Loreto Carmona

Trained as a rheumatologist (MIR Hospital de la Princesa de Madrid, 1991-1994), since her residency, and except for a parenthesis between 2002 and 2003 (Hospital Clínico San Carlos, Madrid), she devoted almost exclusively to clinical and epidemiological research after being trained at the Arthritis Research Group of the University of California at San Francisco (1996-97). She obtained her Ph.D. from the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health of the Universidad Autónoma of Madrid with the EPISER project, a national health survey of rheumatic diseases, which linked her to the Spanish Society of Rheumatology for many years. Additional employment: Medical assessor at the Spanish Medicines Agency (2000-01), Coordinator of a project of the Ibero-American Cochrane collaboration at the Hospital de la Princesa Foundation (2001-02); Director of the Research Unit of the Spanish Rheumatology Foundation (2003-10); Researcher and Professor at the Universidad Camilo José Cela in Madrid (2011-13); Research consultant in several Spanish rheumatology departments. Since 2012, she has served as the scientific director of the Instituto de Salud Musculoesquelética (Inmusc) and has been a lecturer on several master's degree programs at public and private universities. She has supervised 13 theses and coordinated several masters and doctoral courses. At present she is participating in 4 large EU-funded consortia, and over 10 other projects with private or public funding. Her scientific production includes more than 390 articles in national and international journals (h-index 76) and has collaborated on more than 450 presentations at specialty congresses. Her main interests are research methodology, patient involvement in research, and teaching. She has also worked extensively in registries and outcome measure development and validation. Over the years, she has been very active at the European Alliance of Associations of Rheumatology (EULAR). There she was the first Spaniard and woman to coordinate the scientific program of the Congress (2010 and repeated in 2021), Chair of the Standing Committee on Epidemiology and Health Services Research (2011-12), Chair of Advocacy (2021-2024), and Chair of Chairs. She was also involved in the School of Rheumatology and the Research Foundation FOREUM during the first 7 years of its activity. In 2014, she completed a Master's degree in Health 2.0, after which she became regular on social media and ran several accounts and websites. She also collaborates with patients' and professionals' associations in a career as a musculoskeletal health and patient-involvement activist.