Puff of equality with the Nóvoa Santos Prize for Medicine

2024-04-30 15:12:44

Puff of equality with the Nóvoa Santos Prize for Medicine

As soon as the XXIII ceremony for her more than well-deserved award was finished at the Fonseca Palace in the Galician capital, Dr. Luz Couce, still emotional, wanted to leave a clear message to society as a whole:

“Biomedical research and scientific innovation are the most effective means to improve the health of the world’s population.”

During the ceremony, led by the president of the Xunta, Alfonso Rueda Valenzuela, the head of the Neonatology Service of the University Clinical Hospital of Santiago highlighted the vocation, intelligence, effort, commitment and constant work that is valued with the Asomega award.

“It means that women doctors, researchers and scientists are there, getting closer. Today, our healthcare work must be clearly linked to research and teaching to contribute to achieving an adequate level of health excellence,” emphasizes the director. of the to you.

“In fact, young people come promoting research with great force; and it is very important and nice to show them the route, the way to follow,” testifies the person also responsible for her hospital in the Diagnosis and Treatment Unit of Congenital Metabolic Diseases.

In his opinion, this message “of hope” should penetrate, like rain on more or less fertile land, in all young doctors in this country, in Latin America or in any other region of the world.

“In Spanish healthcare it is easier than in Latin America, where it possibly costs them a little more. Even so, I have very good Latin American colleagues who are great researchers and professionals, always working with enthusiasm and a desire to improve,” she credits.

“But in any case, I have no doubt that research requires both human and material resources and convenient spaces for this purpose; two keys to attracting new and attractive talent,” he explains.

“It is appropriate to say that research is engaging, it is very beautiful, and it is the most avant-garde formula to increase the health of the population every day, even more so in the first years of life,” he reaffirms.

A good example can be found in the last Congress of the Spanish Society of Neonatology in 2023, where the latest advances in maternal-fetal health or the impact of viral infections in the neonatal period in the short and long term (RSV and screening) were analyzed. universal cytomegalovirus).

Studies were also presented on the limits of the viability of the micro-preemie, nutrition strategies in special situations, advances in the safety and humanization of neonatal units or on the challenges of AI in the future.

Furthermore, these neonatologists spoke about prediction in bronchopulmonary dysplasia with ultrasound, clinical and omics markers; or the identification and characterization of the molecular signaling mechanisms of extracellular vesicles (exosomes) in breast milk and their relationship with prematurity.

The Nóvoa Santos Prize, a humanist achievement between doctors of the past and doctors of the future

Precisely, 30 years ago, in 1994, the Association of Galician Doctors was born. It is a majority story of illustrious men who have left us “science, humanism and universal vocation,” says the president of Asomega, Dr. Julio Ancochea Bermúdez.

“But all glass ceilings are about to break into a thousand pieces,” he reasons.

Spirit and vital norm that Asomega and its president, since 2016, unanimously re-elected In mid-March 2024, they wear a gala with avant-garde criteria.

“In the history of the Nóvoa Santos Awards, established in 1996, only two women appeared: Dr. María José Alonso Fernández, in 2011, and Dr. Pilar Rodríguez Ledo, in 2021. With Dr. Marí Luz Couce Our peak honor roll shines much brighter with three extraordinary women”, sets in her honor.

“Luz Couce demonstrates a commendable professional and human career, and unparalleled clinical-scientific medical wisdom, and always with humility. She infinitely deserves the XXIII Nóvoa Santos Prize for Medicine because she is an eminence,” he asserts.

“He brings together in his person the commitment to Galicia, to research and innovation in rare, minority diseases. He shines with his own light for his scientific production and for the international projection of his different research groups,” he emphasizes.

“In fact, Luz Couce has shared the XXIII Nóvoa Santos Prize with the pediatrician Rosaura Picans, a young IDIS researcher under her tutelage, and with the Andrea Foundation, an entity that supports hospitalized boys and girls and their families,” he points out.

“Asomega is rejuvenated and feminized, and there we have the example of Dr. Rodríguez Ledo, current president of the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians (SEMG),” he says.

“And we have no borders. Galician doctors are international references on all continents,” proclaims the chief pulmonologist of La Princesa born in the A Pobra de Trives orensa.

With equal declarative intensity, the President of the Parliament of Galicia, Miguel Ángel Santalices Vieiraproudly states that Dr. María Luz Couce Pico “is the one who can best represent our society today.”

Santalices Vieira, a doctor by profession, emphasizes that Couce Pico combines the three ideal aspects that are always required of doctors: “Teaching, research and commitment to care.”

“In addition, I admire her for the changes that she has wisely made in her areas of health competence by promoting research and converting the Neonatology Service that she directs at the University Clinical Hospital of Santiago into a cutting-edge reference for all of Spain.”

“In Galicia we were used to traveling to other regions because we did not have certain health resources here. Fortunately, this situation has transformed to the point that we are now recipients of patients from all over Spain who want to receive medical care in Galicia,” he highlights.

Is Dr. María Luz Couce Pico a positive reflection for all youth?

“Yes, she is undoubtedly a leading woman and I think she is already recognized throughout the world, but I consider that this Nóvoa Santos Award will give her greater impetus, since the Asomega award has a fairly important impact in the field of Medicine “, he says.

“And not only am I very happy for her, but I am particularly pleased with her kindness, since during her speech at the Nóvoa Santos Award ceremony she valued the impressive work of all her collaborators,” he underlines.

“It is a gesture of generosity that honors him… The greatest are usually humble“, the president of the Galician Parliament leaves in the air so that the videographic wind spreads it here and there.

But if there was any person happier than Luz Couce herself in the Coffered Hall of the Fonseca Palace, it was the person. Dr. Pilar Rodríguez Ledospecialist in Primary Care.

“I carry with me very striking memories of the Nóvoa Santos award that Asomega awarded me in September 2021, still under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic,” he recalls.

“Reliving such an extraordinary act on a professional and personal level in the person of Dr. Couce has been tremendously emotional for me,” one of the directors of the Lugo Health Area, A Mariña e Monforte de Lemos, tells us.

And with a smile illuminated by her violet jacket, she reaffirms herself out of absolute conviction in a clairvoyant message: “Women in power.”

“The Nóvoa Santos Award from Asomega helps break into a thousand pieces the glass ceiling that limits the development of women in any area of ​​life. Luz Couce and I are very proud and grateful to have received such an important award,” he emphasizes.

But is the Nóvoa Santos Prize for Medicine only a recognition of the truth?

“It is a recognition of my colleagues and that is worth more than anything else. Surely, the truth has many legs, but I agree that it is a recognition of the doctors, of my profession,” he concludes.

The ceremony to present the XXIII Nóvoa Santos Prize for Medicine awarded by Asomega was attended by the president of the Xunta, Alfonso Rueda Valenzuela, the president of the Galician Parliament, Miguel Santalices Vieira, the Minister of Health, Antonio Gómez Caamaño, the mayor of Santiago, Goretti Sanmartín, the vice-rector of Scientific Policy of the University of Santiago de Compostela, Pilar Bermejo Barrera, and the representative of the pharmaceutical company Roche, Ángel Hernández.

The presentation of the winner of the XXIII Nóvoa Santos Prize was given by professor Ángel María Carracedo Álvarezprofessor of Forensic Medicine and international expert in genetics, who from the first moment made it clear that “Luz Couce is a friend more than a companion.”

And he told a truly significant anecdote: “Couce was debating whether to study Law or Medicine and he opted for the latter. And he has never regretted it because this profession allows us to see all the complexity of the human being and be able to help people.”

Dr. María Luz Couce Pico, to conclude, what message do you send to all the girls who want to be scientists?

“It is an especially beautiful, hard career, which has many ups and downs, but it is engaging. And once you start it, the scientific career leaves a very deep mark on you; you see that the little ones little steps What we give every day contributes to the health of the entire population.

In the case of women, being mothers does not have to impede their professional development, since they can always continue with their research and scientific careers. “I know it is not easy, but the message has to be one of hope: our society must commit to research.”

Dr. María Luz Couce Pico, XXIII Nóvoa Santos Prize for Medicine… “A sun for women and men,” adds the EFEsalud journalist.