World Family Doctor Day - May 19th
World Family Doctor Day (FDD) – 19th May - was first declared by WONCA
in 2010 and it has become a day to highlight the role and contribution
of family doctors in health care systems around the world. The event has
gained momentum globally each year and it is a wonderful opportunity to
acknowledge the central role of our specialty in the delivery of
personal, comprehensive and continuing health care for all of our
patients. It’s also a chance to celebrate the progress being made in
family medicine and the special contributions of family doctors all
around the world.
Last year many of our colleagues across the globe celebrated the day by
organising a variety of events and activities, and we received reports
and photographs from many countries, which we were able to feature in
WONCA News. Dr Karen Flegg, the WONCA Editor, has even produced a template
for countries and College and societies and associations, to aid
reporting:
submit report here
We’re very happy for Member Organizations to develop their own theme for
FDD, depending on local priorities, but this year we’d especially like
to highlight smoking cessation. Smoking is the activity most damaging
to health in a whole range of ways, and part of our role as family
doctors is to be able to encourage our patients to stop smoking and to
provide resources and support to help them. We’re making a number of
resources available to our members for them to use during FDD:
- The FDD logo is available via the WONCA
website
- Our colleagues in the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP)
have very kindly allowed us to access their smoking cessation tools.
These can be accessed
here and all we ask is that you acknowledge AAFP as the source of the materials.
- IPCRG (the International Primary Care Respiratory Group) also produce a
number of helpful resources for family doctors available
here, including a very useful desktop helper: “
Helping patients quit smoking: brief interventions for healthcare professionals”
We look forward to getting reports from Member Organizations in due
course with news and photos of the events held, and many of these will
be featured in future editions of WONCA News.
Garth Manning
CEO