Macao ABROAD
The world is not enough Nothing stops Dr Catarina de Oliveira Paulo from trying to save lives. Just like a real hero, no obstacle is too big for the former Macao resident and no place is too far. Text Raquel Dias Photos Rafael Lopes
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f COVID-19 has taught the world anything over the past few months, it’s that all medical professionals are heroes. One such person is Dr Catarina de Oliveira Paulo, a woman who was born and raised in Macao but now, after spending many years practicing as a doctor in Porto, Portugal, is starting work as a doctor in London. This is a medical professional who, on the face of it, has no fear and travels to some of the most dangerous places in the world with just one intention in mind: to help as many people as she can with both her medical expertise and her already extensive life experience. And she’s only 33 years old. Dr Oliveira Paulo, who prefers to be known by her nickname of ‘Kika’, was at the heart of Portugal’s fight against COVID-19 until her move to London just a few weeks ago. But prior to the pandemic, she’s travelled to all corners of the globe to help people who are
dying of malaria, injured in vicious storms, stuck in terrifying refugee camps or stranded in boats while they flee war-torn countries. This former Macao girl is dedicated to saving lives – but she just sees it as ‘doing her best’ for other people. Throughout her life, Dr Oliveira Paulo has enjoyed a strong connection with Macao. She says her mother and grandparents moved to the city from Portugal when her mother was just 14 years old. “My mother,” she says, “later met my father in the city – so I was planned, conceived, born and raised in Macao. And despite the fact that I moved to Lisbon to study medicine in 2005 and also the fact that I’ve been living in Porto, in the north of Portugal, over the past 10 years, I still think of Macao as my home.” The devastating Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, in which more than 230,000 people lost their lives
in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand, inspired Dr Oliveira Paulo, then 17 years old, to pursue a medical career. She says that during her teenage years in Macao, she wanted to become a ‘marine biologist or a veterinarian’. “However,” she says, “in my last year of school, my family and I spent the Christmas of 2004 – as we often did when I was growing up – in Phuket, Thailand. We had so much fun that my two sisters and I convinced my parents to extend our stay at the resort.” Dr Oliveira Paulo says her parents tried but weren’t able to stay longer as their hotel was full, so they flew home instead. “We landed in Bangkok at midnight on 26 December, just hours before the tsunami hit Phuket. We could have still been there had that hotel not been full. The tsunami left behind total devastation and sorrow. I was in shock. It was right there and then that I decided to become a doctor – and I did.”
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