Victoria Pueyo: In Aragon there is a lack of support to undertake large projects

El Periódico de Aragón interviews Victoria Pueyo, pediatric ophthalmologist at the Miguel Servet University Hospital in Zaragoza, head of the Vision, Image and Neurodevelopment group at IIS Aragón and professor of Biostatistics at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Zaragoza

Victoria Pueyo Royo (Zaragoza, 46 years old). «I think that in Aragón there is a lot of talent, but on too many occasions we discover it when it develops outside our community». This pediatric ophthalmologist expresses herself with this clarity. She carries out her research and healthcare activities at the Miguel Servet University Hospital in Zaragoza and as a professor of Biostatistics at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Zaragoza. She assures that there are a large number of Aragonese in management positions of institutions and multinational companies, “that we barely know in Aragon,” she laments. From his experience, the training provided at the University of Zaragoza is good and trains professionals “who are highly valued outside of Aragon and Spain.” “As Aragonese we should believe in it and know how to take advantage of it,” he adds.

“It makes me very sad to see that people tremendously valid, she leaves Aragón to develop her professional career. I think that, in this sense, we all have some responsibility, starting with the institutions. In Aragon there is a lack of support to undertake large projects.” Administrative obstacles and difficulties in financing are, in his opinion, the main problems why many researchers leave Spain. But, even without leaving our country, «other autonomous communities have regulations and programs much more favorable for growth. Here we spend too much effort fighting against bureaucratic complexity and there are so many difficulties that many initiatives that could have been successful fade over time. "Sometimes, we lack the feeling that the leaders of our institutions want to accompany and support us on this path full of obstacles."

Pueyo Royo is the principal investigator of the group Health Research Institute (IIS Aragón) in Vision, Image and Neurodevelopmentor, a multidisciplinary team of ophthalmologists, engineers, opticians-optometrists and psychologists that develops research projects focused on the visual development of children. She is critical of the current management of health professionals in the public system, since “it is very difficult to develop a professional career for doctors who now finish MIR training. The constant mobility between different contracts and hospitals for years makes it impossible for doctors to super-specialize. Not only is it not supported, but it is penalized for our doctors to temporarily go out to train in pioneering centers worldwide.”

Source: The newspaper of Aragon

Image: Jaime Galindo