23/10/2022
HABEMUS DOCTOR!
Wau! 5,5 years since I started this odisea as a Ph.D. student at Aarhus University Hospital to figure out if Tele-rehabilitation with a Virtual Autonomous Physiotherapist Agent was a valuable solution for chronic pulmonary patients. The project had lots of ups and downs, such as a partner going bankrupt with a crucial asset to the project as the customized augmented reality glasses for patients, the closing of the Aarhus Municipality Hospital, moving all the research to Skejby Hospital, that pressed us to cancel the second planned clinical trial on COPD and to create a new protocol for Sarcoidosis out of the blue, and also the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that delayed the last follow-ups for a while.
Nevertheless, we succeeded in publishing four articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, that form the basis of this outstanding thesis and my journey as a Ph.D. student.
I wanted to use this post to thank all the patients who participated in my research, and the assessment committee who evaluated my thesis. Annette De Thurah, Mari Carmen Valenza, and Nina Godtfredsen, but also to my supervisors Elisabeth Bendstrup and Ole Hilberg, my co-authors Fernanda Balbino, Ander Løkke, Daniel Catalán Matamoros, all the staff in the research center who helped me with different clinical research tasks, but also had time to help me to find a place to stay in Aarhus and met me for leisure and socialization events as Dorte Kristensen, Sissel Kronborg-White, Thomas Prior, Hans Jürgen Hoffmann, Johannes Martin Schmid, and Mette Toft. I would also like to give thanks to the funding organizations that fuel this research, such as Eurostars, Aarhus University, The Danish Lung Association's Fund, and Snedkermester Georg Alex og Olga Frølich Christensens Fond. I am especially grateful to my loving family, Dorthea and Jazmin, my parents, aunt Carmen, and siblings Angel and Toni, and all my old friends who have always been there, like Nacho Vega and his partner Azucena, Elisa García Elvira and her son Emilio, Claudia, Francisca and Kim, but also to the audience who participated in person and online, who backed me up during my Ph.D. defense. To finish, I want to say thank you too to my new workplace at Nordsjælland Hospital research unit that hosted this last event of my Ph.D. project, especially to Charlotte Christiansen, Anette Vahl, Caroline Klint Johannesen, Amanda Cavling, and Stig Mølsted who attended and helped during the event. THANKS TO ALL OF YOU! YOU MADE MY DAY Tuesday, October 18th. 2022. Greetings now from Berlin 🙂
If you want access to my thesis and presentation slides, please fill out this form and send me a message via LinkedIn Chat. https://lnkd.in/ec6J9bwF
