Expatriate mother

Petar Lubarda said, once, "When I see an emigrant come back, I know he came to die!"

After several decades of living and working in New York, Dr. Dušan Kosović returned, and died in Herceg Novi at the age of eighty-nine.

I met him in New York, in the fall of the XNUMXs, at a dinner in Greenwich Village, at my school friend, from Cetinje, Paja Kusovac.

- Kosović is not an ordinary man, Slobo! - says my friend, Bajram Vukelj from Gusinja, New York. - He is in the Who's Who in America book. He is a poor mother. Kosovic is a force!

Bad working conditions

After completing his studies, doctor Dušan Kosović got a job at the hospital in Kruševac, Titograd; stout, handsome, with a beard. The women of Tito town said that he looked like Njegoš.

- When I came to Montenegro from my studies, there were no conditions for work - Dr. Dušan Kosović told me.

- With great difficulty, I was given a small ward of twenty to thirty beds, located in the former stable of Prince Mirko Petrović, in Kruševac, in what was then Titograd. As the only neurologist and psychiatrist in Montenegro at the time, I had to work from six in the morning to ten in the evening. I reviewed an average of a hundred people a day. In fact, no one made me work so hard, but I couldn't watch those poor, unhappy people waiting for hours and days, so I had to help the sick...

Doctor Kosović then quit his job.

- The construction of the building was still delayed and when I saw that they would not give me people for specialization, that they would not give me an apartment, nor any conditions for the development of psychiatry, I, as you correctly say, quit my job. Blažo Jovanović personally asked me to withdraw my resignation - says Kosović.

- A competition for the construction of a department for psychiatry was soon announced. Architect Miljević made the project. I gave the instructions, the plan was good, but nothing from the construction. Then I asked the hospital to help me financially to build an apartment and got the answer that it was "not socialist". In the meantime, all department heads got apartments, and it was socialist! Obviously, I was bothering some people and they did everything to make me quit my job. I went out into the world. In order to assert myself and get my rightful place in American society and psychiatry, I had to start over. Here, in America, no one asks you what your religion is, what your beliefs are, where you come from, where your roots are. Everyone must respect the laws and deal with things in a civilized manner...

The founder of the psychiatric-neurological service in Montenegro, Dušan Kosović, became one of the leading psychiatrists in America: a member of the American Academy of Medicine and Law, then the New York Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Academy of Psychiatry, professor of psychiatry at New York University.

Morality of our grandfathers

It's not easy with Montenegro! It's even harder without her. Montenegrins left the threshold to the world "due to poverty", but also various injustices, in order to conquer their threshold, their place in their native nest. In the big, wide world, built brilliant careers. The Montenegrin leaver did not forget Montenegro.

- I grew up in a Montenegrin family, which means that I was already there faced with the ethical tradition of our tradition and the primordial virtues of humanity. I think that, from a moral point of view, by the nature of things, basically defined me to this day - diagnoses doctor Kosović. - Sometimes it seems to me that this is the morality that I carry in my genes. I, too, am truly sorry that the lofty morals of our grandfathers have disappeared...

During my stays in New York, I sometimes sat with Kosović in the garden of the La Maganette restaurant, on the corner of Third Avenue and Fiftieth Street, not far from his office. The famous Montenegrin film director Živko Nikolić was also there. The project he offered (The Haunted Ship) was rejected by the Community of Culture of Serbia. There was no place for him in that production, he felt redundant in his homeland, so he came to America to, as he says, seek more happiness here, in this space.

Free examinations for the poor

We are talking about Kosović's book Stress, which has seen several editions; translated in Italy, Japan, China and Russia.

- And since the book was accepted by the widest readership, perhaps the reasons should be sought in the fact that it pointed out the possibilities of prevention - emphasized Dr. Kosović.

- I thought that awareness of the disease can become a significant prerequisite for its successful prevention. Based on this book of mine, the director Živko Nikolić, who now lives in New York, wrote the screenplay. We will try to film this current topic of human everyday life.

Montenegrins in America said that Dr. Kosović's mother was an immigrant. He created a research protocol, trying to find how and what problems our expats most often encounter.

- Our people often go out into the world unprepared, they sail under illusions that they will get rich as soon as they come to America - said Dr. Kosović.

- In the meantime, they are not learning the language. Sometimes they study for months and years without learning English, and without English you can't do anything, so I don't know what kind of expert you are. Then there are severe disappointments, a gap between expectations and harsh reality. People who come without immigrant visas, without proper papers, have great difficulties. I try to help our people here, when they have trouble, when they don't have medicine. When they don't have money, I never ask them for examinations, and even if they offer me money, I don't take it from the poor, because I know that I went through the same pains...

And: said Bajram Vukelj from Gusinja, New York: Kosović is a force!