Dr. Manuel Sans Segarra
Manuel Sans Segarra, President of the Senior Section of the Official College of Physicians of Barcelona and full member of the Royal European Academy of Doctors (READ), presented at the 10th International Academic Meeting held by the Royal Corporation between 15 and 20 March in various German cities under the general title “The Rhine as a Current of Knowledge: Cross-Border Dialogues” the lecture “Health in Today’s Society,” in which he offers a broad reflection from the fields of medicine, philosophy and social criticism on the concept of health and its deterioration in the contemporary context. The expert had already addressed the current existential crisis in the academic session that the READ held last March under the title “Humanity in Crisis.” Alongside him participated the honorary members Cristóbal Colón Palasí, founder of the business and social project La Fageda, and Francisco González de Posada, Professor of Physical Foundations at the Polytechnic University of Madrid.
The expert began his analysis with the historical evolution of the concept of health, from the classic definition of the World Health Organization as the absence of disease to a more dynamic conception, in which health is the capacity of individuals to adapt, satisfy needs and develop their lives in interaction with their environment. In this sense, he stressed that health is not an end in itself, but an essential resource for daily life, conditioned by physical, mental, social and even spiritual factors. On a biological level, Sans Segarra explained that disease arises when homeostasis, or the organism’s internal balance, is disrupted. Paradoxically, this disturbance can also be caused by a prolonged neuroendocrine defensive response.
In a society such as today’s, characterised according to the speaker by egocentrism, materialism and a life dynamic that generates chronic stress, the very context acts as a first-order pathogenic agent, responsible for multiple physical and mental disorders, from cardiovascular diseases to emotional disturbances. At this point, Sans Segarra highlighted that the mind plays a decisive role in the aetiology of disease and that a large proportion of current pathologies is influenced by psychological factors. From there, the academic introduced a philosophical and spiritual dimension into his analysis, considering that the loss of meaning in life and the fear of death lie at the root of contemporary malaise. In response, he proposed an individual transformation based on the development of character, education in values and the recognition of a transcendental dimension of the human being, which he called superconsciousness.
“Only when we discover our existential reality, that we are spiritual beings who for an ephemeral time enter the three-dimensional human dimension, will we be able to be happy, free, and greatly enhance our health while at the same time losing our fear of death. There is objective, scientifically based evidence in the study of near-death experiences that allows us to affirm that identity, that which makes us unique and unrepeatable, is our spirit, the superconsciousness, which persists after physical death. Superconsciousness determines a vital dynamic founded on archetypes in which empathy, altruism, goodness, beauty, justice and love prevail,” he concluded.
A pioneer in the use of laparoscopy in general surgery, former Head of Digestive Surgery at the Bellvitge University Hospital, Professor of General and Digestive Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the University of Barcelona, and recipient of the Professional Excellence Award of the Official College of Physicians of Barcelona, Sans Segarra explains how the experience of one of his patients, who was revived after being in a state of clinical death following a traffic accident, changed his perspective and led him to study this phenomenon from a strictly scientific point of view. Since then, he has documented five clinical cases of patients in clinical death who returned to life in collaboration with his medical team. He has set out his knowledge in a didactic way in his recent works “Superconsciousness: Life after Life” and “Ego and Superconsciousness: Seeking the Meaning of Life,” both published by Planeta.
