• Xavier Güell, neurology resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard University (Boston, USA)

Xavier Güell Paradís spent six years (2009-2015) working towards his bachelor’s degree in Medicine (UPF-UAB). ‘It is a programme that requires a lot of effort’, he says. But he was lucky to meet many good friends and he was rewarded for his hard work with opportunities to do what he most wanted and most interested him.

‘I’ve been fortunate to have the support of teachers and scholarships, which has allowed me to choose the field and institutions I work with’, he explains. Whilst completing his degree in Medicine, he spent three consecutive summers conducting research at two centres in the US: Harvard Medical School, at Harvard University, and Northwestern University in Chicago. ‘My clinical and research interests came together’, he says.

‘I ended up living in the US today through a combination of chance, opportunity and academic contacts I had developed, specifically, with professors at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’, he explains. His work in the US has also included collaborations with researchers from the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), as in the case of the Neuroimaging Research Group (GREEN) at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), coordinated by Oscar Vilarroya.

Xavier is currently a neurology resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, at Harvard University (Boston, Massachusetts, USA). ‘I spend the vast majority of my time in clinical practice with hospitalized patients. Before starting my residency, I spent three years solely on scientific research, specifically, in neuroscience’, he explains.

He is satisfied with his work, which allows him to enjoy what he does and delve deeper into the dual mission of neuroscience: ‘To relieve the suffering of patients with neurological diseases and, at the same time, to learn about how the nervous system works and its relationship with reality and the human condition.’ For now, he and his partner do not have definite plans for the future. ‘At some point, we’ll stop and look at what we want to do and what opportunities we have!’

Although the US is home to internationally renowned universities, he says it is not unusual to find important papers in neuroscience written mainly in Catalonia. ‘I know examples of prominent researchers who direct interesting research in collaborations between American and Barcelona-based centres’, he says.

Despite his youth, Xavier has already begun to build a good career in the field of medicine, if we include the years he spent earning his degree as well as his time doing research and clinical practice. His advice to new students is quite clear: ‘If you study medicine, do it because you like it. The most important thing is to really learn and that does not always have to do with the marks you get.’

Photo gallery

Xavier Güell during his time in Barcelona and Boston, and an image of the brain