From our El Salvador colleagues

WONCA President, Prof Michael Kidd, recently sent a welcome speech on YouTube, which was translated into Spanish, for the conference of El Savador colleagues held on October 31 and November 1 this year, in San Salvador (see photo above). Victor Manuel Campos MD, President Asociacion de medicina familiar de el salvador (AMEFAES) wrote to Prof Kidd:

After two days full of different kind of emotions (happiness for the results, tiredness for the effort), I write you to say thanks for the support, in the name of all of members of the Family Medicine Association of El Salvador (AMEFAES). We are very grateful for the courtesy that you showed us. Your speech caused a big impact on the audience: it was the best way to open our Congress. We also had the opportunity to see and hear the words of Dra. Maria Inez Padula Anderson (president of WONCA Iberoamericana region) and Dr Miguel Angel Fernandez, of CIMF. All of us are sure that Family Medicine in our country will grow up with our work, day by day.

About Family Medicine in El Salvador.

In our country we have two schools of family medicine, one in Sonsonate Hospital as part of ISSS (the Salvadorean Institute of Social Security), and the other at Hospital "José Zaldaña", from the National Health System. The first one started in about 1998 and the second one in about 2001. The Association of Family Medicine from El Salvador (AMEFAES) began with a meeting, in May of 2010, with 16 founder members. Under salvadoran law, the Association was constituted on February 21, 2011 and on that day we were 55 family doctors (from an possible number of about 200) working together for the improvement of primary health care.

Our congress

This recent congress, was our second congress and had the theme: "Chronic diseases and the primary care doctor". (Our first conference on “Health Reform: Development of primary care and prospective position for family medicine” took advantage of the visit of two colleagues, Dr Fons Mathot and Dr Luc von Berjtjin, from The Netherlands, in November 2011).

This time out congress was attended by about 100 physicians - general doctors, family doctors and from other specialities. We had the opportunity of listening to 15 different speakers on a variety of interesting topics like:

• Experiences of family medicine and primary care in Latin America and the World.
• Family doctors in El Salvador: Who we are and what we do
• Prevention and control of smoking
• Management of palliative care
• The suffering of chronic disease
• Chronic conditions in Primary Health Care
• Good clinical practice guide: hypertension and diabetes mellitus 2.
• Updated KDIGO guidelines on chronic kidney disease
• Identification of rheumatic diseases in primary care
• Heart failure in primary care
• current treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus: about after sulfonylureas and metformin
• Concept terminal patient: how do I approach it?
• Treatment of caregiver syndrome of chronic ill
• Management analgesic in the renal patient
• Chronic pain management
• Operating the terminal delirium
• The joy of being primary care physician

I want to thank to WONCA to providing me the chance to share with everybody these words. It was a great experience, because we had the opportunity of meeting with people who think like us and share our vision; to present our views and tell everyone that WE EXIST AND WE ARE HERE. I'm sure that all in the congress have ended with a smile on his/her face, in realizing what we can do.

Victor Manuel Campos MD
President Asociacion de Medicina Familiar de El Salvador (AMEFAES)

Michael Kidd video address in English only