This month do read the inspiring story from the USA tells how family doctors led by Kim Yu are helping Puerto Rico colleagues devasted by natural disasters.
News from our Working Parties and Special Interest Groups, includes the latest clinical tool from the WP on Mental Health: GP/FP Role in non drug interventions. There are also new resources from the WHO for their global campaign: Medication Without Harm.
I find myself in the odd position of being a featured doctor this month (after seven years of avoidance). Also featured is the president of the coming WONCA EMR conference in Kuwait, Dr Anwar Alnajjar.
Finally, don’t forget next year’s conferences will soon be here – it’s time to submit abstracts and consider registering for at least one of them.
Dr Karen Flegg. WONCA Editor.
WONCA President Amanda Howe visits Lebanon: Tahaddi clinic is next to one of the main Palestinian refugee camps, and provides health services to a population who live mostly in shanty housing. Over 65% of these patients are Syrian refugees, while the remaining 35% are Lebanese residents of the area.
Greetings again from Bangkok. This month I’ll report on the meeting of the 2016-18 Executive, which took place in Bangkok on 29th and 30th October 2017 – this was the second full meeting of the 2016-18 WONCA Executive and the last meeting for Prof Michael Kidd.
WONCA has had a Working Party on Rural Practice for many years. Their vision is “health for all rural people around the world”, and, as for WONCA as a whole, one of the key aims of their advocacy is to ensure governments recognise the importance of family medicine and its rural and remote workforce. It is therefore a source of celebration that Prof Paul Worley, a member of the WONCA Rural Working Party, has been appointed as the first Rural Health Commissioner of Australia
Kim Yu MD from the USA, is one amazing colleague. In just one week after the recent hurricane devastated Puerto Rico, Kim took to Facebook and drove a fundraising effort to help her collegues in Puerto Rico, raising over $62,000 from all the chapters of the American Academy of Family Physicians in just over one week,
launched at the WONCA Asia Pacific Region Conference this week: “Family doctors’ role in providing non-drug interventions (NDIs) for common mental health disorders in primary care” is a new resource produced by the WONCA Working Party on Mental Health
WONCA’s next world conference comes to Seoul, Korea from October 17 – 21, 2018. The theme of the conference is “Primary Care in the Future: Professional Excellence,” and will cover diverse disciplines of family medicine from the present to the future. For the vision of future family medicine, we plan to offer a dynamic and stimulating array of scientific and practical hands-on programs as well as special events. Find out more.
