Teresa Martins is an integrated researcher of CINTESIS – Center for Health Technology and Services Research, working in the research group NursID: Innovation & Development in Nursing, in the Nursing School of Porto (ESEP), where she also works as a Coordinating Professor.

She was born in Gondomar 59 years ago but spent her childhood in different cities around the country, accompanying her father, who was military by profession. After the 25th April Revolution, she returned “to base,” finished high school at the Rainha Santa Isabel School in Porto, and began studying nursing. “It wasn’t something I wanted since I was a little girl. I had never thought about it or felt pressure from anyone to have a specific profession. I did the propaedeutic year and the first year of the Nursing program at the same time. It was a cousin of mine, who was a nurse, who suggested Nursing to me. I thought: Why not? I took the entrance exams and entered the then Ana Guedes School of Nursing (now ESEP). I fell in love with the program. If I had to go back, I would have done the same thing,” she says.

She started working as a nurse a few days after graduating in 1982. She worked at the Hospital Center of Porto and the Hospital Center of São João, but the experience wasn’t quite how she thought it would be. “I felt some discouragement. I felt the difference between what we learned and what we actually did. I thought that our training would allow us to go much further,” she recalls.

A few years later, a three-month internship at the Nuffield Orthopedic Center in Oxford, England, would impact her career enormously. “I decided I really had to specialize. I wanted to study Rehab, but I had a doctor’s report that compromised me because I had scoliosis.”

Since she couldn’t study Rehabilitation, she did Public Health in the then Escola Cidade do Porto (now ESEP) in 1990. Then, in 1991, the challenge came up to enter the teaching career at ESEP. “It was a possibility to reconcile with myself and with the profession since I wasn’t delighted with what I was doing. So I entered, and here I have been ever since. In teaching, I felt I had an open field, full freedom, and autonomy to innovate,” she continues.

In 1996 she received her Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Coimbra. In 2004 she completed her Ph.D. in Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Porto. After earning her Master’s and Ph.D., research has always been present in her life. She integrated CINTESIS from its inception in the NursID group, and the balance is frankly positive.

“CINTESIS gives us comfort, backup, motivation for our research. We had the idea that networks were very bureaucratic, that you had to write letters and ask for authorizations, but no, things work very fluidly, which is very good for us. Nobody likes to work with big formalisms. I often call and say that I need a researcher in one area, and the answer comes very quickly. There is great ease of access to people and a great willingness to help.

Caregivers have been a central focus of her research activity since 2001, when she studied stroke patients and their family caregivers. In recent years, she has been involved in projects to develop interventions and tools for caregivers of dependent people. That is the case of the Intent-Care Project, which she carries out with Maria José Lumini (coordinator), and has resulted in an open-access platform with informative content that helps caregivers provide better care, with texts and videos that explain step by step some tasks such as transferring and positioning the patient, bathing, managing medication or feeding with a tube, among others.

“We have been gradually completing the platform. In the short term, we will create a module on fall prevention and some aspects of self-care for the elderly, including exercises to stimulate motor coordination, balance, and muscle strength,” she adds.

Teresa Martins has several books, book chapters, scientific articles published, and other projects she is developing. One of them aims to create a three-layer thermal insulation blanket for patients in operating rooms. The team, coordinated by Isaura Carvalho (also from CINTESIS), has obtained very positive results. The patent has already been registered.

“The idea is disruptive. The blanket is more environmentally friendly and sustainable. It’s more ergonomic for patients and provides a solution in disaster situations or power outages. Now we need a company interested in commercializing it. This is a process that we have an obligation not to let die because it is worthwhile,” she says.

Meanwhile, the researcher is already coordinating a project that aims to create a series of simulated clinical scenarios for teaching and learning in nursing laboratory practice classes to encourage students to mobilize their knowledge and skills and make decisions in an environment as close as possible to reality. This is another project with the CINTESIS/ESEP stamp that we will be hearing about for years to come.

1-Year Ambition

I really like to finish cycles, I don’t like to leave things “up in the air,” and I get very frustrated when I can’t finish what I set out to do. So one of my goals is to consolidate the project of the mock training scenarios because the feedback we get from the students is extraordinary.

10-Year Ambition

That period will coincide with my retirement [laughs]. With all the margin for error that such an extended time period entails, I want to pursue two major areas of research: simulation and the refinement of goals and methodologies in Nursing Education.

Life Beyond Research

I have a very normal, very quiet life. I don’t have much free time. I read, watch TV shows, and go for walks in the little free time I do have. I can’t stand still. And I try to take care of myself.  I usually tell my students that they will live to be 90 years old, so it is important to have healthy living habits. I apply this. I try to live a regulated life, to pass this message on and convince my students. We must set an example.