Teppo Järvinen

Favorite part of your job?

Working with remarkably motivated, driven, and ambitious people who have somehow managed to stay genuinely unselfish. I find it inspiring to collaborate with colleagues who sincerely want to make the world a better place—and who walk the talk rather than just say the right words.

Why did you decide to enter your field?

For reasons I still can’t fully explain, I wanted to be an orthopaedic surgeon since I was six years old. I suppose I was following in my father’s footsteps—he was an orthopaedic surgeon treating Olympic athletes. Later, Bob Johnson (University of Vermont) became an exceptional role model for the profession when our family spent a year in Vermont during my dad’s sabbatical in the 1980s.

That said, much of life feels like being carried along by currents. I never set out to become a researcher, but at some point during medical school, I found myself completely fascinated by research—the exploration, discovery, and the possibility of changing what we know. And to be perfectly honest, the competitive and collaborative aspects of research probably filled a void after I ended my own (team) sports career—mostly because I simply wasn’t good enough to continue.

Who/What inspires you?

I’m inspired by the same things that sustain me: the beauty of landscapes, the loyalty of people close to me, and the unselfishness of those who work for the common good simply because they believe it matters.

The most interesting article you’ve read recently?

I suppose I should name some groundbreaking surgical study here. But honestly, the article that left the strongest impression on me was Margaret McCartney’s “Transparency as a means to conquer conflicts of interest is illusory” (BMJ 2024;386:q2092). Why? First, because it was sobering to realize how the same problems around conflicts of interest—and the same illusion that “transparency” alone is a magical detergent—persist in both the UK and Finland. And second, because I admire McCartney’s style: even though talking about uncomfortable things is, well, uncomfortable (and that’s exactly why most people avoid it), it’s precisely the reason we must have the courage to speak up.

Your favorite book and why?

Previously, I mentioned They Know Not What They Do by Jussi Valtonen, partly because it’s such a brilliant novel—and because it managed to make scientific work look almost cool. But I guess I should name another book now; after all, it has been a while since I last updated this. Since I’m a notoriously poor reader of fiction these days, I’ll say Trevor Corson’s The Secret Life of Lobsters. Some might think I picked it because both authors have connections to our research group at FICEBO, but the simpler truth is: I don’t get to read much literature anymore, and both books are absolutely fantastic.