Our Master's Degree in Health Management is celebrating its 10th anniversary

On November 5, UIC Barcelona's Aula Magna (Main Hall) hosted the 10th anniversary event for the University Master's Degree in Health Management, directed by Dr Boi Ruiz. During the session, the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 master’s graduation ceremonies which could not take place earlier due to the Covid-19 pandemic, were also held.

More than a hundred healthcare and hospital professionals, teachers, students, and family members met to celebrate ten years of the master's degree in the sector. Silvia Coppulo, a journalist and communications lecturer, was responsible for presenting the event. After welcoming attendees, Coppulo handed over to the round table, consisting of the first members of the Master's Teaching Committee the year it opened: Llorenç Sotorres, General Secretary of the Puigvert Foundation; Rafael Lledo, General Director of Granollers Hospital; Joan Maria Ferrer, Director of Quality, Teaching and Research at Mollet Healthcare Foundation; Marta Elorduy, Vice-Dean of the UIC Barcelona Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences; and Xavier Corbella, Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at UIC Barcelona and Head of the Internal Medicine Service of the University Hospital of Bellvitge. The speakers discussed how they approached the initial master's degree programme with the aim of achieving its official accreditation, ensuring that it reflected the need to transfer knowledge based on the practical experience of its application. At the same time, the academic content of the new degree programme had to permanently adapt to the changes demanded by the health sector for the organisations that provide these services. The participants in the round table highlighted the multi-professional and multidisciplinary nature of the students as a fundamental aspect of the academic plan, which is highly valued by students. They also emphasised the main objective of the master's degree which is to focus on training people and the fact that the programme has been adapted to the present day with innovative pedagogical initiatives in health management training such as the classes taught at the Comprehensive Centre for Advanced Simulation on our Sant Cugat Campus. 

Once the round table ended, Dr Boi Ruiz, director of the Master's Degree, presented the graduation ceremony, and dedicated a few words to the attending students and their families, referring to Health Management as a discipline of the future that already has its own Scientific Council here in Catalonia. Subsequently, the diplomas were handed out to the new graduates. Then, the speeches were given by the class representatives for both years, they both underlined their positive experiences as students of the master's degree, both at an academic level and in terms of the way they were treated personally, through all the new and positive relationships established between classmates and lecturers.

The event was closed by Dr Alfonso Mendiz, Rector of UIC Barcelona, who highlighted the fact that 80% of the students who have taken this master’s degree have managerial responsibilities today, that 10% came over from Latin America and that the faculty has also helped to develop long-term professional careers, achieving high levels of responsibility at different levels of the healthcare system. A clear example is the fact that two of the master’s degree lecturers are now Health Ministers in the Government of the Generalitat. At the same time, the rector stressed that the University Master's Degree in Healthcare Management, which obtained reaccreditation last year, is the only one that has been awarded official status. 

He then gave the floor to the health minister, Josep M. Argimon, who Dr. Boi Ruiz introduced by recalling his status as a master's degree lecturer, and Argimon gave the closing speech. During his speech, Argimon referred to the constant changes that health systems must face on a permanent basis, especially in recent times when they have had to do so in the context of a severe economic crisis, followed by a health crisis caused by a pandemic. The Minister made clear the need to have trained managers, managers who can be at the forefront of actions that will derive from the latest lessons learned and continue with everything already proposed and known but which has remained at a standstill due to current circumstances. In conclusion, Argimon recalled that progress must be made to achieve results oriented towards transparent management and also that beyond health policies, other policies will must bear in mind what their impact with be on the health sector as a cross-disciplinary factor.