It has recently become fashionable to say that you are stepping aside when someone retires from their main activity or changes their objectives. I think that it is a particularly apt expression because it implies that you will carry on along the same path, but without the rush or obligations that give rise to a degree of stress that is unwise at certain ages.

I have worked in and enjoyed my speciality for many years: Sports Medicine. During all of this time I never imagined that one day I would write these lines to say farewell. I hope that you will all be able to say the same on ending a part of your professional life. I leave Sports Medicine of the Generalitat de Catalunya with an excellent feeling, one that corresponds to someone who has fully enjoyed himself every single day for 40 years working in this field.

I had the luck to learn from recognised experts in Sports Medicine who were also pioneers within the speciality. They complemented their work with an extraordinary dose of goodness. They knew how to communicate their legacy to their students, and that helped me to have a wonderful working relationship with my colleagues, whom I would like to thank deeply for all of their help and company over all these years.

I also feel proud of having made my own modest contribution to the consolidation of our speciality, to the proliferation of centres throughout the land and the worldwide prestige of Catalan Sports Medicine, opening up new diagnostic and therapeutic fields and also taking part in changing the attitude of society to physical activity, which is now regarded as a major contributor to health.

I will continue to work in Sports Medicine in other fields, and I would like to encourage future doctors to become obsessed with this extraordinary speciality, so that they develop it using all of their skills. I am sure that when they reach my situation, they will express their satisfaction in their own words, as I do now for my own experience.