Eija Ruottinen takes specializing postgrads under her wing

Eija Ruottinen’s work entails linking together studies and adult lives.

My day 5.00–6.00 I wake up. I eat breakfast and head for work. 7.00 I check my emails and arrange today’s tasks in order of priority. Before noon, I make preparations for meetings, prepare statements and sign certificates and decisions concerning right to study. 11.00 Lunch break. 11.30 I review study plans, deal with dissertation issues, contact collaboration partners, attend meetings. 13.00 Coffee break. Committee meetings, negotiations. Writing protocols, memos and various reports. Office hour with students. 16.00–17.00 I go home.

text and photo Hanna-Mari Vanhasalmi

When I retire, should I go back to child welfare work? From time to time, this thought crosses the mind of Eija Ruottinen, Chief of Postgraduate Education, whose life work has been spent in administrative duties in the Faculty of Medicine, although her roots are in social work.

Next spring, she’ll leave behind a career in education spanning almost 39 years. She first landed her job coincidentally, when she received a phone call from the Dean of the Medical Faculty in 1975. A friend of hers had quit the post of project secretary and moved to live in England. This friend had suggested that Ruottinen would be just the right person to continue the job.

”I said, I suppose I could come down and have a look at how things work at the university. I had no idea, what this job would entail”, Ruottinen explains.

And of what it did all those years ago, not much remains unchanged today. At first, Ruottinen was involved in basic education but, since the mid-80s, she has been in charge of professional training and postgraduate education in the faculty.

In the daily scope of her work, Ruottinen provides study guidance and counselling to specializing physicians, dentists and postgraduate students and takes care of student affairs. Each student has a personal study plan, which must be reviewed every now and then.

“This work involves linking together studies and adult lives. For physicists, specialization programmes run up to 5 or 6 years, while those of dentists take three or four years to complete. Training is provided by residency programmes within the health care system. Many of these postgrads have a family, and their life situations are all different.”

In the course of the years, Ruottinen has in many ways touched the lives of the students she has taken under her wing. Thus, great many educators who now work with specializing physicians and dentists have passed through her hands. Within the hospital setting, collaboration is easy with people you go back a long way with.

“I always feel exhilarated when I get to award a qualification certificate to a graduating student. As the years go by, you learn to know your students. Even my current boss received his qualification certificate from me”, Ruottinen says, laughingly.

From carbon paper to databases

Ruottinen thinks of her job in university administration as a service occupation, where the work is centred on helping people.

“I like to think that administration is there to support staff in their work and students in their studies. Basic tasks of the university are teaching and research, and we are here to pave the way for other people. It’s not always easy, but we do our best.”

The work itself is a mixed bag. It includes giving students the right to study, awarding qualification certificates and validating credits. It also involves drafting study guides, holding information and education sessions as well as performing tasks relating to preparation, planning, execution and decision-making. She keeps it all together, prompting and guiding people, setting the pace.

A large part of her work involves keeping in touch not only with hospitals, health centres, regional state administrative agencies and other medical faculties in Finland, but also with the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and Ministry of Education and Culture.

An all-important aspect of Ruottinen’s work is a thorough understanding of the health service system, within which medical specialization is provided. In geographical terms, the specific catchment area of Oulu University Hospital is large, extending all the way from Lapland to Central Ostrobothnia.

Someone in her position must also be familiar with the legislation pertaining to the field. Ruottinen is Master of Social Sciences, and became well-versed with the legal aspects of Medicare when working in Social Services.

“Well, this work is certainly different now than what it used to be. When I first started, we used to type on carbon paper, and there was time to go to the bottom of things. Work has become more hectic, particularly with the introduction of computers, but then again, I suppose it’s the same in all lines of work”, Ruottinen points out.

Students find some specialization areas more attractive than others. Current favourites include orthopaedics, cardiology and occupational medicine. Correspondingly, other fields, such as psychiatry, general medicine, anaesthesiology, radiology, internal medicine and lung diseases barely hit minimum enrolment.

And the student spectrum is wide. Some continue their studies right after pocketing their Licentiate Degree, others finish their dissertation on retirement. A third group work on their specialization studies and dissertation at the same time.

“We try to provide assistance and guidance to students selecting a specialization area. Some of them come round right after graduation and ask in what fields there’s a need for specialists. But, of course, we don’t force anything down their throats, not yet at least”, Ruottinen explains, smiling.