You will find the answer everywhere around us, and within us as well Nature and your own body fights infection
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Jan Vevera was born August 21st, 1970 in Roudnice nad Labem. He grew up in Štětí, a smaller town near Mělník. During the Communist era, nearly every citizen of that town was employed in the SEPAP, a local paper-mill. From his childhood, Jan recalls memories of streams of workers who flocked in front of the factory every morning at 5 a.m., and then the afternoon crowds leaving the factory for local pubs. “Perhaps it is from here, from my childhood years and part-time student jobs in SEPAP, that my love and respect for education, freedom and libertinism stems from”, says Vevera, a graduate of psychiatry at a medical faculty. His travels brought him to China and the USA, for several months he worked aboard an Alaskan fishing vessel. After completing his studies, he left with the humanitarian organization People in Need for a mission in war-ravaged Kosovo, where he met Czech soldiers working in a field-hospital there. This, as he confesses, was a pleasant surprise to him, because during the Communist regime, he had been accustomed to perceive the military and law-enforcement profession as something working “against the nation.” As Vevera tells us, there are about 1,200 psychiatrists in the Czech Republic, and they mostly know one another. One of them asked Vevera whether he would be willing to serve in the army in the military psychiatrist department. Vevera was hesitant to leave his research; however, when he was assured he could continue his academic work and he would be assigned a “field-hospital,” he put on the army camouflage. Shortly after his initial training in 2007 he was sent to a mission on Afghanistan. As a medic, we asked him what issues did he encounter most often during his mission. He tells us that diarrhea and eye inflammation were rampant.
