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Joan Ferràs, a former undergraduate and doctoral student at the University of Valencia and currently an orthopaedic surgeon and traumatologist at the Arnau de Vilanova Hospital - Llíria in Valencia, is the winner of the Sanitas MIR 21 Award, which has been recognising the training and the talent of MIR doctors for 25 years. The award, of 15,000 euros, was awarded by the Ministry of Universities, the Ministry of Health and the national commission for specialised medical training and recognises university training and at La Fe Hospital in Valencia, where Ferrás was an intern for five years.
Joan Ferràs has published 40 scientific publications, four complete books and obtained cum laude in the reading of his doctoral thesis, “Three-dimensional surgical planning of femoral osteotomies in anterior knee pain”. In recent years he has developed two competitive research grants, and won the WitheCloud Award from the Scoliosis Research Society in Los Angeles (USA), as well as the award for the best idea in orthopaedic surgery and traumatology from the Spanish Society of Surgery. Orthopaedics and Traumatology.
His doctoral dissertation consisted of developing a new methodology for the three-dimensional surgical planning of femoral osteotomies. The philosophy of the thesis was to generate an accessible methodology that would allow surgeons to calculate and plan osteotomies with conventional computer programs. The financial endowment of the award, delivered on November 11 at an event in Madrid, is provided entirely by the Sanitas Foundation, without a vote in the election, so that it is a state-wide MIR award in which only high-level public institutions participate.
“The University of Valencia has been an opportunity for the last 12 years to become who I am. Without a public university like the UV, I would not have been able to study the degree I have studied, do my doctorate or access the training that has taken me to where I am. We don’t realise the importance of having a university like this so accessible and so close”, said Joan Ferràs.
“I must especially thank Pascual Medina, Glòria Segarra, Susana Novella and Carlos Hermengildo for the scientific training I received. For the last eleven years, since I entered college, they have opened the doors of their laboratory to me and taught me the scientific method as I know it. Of course, also to all the teachers who have dedicated time and effort to train me and pass on the knowledge that allows me to treat my patients on a daily basis”, thanked Joan Ferrás, who currently directs the Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology (JOST) to bring science closer to young researchers and to understand how a scientific journal works.
At the Sanitas MIR 2021 Awards ceremony, Alicia González Martínez, a neurologist at La Princesa University Hospital, and Alejandra Tomás Velázquez, a dermatology specialist at the University of Navarra Clinic, were also recognised with two runners-up prizes of 4,000 euros each. 73 nominations from 28 medical specialties from 41 Spanish hospitals were submitted to the award.
