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Member Organization Triennium Highlights Wonca's member organizations play a major global leadership role helping countries better meet people's health needs. The following member organizations shared with the Wonca News Editor their highlights during the past Triennium. Brazilian Family and Community Medicine Society The Brazilian Family and Community Medicine Society (Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina de Família e Comunidade - SBMFC) has grown in influence since its foundation 23 years ago. The government's "Family Health Program", implemented in 1994, has opened the discussion about the importance of Primary Health Care as an instrument to improve health system equity. The National Family Health Program is composed of more than 20,000 health teams and each team is integrated by one "Family Practitioner". The universities and the teaching hospitals have supported this new working market for specialists in family and community medicine. Many Family and Community Medicine residency program have been created during the last 10 years. The local health authorities, who are implementing the teams, are still hiring any physician from any specialty. This lack of selectivity is seen as a problem because young, inexperienced physicians tend to enter directly into the working market to access this relatively lucrative job instead of going through some specific residency program. Today, our organization represents almost 1,000 effective members located in 15 branches out of 27 states. More than 1700 attended The 6th Family and Community Medicine Conference in Rio de Janeiro, from 3rd to 6th of April of 2004. Although we were recognized in 1981 by the National Medical Residency Council in 1986 by the Federal Medical Council, recognition by the Brazilian Medical Association occurred only last year, which enabled the Society to promote the first Certification Exam of its history. Gustavo
Gusso
SOBRAMFA is an academic society founded in 1992 in to promote family medicine and to establish the proper basis and scientific methodology for family practice. Student support has been one of SOBRAMFA's major initiatives in the past Triennium. During the last 8 years (1997-2004) almost 3,000 medical students were involved in some of the activities promoted by SOBRAMFA. Family Medicine Interested Groups were created in 8 Medical Schools in São Paulo State, and students from another 10 ten Medical Schools came to SOBRAMFA's meetings. SOBRAMFA runs an academic project called PRAMEF-21 (academic project for the 21 Century Family Doctor) where students from 5 different medical schools see patients in the community, learn skills and methodology of Patient Centered Medicine, and share with their peers about experiences in learning, in a reflective practicing manner. The Monthly Meetings of the Family Medicine Committee in the APM (Associação Paulista de Medicina - São Paulo Medical Association) are led by medical students. An innovative learning model, student-teaching-student is integrated in this ongoing medical education course, focused on family medicine knowledge. The last three Annual Meetings SOBRAMFA invited family medicine leaders from abroad, respected professors from the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (Joshua Freeman, MD, Cynthia Haq, MD, and Stephen Bogdewic, PhD). During the last meeting, we had family doctors from México (Dr. Rafael Bustos Saldaña), England-India (Dr. Prasantas Bhowmik) and Honduras-USA (Dr. Javier Sevilla). It was very valuable for the medical students to learn from other countries. Marco
Aurélio Janaudis, MD, Sobramfa General Secretary.
June 17th, 2004, marked the 50th anniversary of The College of Family Physicians of Canada. Since the beginning, the College of General Practice, later to become the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC), has remained focused on promoting the highest standards in education, research, and practice among Canada¹s family doctors. College
membership has grown from a few hundred in the 1950s to 10,000 in 1991
to almost 17,000 today. Ten active Chapters have been established as key
parts of the National College, each leading the way in representing CFPC
members in their respective provinces. Every Canadian medical school now
has a vibrant department of family medicine active in teaching and research.
Five schools have named family physicians as their Deans of Medicine. Continuing
medical education, the first focus of College activity back in the 1950s,
remains an area where the College provides strong leadership both in Canada
and abroad. The CME/CPD requirements for Maintenance of Certification,
Fellowship, and Maintenance of Fellowship continue to evolve to ensure
not only that our programs meet the highest nationally and At special events across Canada on June 17th and again on November 25th at the Opening Ceremonies of Family Medicine Forum (FMF) 2004 in Toronto, Ontario, in honor of our 50th anniversary, CFPC leaders are signing a Declaration of Commitment recommitting our College to the values and principles of family medicine. At FMF we will also launch an illustrated 112 page hard cover book, Patients First: The Story of Family Medicine in Canada. Published by Key Porter, a major Canadian publishing house, this book will be our College¹s offering to Canada at this important time in our history and will be sold in book stores across the country. In
2004, the CFPC will also release its position paper, Family Medicine in
Canada; Vision for the Future. It will capture the work completed by the
CFPC's Future of Family Medicine in Canada Project which has unfolded
over the past 3 years. We invite you to join us in our 50th anniversary
celebrations at Family Medicine Forum in Toronto, Ontario, November 25th-
27th, 2004. For more information and registration, visit our website at
www.cfpc.ca. We look Cal
Gutkin, MD Hong Kong College of General Practitioners In the past three years, Hong Kong had been struck with the avian flu and SARS, two most threatening infections with often fatal consequences. Family physicians were affected like the rest of the community and trainees working in government facilities particularly so in the SARS crisis. A few family physicians succumbed to SARS and the medical fraternity mourned their loss. Vocational training was disrupted as family medicine trainees were deployed to carry out SARS related duties. Thankfully, no trainees came down with the infection. The Hong Kong College of Family Physicians devised several initiatives to help the government to relieve the burden of maintaining community medical services while resources were diverted to combat the spread of the infection. For those few months, the medical profession was united in containing this deadly virus. On a brighter note, a legacy of this episode is that there is now a heightened awareness of infection control in our clinics. The College celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2003. The occasion was marked with a special scientific meeting and a Fellowship diploma conferment ceremony. We were graced by the presence of Prof Michael Kidd, the President of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, who gave the prestigious Dr. Sun Yat Sen Oration and guests from the UK and the USA. We are pleased to announce that the Hong Kong College of Family Physicians has signed an agreement to train family doctors in China starting this year. The programme is based on our own Diploma in Family Medicine course which has already received government recognition. With the extensive networking the College has established with China, the future looks exciting. Dr. John TN
Chung Our new National Health System has been released. The good news is the private health care system will be served only by Family Doctors/GP in primary care clinics. Health services are now divided into three levels: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Most Faculty of Medicine have announce new curriculum in which the outcome of a faculty of medicine will be Family Doctor. The graduates should complete at least one year internship program in a primary care clinic prior to their own independent practice. At least 139 GPs have been trained as teachers in Family Medicine. Besides, we have standardized training curriculum that will be applied throughout Indonesia this year. Dr
Sugito Wonodirekso MS International Primary Care Respiratory Group International primary care guidelines for common respiratory conditions such as COPD and asthma and are soon to be launched by the International Primary Care Respiratory Group (IPCRG). The IPCRG is seeking collaboration with Wonca to safeguard the guidelines' implementation, to encourage the development of best practice and to stimulate research. The guidelines present excellent opportunities to involve regional and national academic bodies of family medicine. Therefore the IPCRG and Wonca have been in close consultation and it is hoped that at the Wonca Council in Orlando this collaboration will be formalised. Siân
Williams The Lebanese Society of Family Medicine The
Lebanese Society of Family Medicine has become a member of the Wonca family
since 2003. For the past three years it has been regularly organising
annual medical conferences where updates on common medical problems are
presented and problems of concern to the practice of family medicine within
Lebanon and in the Arab World are discussed. These regular meetings helped
establish a network among family medicine societies in the region
The Royal College of General Practitioners The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) is committed to promoting excellence in family medicine, and maintaining the highest standards of general medical practice. It continues to act as the voice of general practitioners on education, training and standards. The last three years has been an exciting time for the RCGP, not least in its continuing work with overseas partners. The year 2001 saw the launch of the MRCGP International (MRCGP[INT]), with Oman, the first pioneer country, achieving accreditation in November 2001, followed by Brunei in November 2003. Similar work is underway with colleagues in Cyprus, Egypt, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Malta, Qatar, and South Asia. What
does MRCGP[INT] mean to Family Doctors worldwide? The fundamental reason
for creating the MRCGP[INT] is to support the development of family medicine
world-wide and by doing so, to assist in raising standards of the discipline.
Until recently, it had proved difficult to identify the principles for
the academic rigour to develop and accredit examinations of competence
for Family Doctors across the diversity of culture, language, geography,
epidemiology and health systems. Dr
John Howard FRCGP |