Píndaro Martínez Elizondo referred to the history of this association in the commemorative book for the 50th anniversary of PANLAR as “first notes”. "It is a provocation and a call to all members to provide information that in the short term allows us to get to know each other better from our origins," he said, and declared himself receptive to continuing that conversation initiated by the directors of that time: doctors Adil Muhib Samara and Geraldo Gomes de Freitas.

That conversation continued over time. In 2012, doctors Ernesto Gutfraind, Fernando Neubarth and Miguel Albanese, commissioned by doctor Antonio Ximenes and his executive committee, presented a selection of slides called "PANLAR and its affiliates". In them, Ximenes defines history as a succession of events that occur over time, which reflects the heritage of a culture and documents the most transcendental events in an era, of a civilization and also of a society. However, when reviewing the historical archives of the organization, there was very little information about our history, beyond that found in these initiatives and that transmitted orally. This being the case, and as the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of PANLAR approaches, we thought that there was still room to continue this relevant conversation, which ultimately becomes our greatest heritage. This time we thought that a comprehensive and collective project had to be addressed, for which we set out to review all the information possible from the projects and the people who had previously carried out the task of digging up the history, the data from the national societies through their traditional keepers of information from the past, as well as some writings by various enthusiasts who have brought various approaches to the subject. Despite what was obtained, we considered it insufficient for the scope of the project and for this reason we decided to use the new media to approach possible sources of additional information, among others a WhatsApp group that we called "History of PANLAR".

As we collected the information and validated it publicly through the group and a preliminary digital archive, we had an up-to-date idea: what would be the ideal way to present it? Although some points in this story had been written chronologically before, we wanted to add components of form, presentation and participation that will help members, especially the new generations, to better understand this story to encourage them to continue writing and enrich it with new stages. for many more generations.

Gabriel García Márquez's phrase that “to tell a story you need two conditions: having a story to tell and knowing how to tell it” resonated with us permanently while we were shaping this project. The final inspiration came from one of the most fascinating books of recent times "Sapiens, a brief history of humanity", by Yuval Noah Harari, world bestseller, and which tells how Homo Sapiens stood out above other animals and hominids, attributing this advantage to the ability to have myths: “We live in groups or herds, we develop communication systems, we form gangs against others and we invent myths in order to establish ourselves in cohesive ways in determined spaces. As a result, we produce limits, we define borders, we create defensive systems, codes and ways of organizing the social order”, everything that defines us as “us”. That ability to have myths, legends and create traditions distinguishes sapiens. Thus, the stories told from generation to generation become the force that has driven development for millennia of humanity.

Having the story, I needed someone to tell it. I soon found the answer at my university, from the mouth of the person who has edited –among hundreds of projects– the medical journal and other editorial incursions: Zoila Sotomayor. This experienced editor recommended Fabián Buelvas, a young and brilliant writer, with a solid academic background, psychologist and master's degree, an expert in the use of words and their qualitative analysis; he would have the mission of giving a contemporary vision of our history, based on real documents, that would connect with all the potential readers of this book.

The result is in your hands: a book divided into four sections. The first is dedicated to the history of PANLAR and describes the events that are part of our history, concentrating more on how they happened. In this way, facts were specified about the beginning of the feat to found PANLAR, the first and oldest Regional League of ILAR, which began 75 years ago; the first meetings and executions and their relationship with the historical moments of the birth of rheumatology as a well-defined and modern specialty; the struggle of the new countries that were joining PANLAR to achieve its recognition and contributions to the organization and the specialty; the need to promote the horizontal growth of the association through the study groups, and the progressive changes and adjustments that were necessary to reach today's PANLAR. This section in particular and the book in general also stands out for compiling all the formal and informal bibliography written on PANLAR and, despite certain narrative permissions, trying to be faithful to the academic documents on which it was based.

The second part defines it in a time line that lists the historical milestones of PANLAR and recognizes the who's who of the organization, its presidents, its boards of directors, teachers and in general all those who have contributed to the League in its different stages. and roles expanding the information that we had for 25 years and that, as a "provocation", invited us to continue Dr. Píndaro Martínez. In the third section, divided into two parts, you can review how PANLAR works today, the excerpts from the President's Notes that we have written throughout the period and that are intended to remind leaders of the obligation to reflect on the future and the challenges of the organization, the past being just the prologue or a reference about where we come from. At the end of the book, there is a section full of images obtained thanks to the collective collaboration of many PANLAR members, as well as other well-known classic photographs, which together constitute the collective memory of our organization and the memory of its most precious heritage: their people.

It only remains to thank all those who contributed to this work. To doctors Antonio Iglesias and Ernesto García McGregor, with their ideas and reviews; to the former presidents Píndaro Martínez, Adil Muhib Samara, Abraham García Kutzbach, Juan Angulo, Luis Espinoza, Antonio Ximenes, John Reveille and Carlos Pineda, with whom I had personal conversations and exchanges and through emails; doctors Miguel Albanese, Luis Catoggio and Fernando Neubarth; to the Executive and Communications Committees that supported and allowed me to develop the idea I had in mind, and to all those who talked to me about it or sent us photographic material and documents that were most useful.

I believe that the book relates almost all the relevant events and myths of PANLAR, and establishes in an original and innovative way who "we" are after 75 years. As a living history, it continues to be a challenge and a call to all its members to try to keep and share these memories as something essential to build our collective memory. The project and this book leave us with an institutional historical archive and also create a benchmark for the future: we want it to be an invitation for the new generations of rheumatologists to get to know better and love this specialty and its roots in our continent, value the fraternity united by the science and the heart of which Dr. Ruiz Moreno, one of its founders, speaks, and can continue contributing more chapters to this already great and important story, which is the heritage of all members of the PANLAR community and of global rheumatology.