PhD Meritxell Cucala Rovira

Disclaimer: Meritxell is the mother of my daughter, Vera.

She's also a high standard professional that I've the priviledge to work with. We first met as collegues. The first day I landed in completely NEW territory, 22 years ago. That first day, Meritxell was in the Zurich Building in Via Augusta, and she thought I was Mexican, nonetheless she still helped me know where I needed to go to report lost my passport, the day I arrived to my NEW post in this side of the world.

I'm totally biased. I admit it. It's the elephant in the room. But there is no one else that I completely support more than her in this place, that I now understand as my own. So being from here I have a responsibility towards what's good for the destiny of our people. In the greatest sense. But the first people you start with are your familiy. And you learn to be with them in an experience of love that's in the sharing your life, everyday routines, with the person you love. We've built a family.

I've had the pleasure to have a soulmate that has given me strenght to keep going when it's been tough. And it often is. For everyone's sake. In this troublesome time. We've all felt the sensation of struggle. The sensation of the thin line that could unhook you from the wellbeing status. And drift you off. To unstalbe mental state.

We live in a convulsive circumstance aspiring to become more resilient without grasping the big issues in a compelling NEW direction. I've been trying. But Meritxell Cucala Rovira has written a PhD dissertation on her take at it. In what's she's experienced in her multiversal way of looking at a challenge from her particular perspective of a psychopedagogy & nurse, with her experience in project management, in innovation adoption, as a healthcare consultatn, as clinical professional, as a founder of ACDI, the Catalan Association of Nurses in Management.

I've considered Meritxell a great complement to the work I've been able to deliver in more that 9 projects during my life. And ever since we've worked together we have consider each other's perspectives to try to help each other resolve an issue in the collaborative nature of working with a team of multidisciplinary professionals that have a different day to day than what they are all of the sudden gathered here to align together towards finding an operative way to tackle an issue, be that to move an entire clinical activity from a 609 year hospital, or launching the first call to professionals to tackle unmet needs by generating innovative solutions, or coordinating and designing a strategy to take the volunteers of hospital become a resilient community with a sense of purpose and belonging, or assume clinical management needs during the pandemics to organize a process that could warranty the protection of the health professionals through the coordinated distribution of the protective material in the most resilient way in which a health care professional can integrate into the collaborative effort of planning and organizing what needs to take place in multidisciplinary team to driven them through the process of achieving some common desired goals.

Management is an art of directing an orchestra. Meritxell displays masterfully the hard and soft skills of making other people be safe following clear structured plans, with sound project management skills, with the mindset of transforming the system, and the capability to drive teams of highly skilled professionals, sometimes overwhelmed by their daily workflow and a continuos burn out condition, that is often led by poorly led management.

Meritxell has deliver some public service towards finding excellence in the health care delivery in every stage or setting where public care is delivered. She's been through the highest education journey any one professional can achieved: she's been trained and prepare to develop your own scientific work, and she's completed a process of succesfully driving a question to formally structure doctoral thesis. This is an incredible achievement that I can only salute and rejoice for the effor that I have been witness that has been put in this body of knowledge that from today on, it will legacy that Meritxell has set out to put into the debate that one can have with science.

PhD degrees are like that. These people are raising questions no one has ever asked. They've had to search for the state of the art, just in case someone has got there before. There's always something. There's always someone. Scientific research is a method. And a PhD is the way in which our education model has signified the arrival to the highest level of the pyramid. It's got it's logic. It's where you learn to finally provide a drive towards the generation of evidence. In a formal way. There is a whole system that lives for its own just to keep publishing, no matter what's the real impact, but part of the momentum, the externalities of intention, that are not clearly connected to any given desired outcome. But that's fine. But in the case's of Meritxell's PhD study, she's gone "all in" in the search of purpose and value: "Elements and Strategies that enable professionalism of nurses in Catalan hospitals".

I've been first hand witness of the many times that Meritxell's efforts or delivering her best people's skills to be an active agent of the understanding that two people, representing different roles, different perspectives, different components of a shared process, get to know each other and get to the point of finding a common plan to tackle whatever situation requiring some form of action. The traits of a good consultant that is also a clinitian, in this case a specialist in nursing, goes much more beyond just care. Seldom in the health care world the research and innovation has been biased against male & physician tilted, over female nursing leadership beyond the operative processes of care. The fine art of management has been clearly biased against female leaderships and nursing roles in clinical leadership.

But it's more than just a reivindicative truth, one of many, that is in the heart of Meritxell's investigation. It's the core of issues, methodologically addressed, that nursing phase not just in the hospitals in Catalonia, but in the entire health care system. The body of knowledge and proposals that this PhD work has compiled could very well start a debate that goes beyond Meritxell debating with science. It's a debate about the transformation of our society. And how we can assume our focus on care has to start the movement that our entire health system is taking from the hospital-centered perspective, towards a more community-centered and home-care driven perspective, a more aware and collaborative distribution of care tasks among other one of the many different roles we must learn to adapt to. Meritxell has delivered a study aimed to tacke the elements that could help an entire profession to present a case for a more resilient society, starting with facing the barriers that our own health system's face and using our strenghs to consolidate the excellence in the journey towards improving the outcomes of more definitive action that supports the open debate that the collaborative effort represented in all the near to 200 nurses, that have contributed to designing of pathways towards the framework of proposals for more collaborative actionable plan, that will surely emerged from the work of the latest PhD in the family.

I've been witness of Meritxell professionalism for years. I've always considered Meritxell to be an asset for the entire health system. The angle that she brings to the mix is unique, and her team work ethics and spirit allows for highly skilled and sound professional counterparts to benefit from how easy it is to work with. Often, in you work life in a healthcare setting, or any work setting, you find people that may introduce toxic aspects to the common goal of tackling a shared problem. Meritxell is the kind of people that will provide the elements to resolve the tension in the system, in any given episode or project she's working in, or the global societal debate that we seem to be having in more than one levels.

Well, in this case, that's what's she's brought with her study: the elements and the strategy to allow the evolution of professionalism in nursing to go beyond our current horizon. Meritxell's work comes to deliver a scientific body of knowledge who's value and relevance is targetting the highest impact desired in a more resilient and gentle pathway. The transformative collaborative journey of enabling, at different scales, the improvement of professionalism in nurses. With the significance of aknowledging the leadership of women and nurses, as our entire health and social system is clearly seeking, the stepping up of some NEW roles to lead the way comes as balm to heal to heal towards a desired holistic vision.

I will always follow Meritxell Cucala in whichever quest she points towards!

As a priviledged collegue who's had the pleasure of having shared some common goals and projects, I'd like to congratulate you on this outstanding achievement, and salute the effort and tenicity that you put into this. The sense of purpose and value that I perceive there is here, for all of us to address, in the Catalan Health System, but not only, as a society as a whole.

Thanks for the committement of tackling such a big issue. Thanks for the love you've put in this reaseach. I wish you the best, as always, and may this day be enjoyed and remember as the turning point of our spring towards a more resilient and holistic NEW system.

Let us enjoy the day. Let us rejoice with friends. Let us dance through the celebration of this unbelievable milestone.

The best is yet to come.

This day too shall pass!

In the mean while, let's live it today!

D day.

ALLS