The ‘evil eye’ and its links to medicine. Photo: Unsplash When Dr Maria Irini Avgoulas’ father suffered a heart attack and survived she used the trauma as inspiration to conduct ground-breaking research in the understanding of culture and health. Since 2011 Dr Avgoulas, an Academic at La Trobe University in Melbourne has published several significant papers which highlight how Greek Australians approached illness. One of those included a PhD at Deakin University in ‘Health Beliefs and Practices in Three Generations of Greek Australian Women in Melbourne’. Dr Avgoulas explained how her father’s cardiac event inspired her first study in 2011 that led to eye-opening conclusions on how the Greek elderly adjust to cardiovascular disease. “That where my interest started,” she told Neos Kosmos. “I’ve actually dedicated my PhD to my parents and to all the Immigrants of the Greek diaspora. When my dad had a massive heart attack it […]