PhD Thesis is a big deal. Being awarded “with honors” is even bigger of a deal (< 10% of Finnish PhD Thesis/candidates receive such distinction). Being selected as the Best of your university in any given year is amazing. Lasse’s PhD Thesis was awarded the best PhD Thesis of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Helsinki in 2021. Each of the 5 Faculties of Medicine in Finland submit their own pick to the Finnish Medical Journal for further assessment.
The PhD Thesis of the Year 2021 was awarded to Dr. Suvi Sippola from the University of Turku. Suvi’s Thesis was simply outstanding. Their team—lead by Prof. Paulina Salminen—has done some groundbreaking research on the diagnosis and treatment of acute appendicitis. With surgical pride, FICEBO warmly congratulates Suvi, Paulina and the APPAC team for the award.
Our own “boy”, Lasse placed second with an honorary award. Mika and Simo can be proud of their former PhD student: Lasse was first awarded the Thesis of the Year by the Finnish Orthopaedic Association and now was awarded the second prize at the Finnish Medical Journal’s centennial ceremony.
We are proud of the clinical surgical research in Finland: For a country of roughly 5.5 M people, it is nothing short of exceptional that both Suvi’s and Lasse’s Theses had a paper published in prestigious JAMA and JAMA Surgery journals!
This was the second time that a PhD Thesis by a FICEBO researcher was awarded at the most prestigious Thesis competition in Finland: Raine Sihvonen still remains the only FICEBO researcher with the first prize, raising the bar quite high for the rest of us. But as much as we love to set our aims high in research, still are very proud of each FICEBO researcher that accomplishes the amazing PhD feat!
