João Lobo Antunes Award
“I don’t know what awaits us, but I know what worries me: It’s that medicine, excited by science, seduced by technology and stunned by bureaucracy, erases its human face and ignores the unique individuality of each person who suffers, even though it invent more and more ways to treat, the way to alleviate suffering without empathy or compassion has not yet been discovered.”
This award, in the amount of forty thousand euros and intended for medical graduates in a medical internship regime, aims to stimulate scientific culture and clinical research in the area of neuroscience, without forgetting João Lobo Antunes’ principle regarding the humanization of the medical act – “their patients and their stories”.
The attribution of this prize results from the initiatives that Santa Casa has been developing, since 2013, to encourage research in the neurosciences area, under the motto “Research for Good Causes”. Since that year, two annual awards, worth 200 thousand euros each, have been awarded. These distinctions encourage advances in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases associated with aging (Mantero Belard Award), as well as in the recovery and treatment of spinal cord injuries (Melo e Castro Award).
Since then, Misericórdia de Lisboa’s investment in Research & Development has been reinforced through the development of other programs and projects, including the Support Program for Scientific Research in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.