The University of Algarve will have a delegation from the National Association of Biomedical Sciences (ANCiB), which has just been created, on March 14, during the National Conference of Biomedical Sciences, which took place in Covilhã.
The Association, which intends to clarify and legislate the activity of professionals in this area, will have a delegation at the University of Algarve and another at the University of Aveiro, and will be headquartered at the University of Beira Interior (UBI).
Iris Silva, a PhD student in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Algarve, explains that there was a need to create the ANCiB, as “the course is relatively new, it was not widely known in Portugal and it was not clear what its objectives were”.
According to the student, the main reason for this association is “to help clarify the graduates in biomedical sciences about what they can do”. Another of ANCiB's objectives is to “legislate the course, which is very important at the moment”, also adds Andreia Lopes, a master's student in Biomedical Sciences at UAlg.
The two students believe that this association will “defend the rights of all students and professionals in biomedical sciences, because the degree is still very general and people do not really know what biomedical doctors can or cannot do”. The students compare this profession in Portugal and in Brazil, stating that for Brazilians it is already very well defined.
What ANCiB will do is “the bridge between countries where the profession is already more developed and, thus, help graduates in Portugal to follow their path”.
Regarding the importance of having a delegation at UAlg, Iris Silva says that “there is a separation between students from the North and those from the South, for example, the events related to biomedical sciences are all in the North and, therefore, having a delegation in the Algarve it gives us the importance we deserve”.
Currently, there are around 200 biomedical doctors in Portugal, but the profession is still very difficult to define. For Iris Silva, "a biomedic is a person who tries to link research to medicine and find answers that medicine does not yet have."
Andreia Lopes agrees and adds: “for a doctor to be able to treat a disease, there has to be an initial investigation, and this investigation is done by us”.
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