Minister of Health promised “life project in Portugal” to FMUP students

A Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martinswas in Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (FMUP)on May 5th, to participate in the ceremony of Imposition of the Insignia to the finalists, having left words of congratulations and encouragement for future doctors.

“I hope they can continue to take care of us here in Portugal. Even if you leave, please come back! What I can promise is that I will do everything to ensure that they have a life plan in Portugal”, assured the government official.

On what was also Mother’s Day, the director of FMUP, Altamiro da Costa Pereiraconsidered that the Minister of Health is, at this moment, “the mother of the National Health Service”. An analogy that Ana Paula Martins accepted, totaling, in total, “around 150 thousand children”.

Showing that she is aware of the responsibility of the position she has assumed, the person in charge stated that “there are answers that we will have to find very quickly. No government can stop thinking about those who are involved in the care process on a daily basis, such as our doctors. There is a relationship process with all professions that needs to be deepened, with the effort of everyone”.

In this sense, he challenged, in particular, those whom he calls “the doctors of my country”, who, he believes, “will be called upon to exercise their leadership capacity for which the teaching of Medicine, deeply differentiated and, above all, humanist, summons them”.

Addressing the finalists, the Minister of Health highlighted that “Medicine is the most demanding profession, not only in health, but of all professions. This can only be called a vocation. In everything that doctors, scientists, teachers, educators, volunteers will be, medicine will always, even with artificial intelligence, be a human activity.”

Like the director of the Integrated Masters in Medicine at FMUP, José Gerardo Oliveira, for whom “health is the most successful sector”, the minister highlighted that “if there is an area of ​​the country and governance that has responded to the Portuguese, it is the health. Perhaps this is why the Portuguese, whatever their political ideology, see health as a priority. The SNS is something that the Portuguese do not want to lose, they do not want to leave behind”.

However, he concedes: “It’s not okay. We cannot say that everything is fine when there are parishes where 80% of people have no family doctors. The question is what we have to do so that we don’t continue like this. It is this humility that has to be in action.”

The session also included the participation of the president of AEFMUP, Emília Pinho, the president of the Board of Directors of ULS São João, Maria João Batista, the president of the FMUP Pedagogical Council, Roberto Roncon de Albuquerque, the representative of the FMUP finalists, Miguel Taveira, in addition to Dux Medicus Facultis and also finalist, Mohammed Mussa.

Congratulations to all the mothers were common to all the speeches – and, although it wasn’t their day, also to the fathers, grandparents and loved ones, present or not, who contributed to the finalists’ journey and who will now “deliver their children to the job market”, as highlighted by Maria João Baptista.

Roncon de Albuquerque also sees this ceremony as “a family celebration” that marks the transition to a new phase in the lives of these future doctors, whose path could involve internationalization, which he sees as “an opportunity”.

Emília Pinho, president of AEFMUP, gave a more emotional speech, expressing gratitude for the mark left by the students: For everyone, our house remains open!”