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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Guardian reporters

We can be heroes: the inspiring people we met around the world in 2025 – part one

Portrait of Adana Kambeba in the rainforest with a stethoscope around her neck and wearing a feather headband
Adana Omágua Kambeba was the first among her people, the Kambebas, to graduate in medicine and combines it with her role as a practising shaman. Photograph: Marizilda Cruppe/The Guardian

The Indigenous doctor uniting western and traditional medicine in Brazil

In 2012, Adana Omágua Kambeba travelled 4,000km (2,500 miles) from her home in Manaus, in the Brazilian Amazon, to take up a coveted place to study medicine at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in south-east Brazil. She became the first among her people, the Kambeba, or Omágua, to graduate in the field, still largely dominated by white elites. According to the 2022 census, Indigenous people represented 0.1% of those who graduated in medicine in Brazil.

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