and works to prevent skin cancer.
-Where does this vocation for medicine come from?
-It was always clear to me. I come from a family of teachers, but I liked science. I was good at maths, but I didn't particularly like it. I preferred chemistry and biology.
-And within medicine, why dermatology?
-Well, 'derma' is one of the last specialities to be studied in the degree. I fell in love with the speciality studying the MIR. I was lucky because I got a good grade, because to specialise in 'derma' you need high grades .
-And beyond that, you are especially focused on sun damage and its consequences.
-I started to focus on melanoma. It was the pathology that impressed me the most for two reasons: because it is cancer, and you have the greatest responsibility to address it, and because it offers the opportunity for prevention. Melanoma manifests itself in the skin, and having access to that to make an early diagnosis and save lives made me focus on that. Studying people's behaviours, such as sun exposure, gives you an important insight into human behaviour. You get out of the clinical speciality and into the social fabric.
-What is your routine like? She works at the Costa del Sol Hospital, runs the Soludable project and also enjoys her free time.
-I don't have a routine. I run away from them because my way of life involves change, innovation and adapting to new experiences. As head of service, some days I am in management meetings, at other times I am in a clinic, in consultation, seeing patients, or in the operating theatre. And I am also involved in health promotion tasks, which is where the Soludable project comes in. We are inspired by the 'Sun Smart' method, which was born in Australia, where one in two citizens suffers from skin cancer. Look how common it is. There, the level of awareness on the part of the government is very high and they have developed photoprotection policies. I find this model very interesting because I said: 'The Costa del Sol is like little Australia'.
- If Australia is the country in the world with the highest risk of skin cancer, where is Malaga in this ranking?
-Very good question. Spain is not the riskiest country in Europe. It has an average incidence. It depends on the latitude, the type of ultraviolet radiation and the skin type of its citizens. The Nordic people, for example, have very fair skin. And there are also genetic factors, which make people more or less at risk of skin cancer. To give a figure, in Australia they have an incidence of melanoma of 55 or 60 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. If we go to Europe, Denmark and Norway have the highest incidence rates, with 18 cases per 100,000 new inhabitants. In Spain, the rate is around 12 or 15. In the last four years the incidence has increased by 40 per cent. And in Spain, Malaga is the best. We don't have an official register, but according to the data we have from the hospitals, the number of patients operated on for skin cancer is extremely high. Malaga is the province with the highest mortality rate for melanoma in Spain. We know this because mortality is recorded. And if there is a higher mortality, by correlation there is also a higher incidence.
-What would you say to someone who goes out in the sun to get a tan?
-For us, it is aggression. It is a necessary evil if there is no other choice. The skin tans because it wants to defend itself, but getting it for a cosmetic reason makes no sense. The consequence of tanning is photo-ageing. And if you burn on top of that, what you do is damage the cell's DNA. Then you are left with spots and wrinkles and an altered dermis. All this appeared with Coco Chanel's tanning craze in the 1960s, at a time when white skin was the fashionable thing to wear.
-What would you have done if you weren't a dermatologist?
-I am fascinated by architecture. I think architects are gods, who are able to create by means of abstract concepts. I am also an environmentalist. When I was a child, I loved Jean Cousteau's documentaries, and I also had Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente as a childhood reference. I would reincarnate myself as an athlete. I love aerial disciplines. Another thing that fascinates me is the circus world. The tightrope walkers, the trapeze artists? I have images in my head from fairy tales. I look at that a lot. I find it very attractive. And as I like everything aerial, I've taken to 'the pole'. It's an irrational passion. I do it for fitness and for dancing. You fight against gravity because you have to climb the bar to get into balancing positions. It requires postural control and confidence.
-Your favourite place in Malaga is...
-In the city I would choose this beach, the Misericordia beach. I started dating my husband, who I've been with for a long time, in the second year of my medical degree. I was studying at the UMA (University of Malaga) and was in the Colegio Mayor de La Paz. We spent many passionate nights here. It seems that it is not by chance that we have chosen this place for the interview. And I love Fuengirola and Ronda.
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