Having worked with us for almost 50 years, António Barbosa said goodbye to his academic and hospital life in the Aula Magna where only those who were going to speak could be present, while all the others attended digitally. The Full Professor of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon was also Director of the University Clinic of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology, Head of the Psychiatry and Mental Health Service at the Northern Lisbon University Hospital Centre (CHULN), and co-founder of the Centre for Bioethics, conducting and promoting vast work in the area of Palliative Care and Grief.
In order to honour the Professor, the FMUL and the AEFML organised a well-deserved ceremony that included speeches by the Director of the FMUL, Fausto J. Pinto, the current Director of the University Clinic of Psychiatry, Diogo Telles Correia, the Director of the Psychiatric Service of the CHLUN, Luís Câmara Pestana, and the then President of the AEFML, José Rodrigues.
António Barbosa spoke last, revealing his genuine humility, “due to the naturally excessive words” addressed to him.
His first involvement with the Institution started when he belonged to the Medical Students’ Association, and he was part of the group that helped the victims of the Lisbon floods in 1967. Early on, the intrinsic role that Philosophy, Anthropology and the communicational relationship between doctor/patient played in his actions and thoughts became evident to him. For this reason, he transposed all this knowledge acquired and worked throughout his life, even as an academic. One of the great mentors in his life, Professor Carlos Ribeiro, allowed including the relationship between doctor and patient in the Introduction to Medicine subject, "a relationship only now strengthened again with the current Director, Fausto J. Pinto", he said.
But he did not forget the importance of other roles such as "that of the Scientific Council, which trusted him to develop areas such as Palliative Care". He recalled other persons who played a key role in his life, such as “Dr Vivelinda, the co-midwife of so many projects” he conducted within the scope of the University Clinic. The same person responsible for the secretariat of his area, who a few days later, confided that “with Professor António Barbosa she had already learned to do the early grief, as was now the case with the mourning of the separation between the two”.
Most of the books that today fill the shelves at the Bioethics Centre belonged to him. António Barbosa offered them to the Faculty, which is why he asked his personal assistant, Vivelinda, “to say hello to my books, because they are inside me. Nothing could have been done without their help”, admitted the Professor with emotion.
The same Bioethics Centre, which also published more than twenty books, saw some of these textbooks become a great reference.
His special thanks went “to the students, with whom I will always keep in touch”, the same ones that he wanted to embrace on this last day and was unable to do so. Honest hugs from him, who said afterwards that "it is the relational involvement that releases the unique energy, thus taking the weight of things and spiking inertia".
"Between so much" was how he said he had lived, in the balance of humility with that of contestation. This contestation was intended to “convert walls and build steps to create bridges”. That was how he lived “in between”, open and attentive to other realities, sharing his knowledge, experience and wisdom.
He created new work structures and raised awareness that it was necessary to move forward. “Yes we can”, he said calmly, “we can always share and teach”, reinforcing the mission of applying ethics to academic knowledge. He described himself as an “eternal student”, as he believed that “Education touches the future”. He was very much aware of reality and of others, explaining that “one died badly at the hospital and the losses were not well managed”.
Having given others so much and absorbed so much of the world, António Barbosa now affirms that the time has come “to go wandering to other geographies”. We know that the nostalgia with which he leaves has a taste of gratitude, but also the sense of mission accomplished and discreetly affirmed character, “I have always tried not to be distracted by vanities, and I have always been against the various forms of personality cult”.
Still, the Professor does not deny that the firmness of character comes from something profound and more rooted than just personality, “we are the education and love that our parents gave us, we are the books we read and the films we watch”, he concluded.
Even before he was given the jubilee medallion by the Director of FMUL, Fausto J. Pinto, he said goodbye with the feeling that his work there was finished.
“Life is a gift, I didn't do everything I wanted. I wanted everything I did, ”he said, ending the session.
Fausto J. Pinto – Director of the FMUL
“António Barbosa was one of the great Masters of this house, who always had the attitude of a medical academic”.
“I will never be fully aware of his multiple talents (…) He was a Renaissance man who introduced Philosophy of Knowledge”.
“The academic who supervised more theses than any other, who gave his life and his best to the Institution”.
Diogo Telles Correia – Psychiatrist and responsible for the Psychiatry and Medical Psychology University Clinic
“Professor António Barbosa was my Master”.
“Psychiatry is the bridge between Medicine and the Social Sciences, as the Professor demonstrated so well”.
“He always personified work, to be done without giving in. It was with him that I learned about persistence”.
Câmara Pestana – Director of the Psychiatric Service of the CHULN
“I attend this farewell ceremony with sadness to see a Professor of excellence, at the height of his abilities, leaving due to administrative limitations”.
“Professor António Barbosa enriched Forensic Psychiatry, Bioethics and gave a new perspective on Social Psychology”.
“I have known him for about 40 years and at the age of 32 he was already known for his vast CV in psychiatry, for his great serenity and consensus”.
José Rodrigues – Outgoing President of the Students’ Association of the Faculty of Medicine (AEFML)
“The Professor made us feel safe”.
“The visits that the Professor made with the students in the Medical Module 3.1 became the most appropriate to the reality, contact with the patients”.
“He supported the AEFML in various activities and dynamics never possible until now”.
“The Professor transformed the place”- quoting a text by José Saramago
Joana Sousa
Editorial Team