Every month,  six persons receive the most recent issue of the Newsletter a few days before it is published.

Reacting quickly, the aim is to evaluate the topics and ascertain if they note any inaccuracy, or suggest improvement, or just a different approach.

Often bringing new suggestions for themes or articles, the Editorial Board tries to widen the spectrum of topics to be addressed, without ever interfering in the editorial criteria.

Some present since its creation, others since Professor Fausto J. Pinto was appointed FMUL’s Director, they are the guardians of each issue before it gets published.

The Editorial Board is a group trusted by the Director of the Faculty, chosen by him and will remain, at least, until the end of his term.

Very well-known personalities, we asked everyone to tell us a little about this project that also belongs to them.

 

 

Fausto J. Pinto – Director of the FMUL

 

 

António Vaz Carneiro – President of the Scientific Council of the Evidence-Based Health Institute, Professor at the Institute of Preventive Medicine and Public Health and Professor Librarian, he was the first to represent the Editorial Board

“I have been on the Editorial Board since 2008.

My role is to provide feedback to the Newsletter on various aspects of its content.

This project is an undeniable success: it has form and content, it is relevant and pleasant to read. What more to ask?”

 

 

Miguel Castanho – Professor at the Institute of Biochemistry and Principal Investigator at the iMM

“I have been reading the News for a long time, since I started working as FMUL’s deputy director and Professor Fernandes e Fernandes, then Director, found internal communication to be extremely important and encouraged. Through it, he tried to achieve external visibility for our school. More than simply conveying information to all readers, News has always been a factor in FMUL's identity and a repository of our daily experience for the future. The days go by but the News remains as a memory that resists time. To all those who have always been involved in the News and never allowed the void, issue after issue, even doing overtime and accumulating it with other functions, our recognition is due.”

 

 

Luís Pereira – Executive Director of the FMUL since 2009

"I joined the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon on 2 November 2009, and made the news in the “FMUL News” section of the November/December issue of the Newsletter.

I still remember the words of the then leaving Secretary-Coordinator, Dr David Xavier, when we were in the meeting room of the Administrative Technical Services. He pointed to the frame on the wall, indicating that it was a great pride for News to have been distinguished with the Grand Prix – Excellence in Communication, but that the difficult thing would be to maintain it over the following years.

At the time, newcomer to the institution, I did not understand the scope of this statement. At this moment, when we are celebrating its 100th issue, 12 years after its creation, I can testify that these words were always present in the mind of those who prepared each new issue.

This is because whereas the Editorial Board of News is made up of the FMUL Board of Directors and professors invited according to their functions, having maintained a stable structure over the years, the Editorial Team is made up of FMUL employees who volunteer to participate in this project, accumulating these functions with their daily tasks. The structure of the editorial team has always been informal, without professionals in the specific area of written communication, composed of employees who dedicate themselves with enormous effort to the tasks necessary to publish an online News issue on a monthly basis.

I followed, with some periods of lesser participation, the Editorial Team and I can attest that this informality proved to be advantageous in building collaborative work and sharing responsibilities, but it also showed weaknesses whenever there was a high volume of tasks to be performed in the services of origin, preventing or making it difficult to reconcile it with voluntary work for the News. Despite the existence of an “Information Manager” from the beginning, these functions were also never exercised exclusively.

If it is a fact that this way of conducting News was the key to maintaining its operation over the years in the difficult financial circumstances and scarcity of human resources that all higher education institutions have been experiencing. It also explains the need for adopting different strategies, depending on the circumstances, in relation to its guiding line, always bearing in mind its basic objective: to disseminate the Faculty outside and abroad, disseminating its good practices, to embody the activities of FMUL and its teaching community, students and staff.

At the moment, we are in a new stage in the life of the News in which, keeping the two bodies mentioned above, the responsibility for its publication falls on the Communication Office, ensured by a group of people with specific training in communication, who count on the voluntary and crucial participation of other FMUL employees.

The good results speak for themselves and are reflected in a more structured project, with high participation of FMUL’s community and an increase in new readers!"

 

 

Mamede de Carvalho – Professor at FMUL, Principal Investigator at the iMM, Neurologist and Deputy Director of FMUL. He has been a member of the Editorial Board since the start of the term of Professor Fausto J. Pinto

“My (modest) role on the Editorial Board is helping to define the strategic line of this news publication of our Faculty, as well make a critical review of the contents, and some editing of the text. Another important task is to globally monitor the quality of production in terms of originality, quality of information, originality and richness in form.

This project, like others, has been a success, due to the increasing quality of the publication in several aspects. I emphasize the transversality of the contents and the depth in the approach to the themes that require it. Moreover, it is a publication with an indelible human touch in making the people with whom we come across stand out, and whose wealth we do not have the opportunity to explore and share. The circumstances of the moment will require adaptation and improvement, but an irreplaceable vehicle of communication is launched in our institution”.

 

 

Ana Sebastião – Professor of Pharmacology and Neuroscience, Principal Investigator at the iMM and Deputy Director of FMUL. She joined the Editorial Board at the beginning of the term of Professor Fausto J. Pinto

 “Our role on the Editorial Board is to contribute to defining strategy, as well as make suggestions and review content.

 This is a very important project that has contributed to increase internal communication at the faculty and its external visibility. As with all projects, priorities were defined. Internal visibility is well consolidated and external visibility, although visible, will be a priority in the near future”.