Diogo Ayres de Campos, Professor at FMUL and Director of the Obstetrics Service at the Northern Lisbon Hospital Centre (CHULN), comments, in Conversa Direta, on a rare case experienced at Santa Maria Hospital. A pregnant woman, infected with Covid-19 and connected to an ECMO - a machine that replaces the functioning of the lungs, used in patients with very weak respiratory function. After 10 days of being monitored, she ended up giving birth to a premature baby of 29 weeks. After delivery, she remained in a coma for 14 days.
The Professor is very well known within the academic community of FMUL. He likes to have everything organized and knows his daily schedule in detail. There is always space to fit in something else and talk about all subjects. He responds objectively to all questions, straight to the point.
With an academic career, until four years ago based at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, he also spent a short period in Cambridge. He took up the position of Associate Professor at FMUL in 2017 and became Director of the CHULN Obstetrics Service in 2019.
During his academic period he was interested in General Surgery, but recognised that he does not deal well with terminal illnesses. His enthusiasm for life made him choose Obstetrics, as this is the area that helps in the reproduction of new lives. He is a staunch supporter that the doctor should not interfere with nature's course, except when absolutely necessary to prevent illness or an adverse outcome.
His preferred research area has always been labour, particularly aspects related to foetal monitoring and clinical response to obstetric emergencies, including multidisciplinary training in a simulated environment. He is one of the inventors of the automatic analysis programme for the SisPorto cardiotocogramme, currently available in more than 100 hospitals worldwide, the ObsCare obstetric clinical record programme, currently used in more than 30 Portuguese hospitals, and the Lucina obstetric emergency simulator, developed by Canadian company CAE Healthcare, of which there is also a copy at the FMUL Simulation Centre. He has published 141 articles in international journals indexed on Medline and with a h-index of 30.
In February 2021, the Director of the CHULN Obstetrics Service was elected President of the Federation of Portuguese Societies of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (FSPOG), an institution that brings together all the scientific societies in this area and coordinates its national and international representation. In July 2021, he takes over the presidency of the European Association of Perinatal Medicine, the European Society for Obstetrics and Perinatal Care.
Leonel Gomes
Editorial Team
