The COVID-19 Pandemic forced many of us to admit to our vulnerabilities, whether they be our inner selves or our career. On the other hand, pandemic empowered people turned themselves into “scientists” via Google for guidance and reassurance. Whether politicians, engineers, journalists, or citizens, all turned into “scientists”, as if science was their expertise. Doctors and scientists became symbols of hope, media stars, and cult figures. From one point of view this is understandable, as heroes inspire us and bring us together at times when unity is desperately needed.

However, as a scientist myself, I suffered one of the most significant emotional pressure ever: the feeling of neglecting my children by not being at home, or the extra hours of work I had to do to make the scientific reports ready to submit to the medical journals. After all, for those doctors who were treating patients with COVID-19, such treatment depended on those reports from real scientists, not just “heroes,” just to name a few.

There was a social responsibility that was growing larger and larger. As time passed during the early COVID Era, I was beckoned to understand what happened first in Wuhan in 2019 and then to write my “if-then" statement where I could identify the possible variables involved with that and their expected relationship. At the same time, I had to be as assured and as fastidious as possible in my statement because I knew that “honest errors” had no place in those reports, due to the limited capacity to correct them.

Meanwhile, within that narcissistic scenario of pseudo-scientists discovering an answer and seeing one's own portrait spread worldwide as a hero or pointing out someone to blame, I continued bravely researching the COVID disease, struggling with my own weakness, and living inside the same prison bars that everyone found themselves in. I had to live with the weight of the responsibility of truth without the bias of vanity along with the fear of the responsibility of freeing myself from death.

I was not the hero nor the scientist. My feeling was that in fact I was the “impostor,” who made the exhaustive analysis of the lungs’ scars of COVID-19 patients. I was part of the risk group for having TB in the past, and would much rather have stayed at home where I felt safe! Oh, to my dismay, I let the mouse escape but still wore the white cape of hero. I am Dr. PESSANHA who realized that heroism is an ideal that few of us can live up to.

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