Press Release|January 13 | 2013
Laboratorios Heel sponsors a professorship to promote healthy lifestyles in conjunction with the SEMG and Murcia University
Murcia University joins the group of teaching establishments in Spain that have created a Professorship in Family Medicine and Healthy Attitudes, under the agreement signed last Friday by the general manager of Laboratorios Heel España, S.A.U., José Manuel Cordero; the president of the Spanish Society of General Practitioners (SEMG – Sociedad Española de Médicos Generales y de Familia) and of the Foundation for Research and Training of the SEMG (FIF-SEMG – Fundación para la Investigación y la Formación), Benjamín Abarca; and the vice-chancellor of Murcia University, José Antonio Cobacho.
In this regard, Joaquín María García-Estañ, the dean of Murcia University Medical School and the man behind the professorship, has explained that the ‘UM-SEMG-HEEL Professorship in Family Medicine and Healthy Lifestyles’ will enable the development of "a wide array of activities in the training and promotion of healthy habits in Family Medicine and other medical areas".
The amount of the professorship is €60,000 for three renewable years, as affirmed by the deputy vice-chancellor of Institutional Affairs and Health Sciences, Manuel Vidal.
The Professorship is "for students at the Medical School and those from other branches of the Health Sciences and, in general, for Murcia University students, including young residents being trained in hospitals as future specialists and doctors, and the public in general", explains García-Estañ.
He goes on to remind us that Murcia "was one of the few medical schools wishing to have one of these professorships, today joining the group of other reputable medical schools with an SEMG professorship".
José Manuel Cordero, the general manager of Laboratorios Heel España, S.A.U., affirms that the goal is to "create healthier lifestyles".
Benjamín Abarca, the president of the Spanish Society of General Practitioners and of the Foundation for Research and Training of the SEMG, explains that this agreement is a continuation of an activity that the SEMG has been undertaking since 2007 when "it took the initiative to create professorships in family medicine to make them available to universities".
In his opinion, "the synergy of the University, of a scientific society with over 8,000 members and of a company as renowned as Heel Spain will be a successful venture that benefits the health of the population, which is the ultimate purpose".
Undergraduate and postgraduate training
Mr Abarca says that "The main reason the SEMG embarked on this initiative was to raise awareness of Family Medicine, which is a largely unknown discipline, as it is important for medical students to be aware of this speciality when it comes to choosing their specialisation".
He goes on to explain that this will enable undergraduate training in the most deficient areas in the student’s training, and postgraduate training.
He stresses that "in research Spanish GPs represent around 45% of all doctors in the Spanish health service". However, he complains that "our scientific output barely reaches 5%".
For this reason, Abarca considers that this professorship "could help bring about a sea change in undergraduate and postgraduate research".
At the same time he stresses the importance of cooperation in addition to "enabling healthy lifestyles in a society such as ours in which inactivity, stress, inappropriate diet and toxic habits are at times a serious concern in our country”.
544 words, 3.522 characters (incl. blanks)
Heel is a pharmaceutical company that develops, manufactures and distributes medicines based on natural substances.Being the global leader in homeopathic combination preparations, the company is also a pioneer in the field of scientific research in natural healthcare.In cooperation with academic institutions, Heel actively fosters the concept of Integrative Medicine and is building the bridge between homeopathy and conventional medicine to improve patient care and health.
The ‘Biologische Heilmittel Heel GmbH’ with its corporate headquarters located in Baden-Baden/Germany and a staff of 1,300, achieved an annual turnover of 196 million Euros in 2011 – 70 percent of it outside of Germany.Heel medicinesare available through subsidiaries and distribution partners in over 50 countries around the world.
001_2013_Heel_Professorship.jpg: (r. t. l.) José Manuel Cordero, general manager of Laboratorios Heel España, Benjamín Abarca, president of the Spanish Society of General Practitioners (SEMG), and José Antonio Cobacho, vice-chancellor of Murcia University, signing the agreement to create a Professorship in Family Medicine and Healthy Attitudes.Photo: Juanchi López.
Press contact:
Biologische Heilmittel Heel GmbH
Andrea Himmelsbach-Neff
Global Communication Manager
Phone:+49 7221 501-3004
Fax:+49 7221 501-480
E-mail:
Internet: /