Note: This entry reproduces the tribute speech to Vicente Ortún on his appointment as Honorary Member of AES by Anna García-Altés, President of AES.
Today is an important day for AES. Today we celebrate the mention of honorary member that we awarded to one of the most relevant and beloved AES partners, Vicente Ortún.
Vicente is partner number 11 of AES. He held the position of Secretary in the first Board of Directors, established in 1986, during the sixth AES Conference that took place in Valencia, and has been its President from 1998 to 2004.
Yesterday at the assembly we summarized his enviable resume: Graduate in Economic Sciences from the UB, MBA from ESADE, MSc from Purdue Universitydoctoral studies at Johns Hopkins, doctorate from the UB, and more recently Visiting Professor in the Department of Economics at MIT.
During his career, Vicente has been able to compare the academic aspect with management experience and his work in Public Administration. He has had the ability to seduce, in equal measure, managers and clinicians (in fact, he speaks of glycosylated hemoglobin with complete correctness).
The articles he has published reflect this trajectory and show the issues that concern him. Vicente has taught us, and teaches us, and continues to teach us, among many other things:
- That it is necessary to move from clinical effectiveness to social efficiency.
- That management matters, and it matters a lot.
- That good governance and transparency are the basis for society to move forward.
- That it is necessary to make what is socially convenient individually attractive.
- That primary care has a transcendental role in our health system, and a very important redistributive role.
- And that the health system is an achievement of the welfare state that we should not let lose.
Beyond professional and academic careers, essential in a scientific association like ours, Vicente is much more than that for AES. Vicente is the adhesive (the glue) that unites us all: he knows the partners, both old and new, and follows their professional and personal career.
At an institutional level, it has built bridges (it has built highways!) where many of us would not have set foot. He is extremely generous, sharing articles, supervising theses and dissertations, teaching classes, participating in talks, mentoring, etc. He has been the inspiration for many of us to dedicate ourselves to the world of Health Economics. Those of us who have been able to enjoy one or some of these aspects are very, very lucky people.
If I had to highlight the characteristic that most defines him, I would say that it is his unlimited curiosity about the world around him. He is interested in everything, and learns from everything. Then he transforms it into a kind of trick question that he asks, to which he already knows the answer (this ranges from “how birds fly” to “eight thousand of Mallorca” or “if they gave you tramadol in the hospital”). . So much so that there is a special Trivial edition in his honor: “Trivial Ortintún Edition”.
To paraphrase the song you shared a few months ago with some of us, “if you give us a choice, we’ll stay with you.”
Thank you to your family (Marita, Biel, Vera and Neus) for sharing Vicente with AES. Thank you Vicente for so much.
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