Being a researcher at the IIS Aragón from a town with less than 500 inhabitants

Rebeca Sanz Pamplona is a bioinformatics specialist and works remotely, leading the Cancer Heterogeneity and Immunomics group at the IIS Aragón from her hometown, Urrea de Gaen in Teruel. The researcher has returned after spending more than two decades in Barcelona and considers herself a rural woman, far from stereotypes, who defends the shortcomings of health care in villages and values ​​freedom.

Rebeca Sanz Pamplona attends the interview from which this article was born between a break from work and the time when the kids leave school. This 44 year old biologist She is the mother of two children aged three and eight. The need for conciliation and raising children were decisive for Rebeca and her husband, Marc, when deciding to return to live in the village, Urrea of ​​Gaen, four years ago now. “I left here when I was 18, to study Biology in Barcelona, ​​but never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would be able to return to Aragon, to my village, to work as a researcher,” explains Rebeca, who was in the city of Barcelona for the next 22 years of her life: “And it wasn’t because I didn’t try to go to other places,” she adds.

Restless by nature, Sanz applied for several scholarships to study in Madrid and abroad, but in the end “fate wanted her to continue in projects linked to Barcelona.” “Looking back, I am happy, I do not regret having taken this path in my own way; in fact, I think it has gone very well for me,” says this biologist who found in bioinformatics the job that truly makes her happy:

“I discovered that thanks to bioinformatics you can analyze many genes at the same time, I work in this field now and I can't say that it's a hobby, but I do feel fulfilled and whenever I have some free time I open the computer and get to work, because I really like what I do”

Rebecca Sanz

The pandemic was the moment when Rebeca Sanz had the opportunity to leave Barcelona and spend a couple of months in the village working remotely. A decision she made supported by her husband, a computer scientist born in Barcelona who had always liked Urrea: “In fact, he was the one who most insisted that we come here to live, his support has been fundamental, he has always put my career first because he knows how important it is to me,” confesses the researcher, who at first doubted that a highly qualified job could be carried out from a village.

After this brief experience, which turned out to be very positive for both of them: “We realized that it was feasible to lead this life, and that it was what we wanted for our children.”. Rebeca applied for a scholarship in Zaragoza which also “went well, they granted it to me, I asked for a leave of absence in Barcelona and we settled in Urrea,” says the Teruel native who admits that, although the scholarship was for one year, she always hoped to be able to extend it as long as possible.

A research group with six professionals in charge

Three years later, Rebeca Sanz He leads a research group, with six professionals under his charge, and travels a couple of days a week to Zaragoza.: “I like having contact with my colleagues, socializing and seeing each other in person” and the rest of the time he works remotely from Urrea de Gaén. 

Living in a village has not limited her when it comes to maintaining and strengthening ties with other colleagues. Proof of this is that, one out of every two Fridays, she holds a video conference meeting with her colleagues from the United States: “Although we have a fluid relationship by email, every two weeks we share experiences through the screen, almost as if we were in a physical meeting,” says the researcher, who connects from her village of 400 inhabitants in the province of Teruel, with colleagues from the City of Hope, one of the world's leading cancer research and treatment organizations, which connect from the states of Ohio and California. And, as if by magic, when the connection with the USA closes, Rebeca and her family go out for tapas in the village. 

Far from what it might seem, Rebeca Sanz assures that making the decision to live and work from a village “has not been a step backwards” in her professional career: “Quite the opposite, It has given me the independence that I needed for a long time, now I work with the freedom that a part of me has been asking for for a long time”, she says. An autonomy that she had not been able to experience until now in other face-to-face projects in which she was more supervised, and professionally burdened, by the figure of a superior. “Now I even have people under my charge, and I can work with more freedom, even though I don’t live in a city. Living in a town, in a certain way, has helped me advance as a professional in the field of research.”

And he admits that, although not consciously, the quieter life, with less stress and visual and sound noise in the village, has been beneficial for the development of his research work:

“I live at the end of the village, from the window where I work I see the countryside and sometimes I have caught myself looking at the horizon, thinking. Yes, I think this change of life has been beneficial for me in many ways”

Rebecca Sanz

Doctors, roads and internet connection

Doctors, especially paediatricians, safer roads and a good internet connection are the demands that Rebeca Sanz makes as a woman who lives in a rural area in Aragon. Recently, the medical centre in Híjar, the town where Rebeca's children were treated, has been left without a paediatric service: “At the moment, as it is very recent, we do not know how it will be solved, everything points to it being solved, but, in any case, this would be a serious problem for young families with children who live in any town, Pediatric care is vitalThe researcher highlights the problem posed by the lack of medical and nursing professionals in rural areas, but also the state of the roads and the lack of public transport connections to the provincial capitals: “The frequency of train schedules to Zaragoza is disastrous,” Sanz complains. 

Urrea de Gaén has two bars, one of which is also a restaurant and a country house, they also have a pharmacy, a butcher's shop, a family doctor, a school and a nursery "which continues to be maintained with the children who arrive." One of the main advances has been the implementation of the canteen service in the school: "It is a classroom tupper“The children bring food from home, a monitor helps them heat it up and then they have activities until 5 in the afternoon,” explains Rebeca Sanz.

Currently, ten children between the ages of three and eight use this service, which was achieved thanks to the efforts of the school's mothers. “Most of the children who use the classroom tupper They are children of mothers who work in the village or nearby, and their implementation has helped us to reconcile our jobs and parenting”, says the researcher. These types of initiatives are also essential for young people to see that it is feasible to stay and live in rural areas. Such as the free playroom service two afternoons a week, thanks to the involvement of the region, to which the residents are very grateful.  

Rural women: beyond the primary sector

Rebeca Sanz considers herself a rural woman not only because she likes the way of life in a village; more relaxed and with nature on her doorstep, but because she tries to participate in everything that is organized in the village and also consume in the services of the town “I buy frozen food from the man who comes with the truck and I order as little as possible from Amazon if I can buy it in a local store”. Gestures that “build community” and that are especially noticeable in small places. 

The case of this researcher from Teruel shows that the profile of women living in villages is very diverse. “It is almost a cliché that we are all farmers or ranchers,” explains Rebeca Sanz. Among the group of mothers who have managed to set up the classroom tupper At the school there is a nurse, a company administrator, a social worker, the researcher who is the subject of this article, and other profiles of women who live in Urrea and work in occupations that have nothing to do with the primary sector or agro-food processing. A claim that they have been making for years since the Federation of Rural Women's Associations, stressing that “there are many and diverse rural women.” 

Innovation, research, highly qualified training and liberal professions have a place in rural areas if the necessary tools are provided: internet connection, housing, and quality transport and communications. These are the demands that top the list of priority services in rural areas in order to try to attract and retain population. 

One people: one network

Living in a village has its “less positive” aspects, Rebeca Sanz admits. One of them is the lack of privacy. “There are far fewer people than in a larger place and we all know each other, for better and for worse. Sometimes, because relationships are so close, they are also more intense,” she points out. However, in the case of the biologist, the balance is tilted towards the positive. “Living in Urrea has many more advantages”, he says. Some of these are shorter journeys, the confidence when asking a neighbour or your parents to pick up your children, or the flexibility of schedules:

«Here you don't have to depend on metro or bus frequencies to get around, I go to pilates twice a week, my children go to sports activities, they go to the park, I already draw the town next door so they can expand their friendships, I do more things in Urrea than I had time to do in Barcelona, although there was a greater range of leisure activities there”

Rebecca Sanz

This researcher, who considers herself a defender of the model of life in a village, is very aware that being a mother has been key in making decisions about where to live: “This is the life I want for my children. I notice a big difference between the oldest, who was born in Barcelona, ​​and the youngest who came to Urrea when he was only fifteen days old.”, Rebeca confesses. “Tribal upbringing” is one of the characteristics that many rural women who are mothers, and who do not want to give up their professional development, value about life in a village. “I have my parents, Trini and Emiliano, nearby, who are essential to me, and I can ask them for a favor, but without having them enslaved,” explains the biologist, who recognizes that the shorter distances and the “ease of the administration” help to reconcile families and means that there is not such a pronounced dependency as there is in a city when you have children, “here they can go out on the street for a while alone without the constant supervision of an adult, and that is healthy for them as children, and for us as parents.” 

Before ending the conversation, Rebeca tells us that another mother from the village has given her some mushrooms that look spectacular, “we ran into her on the street when we went up to pick up the kids” and adds smiling: “This kind of thing is normal for us in the village, but I'm sure that in a city, being given some mushrooms, eggs or vegetables on the street would be quite an anecdote.” 

Source: elDiario.es