WONCA E-Update
Friday 25th August 2017
WONCA News – August 2017
The latest WONCA News (August 2017) is accessible via the WONCA website, with lots of WONCA news, views and events.
Policy Bite: Getting the Evidence for the Impact of Family Medicine
Last month’s policy bite addressed the value of describing what is happening in different countries, and the launch of a new website which would allow WONCA members to share their country’s data. A different kind of evidence is needed to evaluate the impact of new inputs through primary health care and – in our specific area of interest – family doctors. In this month’s Policy Bite, Professors Felicity Goodyear Smith and Amanda Howe invite WONCA readers to let them know of any research going on globally looking at various aspects of health systems.
We are putting out a ‘call for evidence’. We are keen to know if anyone is working on studies that explicitly evaluate the role of family doctors within a service. If you are due to publish in the near future, please share your early findings with WONCA leads for your country / regional / globally, so that we can ensure we have the most up to date evidence available. And if you are not a researcher, then please help your academic colleagues as best you can – by collating data, or letting them know of new opportunities to evaluate service developments that involve family doctors.
Another busy and fruitful year @RuralWONCA
Every year the WONCA Working Party on Rural Practice produces an annual report for WONCA Executive and this year decided that it would be useful to share some of the topics in Rural Roundup. It’s been a particularly busy year for the WP, with two conferences within six months; at the World WONCA Conference in Rio de Janeiro (November 2016) and at their own 14th WONCA World Rural Health Conference in Cairns Australia (April 2017). Catch up with this very active Working Party at: http://www.globalfamilydoctor.com/News/AnotherbusyandfruitfulyearRuralWONCA.aspx
Promoting Planetary Health
The WONCA Europe 2017 conference seemed a very favorable setting to promote the issue of Planetary Health and increase the general awareness for it. Some of this happened, but the potential is much greater, as well as its appropriate place to be mentioned to a wider audience, such as any medical conference (especially by primary care physicians) as an issue which should require everybody’s attention.
Ralph Guggenheim, from WONCA’s Working Party on the Environment, posted his reflections on Planetary Health to the group’s discussion forum. You can read it here, together with the WONCA Statement on Planetary Health and Sustainable Development Goals.
Featured Doctor: Professor Zalika Klemenc Ketis
One of this month’s Featured Doctors is Professor Zalika Klemenc Ketis, who is a member of the WONCA Europe Executive Board, representing EQuiP. At the Faculty of Medicine, University of Maribor, she is the chair of the Department of Family Medicine and associate professor of family medicine as well as head of the research group. She is also partly employed in the largest healthcare centre in Slovenia – Ljubljana Community Health Care Centre, where she works in family medicine practice – and at the Institute for the research and development of primary healthcare.
WHO On-line Courses on epidemics, pandemics and health emergencies
WHO has launched a series of video courses on epidemics, pandemics and health emergencies. Geared for those working in emergencies, the courses are also accessible to the public. The courses – which are on a platform called OpenWHO – transform complex scientific knowledge into easy-to-understand introductory video lessons, using a smaller bandwidth so that people in any country can access them. Offline versions are available on both IOS and Android devices. The platform can host an unlimited number of users and is free and open to anyone wishing to register.
