Goreti Marques is an integrated researcher at the NursID group – Innovation and Development in Nursing, at CINTESIS – Center for Research in Health Technologies and Services /Santa Maria Health School (ESSSM), There she is a Coordinating Professor and member of the Board, in addition to Principal investigator of the Por Mais Saúde project, funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT).

She graduated in Nursing at the Jean Piaget School of Nursing of Viseu in 2001. “I always wanted to follow the health field. What attracted me most in Nursing was the contact with people,” she justifies.

She did a master’s degree in Management and Administration of Health Services from the Universidade Católica Portuguesa (Viseu center) in 2005, post-graduate and specialization in Child Health Nursing/Pediatrics by Porto Higher School of Nursing (ESEP) in 2008 and a Ph.D. in Nursing at the Institute of Health Sciences of the Catholic University of Portugal (Porto) in 2016. In 2019, she completed a postgraduate degree in Business Communication at Porto Business School.

She worked as a nurse in different health institutions, starting with the Castro Daire Health Center, a rural area with a very elderly population, where she had to do “a little bit of everything,” providing urgent care to the home. He confesses that it was “a very tough match” and that he had to “grow very fast.” When she moves to the São Teotónio Hospital, also in Viseu, she has her first contact with Pediatrics, casually and even. “I never left Pediatrics again. We create a very strong empathic relationship with children and families. We feel that we mark people, that we can make a difference, and that is very rewarding. These families are forever grateful to us. It has happened to me to find parents of children that I treated years ago and who recognized me immediately. This shows how much our work is worth.

About a year later, she moved to the Pediatric Hospital of Coimbra. “It was a real school for me. I had the privilege of going to the Neurosurgery and Orthopedics service and started working for the first time with children diagnosed with oncological disease. It was a huge learning experience and defined what I wanted to do,” she says.

In 2003, the move to Porto took place, for family reasons. She went to the IPO of Porto, with the condition of exercising her activity in the Pediatric Service. She worked there for 16 years.

Will there be a recipe for exercising this profession without breaking down? “We have to have the ability to surrender, to have empathy. There is a huge risk of burnout. It is necessary to know how to remove the nurse’s uniform when leaving the hospital. There are days when I left, I just wanted to cry, but I thought I needed to go back to my family, telling the positive aspects of my daily life. It is not easy, it is hard, but you train. Also, we cannot look just at the dark side. We must focus on what we can do positively. We cannot be afraid to laugh. This is also part of our work,” she adds.

In the case of Goreti Marques, the professional activity as a nurse and the activity as a researcher overlapped for many years, since she completed her doctorate precisely on cancer in pediatric age, its impact at various levels on family functionality, and the needs of intervention. In 2017, she published the book “The Impact of Childhood Cancer on the Family” (Edition Afrontamento). Currently, she continues to investigate in this area.

“There is still a long way to go. Hospitalizations of children with cancer are long, needs increase, mothers are held hostage by the role of primary caregivers. Incomes go down, and there are no responses in society for these families, who can be completely alone and unstructured, the other children feel abandoned, many couples split up because they can’t take the pressure. It is scary. It is necessary to take a step forward and support these families effectively,” she says.

More: this support should be seen as a right and not as a favor. “The poor thing issue is terrible. Parents often told me that they hated it when their children were called poor. These children are not poor things. They are fighters and have rights that must be guaranteed.”

In 2016, she left the activity as a nurse to dedicate herself full time to research and teaching at CINTESIS and the Santa Maria Health School (ESSSM). She is the principal investigator of the Por Mais Saúdeproject, co-financed by COMPETE 2020, Portugal 2020, and FEDER. Initially carried out in Maia, Chaves, and Madeira, the project has already been replicated in several schools, especially in the North of the country, in a total of about 1,500 children who were involved. The main objectives are to make children of the first cycle aware of the need to adopt healthy lifestyle habits, through resources specially designed for this purpose, namely the book “Learn to be healthy with Joca and Maria” recommended by the National Health Plan, reading and a game/application that can be downloaded online.

“It is very important to me, as a principal researcher, to be in a center like CINTESIS, both for the inputs to the Por Mais Saúde project and for the dynamics generated. This was the first funded project I was involved in. Being able to use CINTESIS and request management support and publicizing the project has been of great added value,” she concludes.

1-Year Ambition

I want to continue with the Por Mais Saúde project, taking it to more and more children, more families and more schools, and of course, getting funding. Although funding has already ended, we continue to develop the project because we realize that it has had an impact on the community and because we have positive scientific results. The children changed their eating behaviors and decreased their inactivity after using the application. We are on the right way.

10-Year Ambition

I hope to continue doing research, both in the area of health promotion and in oncology. These are two paths where there is still a lot to explore. The way we, health professionals, and society in general, communicate pediatric oncology is always very tragic. We must change the social representation of the disease.

Life Beyond Research

My days are very hectic. So, when I can, I really enjoy being with my family, at home, peaceful, just enjoying the moment.