A head with many hats

When I interviewed Albino J. Oliveira-Maia, we spoke about the challenges and lessons that shaped his career. What struck me most was his ability to pursue different things at once and to create the space to keep doing so. By writing this, I hope to share that feeling of courage with others who are now wondering which path to follow.

Albino is a psychiatrist and director of the Neuropsychiatry Unit at the Champalimaud Foundation (CF), where he sees patients and conducts research. Yet his journey was far from straightforward. It began with a degree in medicine, but when the time came to choose a speciality, Albino hesitated. “I was between paths, careers and ideas, trying to decide between being a doctor, being a scientist, or being both”, he recalls.

Already interested in the brain and brain health, Albino took the opportunity to join a PhD programme in neuroscience when it arose. However, he describes those years as “going back and forth between areas”. After finishing medicine, he started his PhD, but then paused for a general internship. Later, he decided not to start his specialist training immediately and went to finish his PhD at Duke University.

The choice of Duke wasn’t random. The neuroscientist Rui Costa had taught on his PhD programme (GABBA), and Albino had kept an eye on Rui’s scientific path. “I ended up in the Nicolelis lab because I heard about Rui’s work, was very excited about it and worked towards going there”, Albino says. By the time he arrived, Rui was finishing his postdoc, but their connection stayed strong, and it became a turning point in Albino’s career.

After completing his PhD, Albino wanted to return to Portugal, and to medicine, but he wasn’t done with research. “I committed to this idea of trying to do both”, he says, smiling. Unsure how to combine psychiatry with science, he called Rui for advice. Rui’s answer surprised him: “Why don’t you come to Lisbon? Maybe there’s room for you to work with me at the Champalimaud Foundation while doing your speciality”. Albino remembers it tenderly: “That was the path. It wasn’t planned, but it became what I had once dreamt of”.

So Albino came to CF, which at the time was still based at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, and space was an issue. Since he was splitting his days between his residency and the lab, he didn’t even have a desk at first. One day, though, he saw “two filing cabinets with space between them and thought, ‘Maybe I can fit a desk here.’ I found an old wooden plank, put it across the cabinets and sat down”. Rui, of course, laughed and said, “Now we’ll have to get you a real desk”.

He remembers those as “very good times, times of building something, of bringing ideas to life”. A small group of young scientists was creating not only projects but a whole programme. Still, balancing CF’s creative freedom with the rigid structure of hospital training was tough: “The two worlds couldn't be more different, and that was both a challenge and a privilege”. Albino remains grateful for Rui’s trust. “He gave me extraordinary freedom, but he also guided it: an act of great generosity and vision”. That trust allowed Albino to grow in the two fields.

One thing that makes Albino proud on his personal journey is how he has been helping to bring fundamental and clinical research together at CF. “The institution defines its mission as producing knowledge in the service of health”, he says, “but that’s not easy. You need the right culture, infrastructure and language.” CF’s main building creates the perfect environment for the integration of both worlds under one roof. However, sharing a building is not enough: “The idea that you can actually build a shared culture and language is difficult, a very serious responsibility and an extraordinary privilege”, says Albino. He sees himself among those who help build that bridge: “More than showing how to do it, we show it can be done”.

When talking about challenges, the greatest one Albino faces is time, since, as he describes it, he’s always “trying to fill several roles with only one day for all of them”. Yet he’s thankful for balance: “I’ve been lucky to be surrounded by people who made it easier for me to build a clinical and a scientific path. All of this, while having the chance to preserve my own personal world, where I get to grow with and enjoy my family and friends, has been key”. Another challenge was belonging. “For a long time, wherever I was, I was seen as belonging somewhere else, almost as if I belonged nowhere”. Over time, he learned to merge those identities, “to wear one hat that serves several roles”, which made it easier.

Thinking of what he values most at CF, freedom of thought comes to Albino's mind. Even though he considers freedom of action to be essential, it is the possibility of thinking without restrictions that he likes the most about CF: “That freedom matters, and I think it’s something that is very encouraged in the institution and that should be protected”.

As we ended our conversation, Albino shared a touching story about one of the patients with terminal cancer he was seeing who suffered from anxiety. “The patient had major anxiety around the realistic prospect that their life expectancy was limited, and were struggling to come to terms with that”, Albino explains. They would often come to the sessions with their partner, a discreet and quiet person who did not share the same level of anxiety. Albino’s patient continued to experience anxiety until one day they came to the appointment feeling unexpectedly calm. “The cancer wasn’t gone, quite the opposite, everything was progressing as expected, but this person was deeply calm now, without any therapeutic change”, Albino recalls. “So of course I asked, ‘You seem better. What happened?’ And the reason for the improvement sounds almost absurd, and yet is deeply meaningful”.

“The patient’s partner had died”, Albino says softly, and this made them reflect on “what we all carry with us, all the time: our own mortality”. The patient explained that the partner had died all of a sudden, and they thought, “This anxiety I’ve had all this time, that I’ve been living with, my partner didn’t have it, and they still died in the end. They were able to live the end of their life with serenity, without being tormented”. That offered a psychotherapeutic element, a lens on something obvious: “the idea that our last day can still be valuable, regardless of whether we know it’s the last”. Albino tells this story often, hoping that it will give strength to others who may find themselves in similar situations, and that this will give them the courage to follow the path they have dreamt of.

Albino J. Oliveira-Maia, Psychiatrist and Principal Investigator, Neuropsychiatry Unit, Champalimaud Foundation

Text by Ana Rita P. Mendes, Communication & Events Manager of the Champalimaud Foundation's Communication, Event & Outreach Team

Full 20 Years, 20 Stories Collection here.