Sometimes people say to me, "Professor, you're so rosy."
They say it with a slight smile and a certain caution, as if they're not sure whether it's a compliment. And I know they don't mean the color. They mean the way I talk about medicine, about prevention, about life. They mean that my language is less harsh than they might expect from a doctor. And yet it remains precise. A precision that comes from experience, not distance.
Pink has never been a decoration for me. It is the color of experience. It symbolically belongs to women with breast cancer. It belongs to Belliskas. It belongs to moments when a person stops asking what they look like and starts asking who they are. Once you experience this color from the other side, you never perceive it superficially again. It becomes part of your body's memory.
I have been working with Bellisky since the very beginning of my personal oncological diagnosis of breast cancer. Not as an outside observer, but as a woman who found herself in the same situation as them. Bellisky is a patient project that arose from the need for women to speak with their own voices, share experiences, navigate information, and not remain alone in their illness. It is this patient initiative that has gradually opened up space for deeper cooperation with experts and also for the creation of support centers and programs, which we now consider a natural part of comprehensive oncological care. For me, working with Bellisky is not a supplement to my professional work. It is a natural part of it, because it connects medicine with the reality of life.
I am a preventive medicine doctor. My entire professional life has been spent in a field where we work with risk, probability, and time. I teach that lifestyle diseases are not a coincidence. That hypertension, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and some cancers develop slowly, quietly, without warning signs. I teach that prevention works. And that its essence is simple. Get there in time.
The professor is wearing the INFINITE MedStyle Premium Scrub Coat, pink medical blouse and pink INFINITE MedStyle trousers. She is also wearing the MDF 777 Rose Gold stethoscope – an elegant, lightweight and reliable companion for everyday practice.
For a long time, I thought that information was enough. Data. Recommendations. Then I got sick and realized that prevention doesn't start with data, but primarily in the mind, in our mindset. In how we think about ourselves, how we deal with fear, how willing we are to hear uncomfortable truths. Only from this mental mindset does prevention translate into emotions, behavior, and ultimately the body.
From the patient's perspective, the world of medicine looks different. Suddenly, you know that people don't put off prevention because they are irresponsible. They put it off because they are afraid. They are afraid of the moment when vague unease turns into a named reality. They are afraid of losing control. And fear cannot be dispelled with arguments.
Prevention breaks down the moment a person decides to enter the doctor's office. And this decision is deeply influenced by how their mind is set. Whether they perceive their body as an ally or a threat. Whether they are internally prepared to hear the answer. Emotions are then not the opposite of rationality. They are its continuation.
Chronic stress affects blood pressure, metabolism, and immune response. We know this. Yet we often underestimate that the prevention of lifestyle diseases is linked to long-term mental attitude, a sense of security, and meaning. The brain does not respond to an abstract future. It responds to the present and whether it sees a reason to continue.
The nucleus accumbens, the center of motivation and reward, plays a key role in this process. It needs small impulses that confirm that self-care is meaningful. Peace. Dignity. Small joys. Without them, the motivation to change habits, go for checkups, and take prevention seriously disappears. Hope is not sentimentality. It is a neurobiological condition for change.
After a double mastectomy, a woman's relationship with her own body changes fundamentally. The body ceases to be a matter of course. It becomes a bearer of memory. And this is where it is decided whether a woman can remain in touch with her femininity. The feeling of femininity is not a superficial category. It is part of health. A woman must not lose herself, even in the name of survival.
That's why pink medical clothing makes sense to me. Not as an aesthetic gesture, but as part of restoring dignity and humanity to the field of medicine. Clothing in which a woman can feel good without losing her professionalism. Clothing that promotes a sense of wholeness. When a woman feels good in her own body, she takes better care of herself. And that is prevention in practice.
I decided to write about my experiences in a book called Doktorka v růžovém aneb můj život s rakovinou (The Doctor in Pink, or My Life with Cancer). Not to write about the disease itself, but to describe the transformation of my view of life, medicine, and prevention. The book arose from the need to give voice to ideas that often remain unspoken in the daily routine of a hospital. It is intended for women, doctors, and anyone who wants to understand that prevention is not about scaring people, but about their relationship with themselves.
Prevention is not moralizing. It is creating conditions in which a person can make good decisions. For themselves. In peace.
And that is why I say that pink is not just a color. Pink is prevention. A reminder that medicine does not begin with diagnosis, but with a state of mind. That arriving early is an act of courage. And that hope, quiet and everyday, is one of the most powerful preventive tools we have.
Health is often not saved when we start treatment. It is saved much earlier. In the thoughts we allow ourselves to have. And in the decisions that grow from them.
MY MOTTO
Prevention begins in the mind. In the courage to think truthfully about yourself, to stay in touch with your body, and to give hope space to work.
Prof. Lenka Borská, MD, PhD, Head of the Department of Preventive Medicine
