Passion for Excellence: My Lifelong Journey Into Medicine and Public Service

This book chronicles the life and career of Haralampos M. Moutsopoulos, an internationally renowned professor of medicine and prolific researcher on Sjögren’s syndrome and autoimmune rheumatic diseases. In language that is simple and direct, he takes us on a fascinating journey from the days of his first scientific awakenings at a hospital in his native town of Ioannina, Greece, through his university years in Athens and training in the US, to his eventual return to his homeland. In Greece, he developed two centers of excellence in his field, first at the newly founded University of Ioannina Medical School Department of Internal Medicine and, second, at the Athens University Medical School, Department of Pathophysiology, where he taught until his retirement in 2011. A major theme throughout the book, and especially in this second edition, is his impassioned struggle for excellence, meritocracy, and transparency in universities and in the National Health System in Greece. This battle is relentless especially during critical periods, like the pandemic era, where human life was seriously threatened by the coronavirus and scientific community had to develop and pionner novel therapeutic approaches and bold administrative solutions. Peppered with both amusing and unsettling incidents from this lifelong crusade to raise professional standards and against misconduct, the book is a must-read for anyone interested in learning about or entering the medical profession as well as for those whose goal is to lead an adventurous, passionate life free from fear, prejudice and mediocrity.

Professor Haralampos M. Moutsopoulos received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the National University of Athens. He was trained in Internal Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and in autoimmune rheumatic diseases at the University of California, San Francisco. He worked as a scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and as a clinical associate professor of Medicine at Georgetown University Medical School, before returning to Greece as a full professor at the University of Ioannina and then at the University of Athens Medical School, where he is now Professor Emeritus. He is the recipient of significant national and international awards. He has published with Springer two books on Sjogren’s syndrome, one on rheumatology in questions and another on immunology-rheumatology in questions.