It was a happy hour when Professor Gomes-Pedro started the first Master Degree in School Medicine in 1991, with the aim of “training experts to be able to intervene at schools and to pass on information to other technicians”.
I attended the second edition of the Master Degree in 1992. At a time of great uncertainty with regard to School Health, Professor Gomes-Pedro was able to coordinate it in an exemplary manner and to be a model of commitment and competence to his students.
As a result of the pursuit of excellence, the Master Degrees started to be called Health at Schools, this change corresponding to an enlarged vision of Health and School, taking into account the new paradigms for health promotion and the evolution of health and education systems. From a conceptual perspective, Master Degrees in Health at Schools valued a holistic approach to Health at Schools, interdisciplinarity, and an inter-sector approach to the answers to be given regarding the health and well-being of the educational community – students, teachers, and parents.

Professor Gomes-Pedro succeeded to turn Health at Schools Master Degrees into a privileged area for Education and Health, and a pillar for the development of health and education professionals’ actions, a lever for research of the health social conditioning factors in a school context that enabled the identification of effective health promotion practices.
I was involved in the coordination of one of the modules of the Master Degrees in Health at Schools, between 1997 and 2005, and it is a great pleasure for me to attest the huge professional and personal capacities of Professor Gomes-Pedro.
I find it important to publicly thank Professor Gomes-Pedro for the encouragement he has always given to School Health in Portugal, and I cannot but stress his dynamism and personal qualities, a living testimonial that needs to be pursed.

Gregória Paixão von Amann
Public Health Doctor
Holder of a Master Degree in School Medicine 

Professor João Carlos Gomes Pedro offered us a magnificent lesson on the occasion of his jubilation on 1 October. He spoke with passion to a packed Aula Magna, as was to be expected, about the new horizons in paediatrics.

I have known Professor Gomes Pedro since I started the Paediatrics Complementary Internship in 1985. I have always been impressed by his strong personality, full to the brim with enthusiasm and talent, not only with regard to Developmental Paediatrics and to the early mother/baby relationship (where he conducted pioneering work) but, above all, to his innovative spirit and pedagogical qualities.

His pioneering spirit was demonstrated, amongst other forms, by renovating the pedagogical methods in use at our Medical school. He set up GEPOG and, later on, the Department for Medical Education, which helped to train several generations of doctors. His ability to include normal children in Paediatrics teaching, which until then focused particularly on the pathological model, was determinant for the transition to a biological model centred on research, and, subsequently, to a relational model that has left an indelible mark in the new generation of paediatricians.

He has also been a tireless advocate of children’s rights within a pluridisciplinary dialogue that was unfamiliar to us.

Thank you for having influenced us so much and for teaching us to think about children in all their dimensions. Thank you also for having advanced the quality of teaching at our Faculty and for succeeding to include children and their families in the syllabus of FMUL from year 1. Please allow us to continue to count on your knowledge and good judgement!

Helena Fonseca
Paediatrics Auxiliary Lecturer 

Life’s singularity takes us, to a large extent, to the set of personal achievements whose results stretch to the environment around us and become, through this very environment, acknowledged as great deeds that represent unquestionable quality advancements in the line of evolution.
Professor João Carlos Gomes-Pedro’s retirement ceremony stands out for the inevitable recognition of the merit of his actions and dedication to a cause: Paediatrics, or, more precisely, Paediatric Knowledge.
In his work “Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, Thomas Kuhn (renowned physician of the 20th century) writes that the advancement of knowledge does not depend only on the act of “doing”, but on the adaptability of the mind and intellect to the circumstances of our existence. This is the paradigm that the Professor bestowed to all those who worked with him. It is a paradigm that acts as a guide for the University Clinic’s working methods and in the organisation of the Paediatrics Unit (now called Child and Family Department, the corollary of the Professor’s global vision, always focusing on the higher interests of the child).
João Carlos Gomes-Pedro is a grand emeritus professor (“to be perfect in knowledge”) and thanking him is the most modest form we have found to describe his professional and academic dedication. It is a life lesson that acts as an immediate touchpoint to all who embrace him and will continue to do so.

The Secretariat of the Paediatrics University Clinic 

Some people will talk about the Man. But it is basically about Gomes Pedro as a Professor that I write about recent events. Once more, the big Auditorium was full to the brim to listen to him as he gave his last lecture. However, at some other place and time, and to a much smaller audience, he presented the longitudinal teaching of children throughout the medical education years, he named them all and said: these are the interested parties: he was right here too, as supported by the words of one of the female participants. Probably each of us should highlight three features associated to Prof. Gomes Pedro. I would stress resilience, touchpoints, and dyad. Above all, the importance of the early relationship, so that we do not forget that, when it comes to behaviour, as happens in respiratory function, the determining factors are antenatal, and that there is a short-lived window where everything exists and everything remains – the first years of life. So that we do not forget him…

Teresa Bandeira 
Paediatric University Clinic.
Child and Family Department. HSM. CHLN
Graduate Pneumology Hospital Assistant. Guest Assistant at FML.

Gomes Pedro: the man, the doctor, and the professor

“To the Man who found shine, and its meaning, depth, and understanding, in the eyes of children, when others saw them as passive beings.
To the Doctor who never forgot to be and see Man in his own practice.
To the Professor, who is a landmark of his time.
To the friend… with my deepest thanks.

Teresa Moreno