Bled 2004 -13th EURACT Course and 1st Annual
Europe GP/FM Teachers Meeting

The world is getting smaller. General practitioners are increasingly coming in contact with people from different countries and culture is becoming an important issue that determines communication between the doctor and the patient. Family doctors need tools that would help them in their work in a multicultural environment. The Slovene Family Medicine Society, Department of Family Practice, University Ljubljana and the Institute of Family Medicine and under the patronage of the European Academy of Teachers in General Practice (EURACT) and with the support of the EURACT service function task force, has organized the 13th International course for teachers in GP/FP in Bled, Slovenia: September 7 - 11, 2004. The course theme is "Learning and Teaching about Patient Centred Clinical Care in Modern Cross-Cultural Communities in General/Family Practice".

EURACT council members also serve as additional resource persons. The course directors are Yonah Yaphe (Israel), Manfred Maier (Austria), Jaime Correia de Sousa (Portugal), Amanda Howe (Great Britain) and Janko Kersnik (Slovenia) with the contributions of resource persons Igor Švab, Gianluigi Passerini, Janos Szabo, Mladenka Vrcic-Keglevic, Mateja Bulc and many others. Social programme will be organised by the Social Program Chair of the Wonca Europe 2003 conference in Ljubljana, Professor Nena Kopcavar-Gucek, so you can be sure that it will be exquisite.

Bled is a tourist resort in the Northwest of Slovenia and is easily accessible by car, train or plane. From the conference rooms you can enjoy the view of the lake and the town celebrating its 1000th anniversary (seen at http://www.bled.si) or the rims of the mountains surrounding the picturesque landscape. You will be able to take the boat to an island in the lake and ring a bell of good wishes, to visit a castle above the lake or to have a jogging trip around the lake during the meeting breaks. There is a famous traditional water polo game between the participants in the pool at the top of the hotel, a grapevine inspection and many other surprises.

The course will end September 10 - 11, 2004 with the 1st European GP/FP Teachers Conference on Education in Primary Care. The conference theme will be "At the crossroads of the Education in General/Family Practice". Because of the nature of general practice it is important that these issues are properly taught in a GP setting. This is the challenge that this year's course of learning and teaching in family medicine is aiming to address. The participants will have an opportunity to share their views and experiences with dealing with patients from different cultures. Because of the international nature of the course, we will be able to exchange opinions and views from different health care systems, societies and cultures.

The course is aimed at general practitioners involved in teaching general practice at the university or practice level and will be held in English. It will be based on presentations by experts, group work, field work and open discussion in small groups and plenaries. The participants will be supplied with course material in advance. A EURACT certificate will be issued to the participants at the end of the course. The participants will be able to visit family doctor offices and explore the organisation of primary health care in Slovenia. The participants of the course will be able to attend the 1st Annual Meeting of GP/FM Teachers in Europe and present their products from the groups during it for the price of attending the course.

At the end of the course the participants will be able to:
· Understand the meaning of patient centeredness and the "partnership model" of clinical care in the doctor-patient relationship
· Understand the importance of an appropriate relationship between patient and the doctor in the context of his/her everyday routine and the principles of general practice
· Use strategies for dealing with delicate issues of the doctor-patient relationship
· Apply the strategies in a practical situation
· Understand the importance of incorporating teaching about doctor-patient relationships in their students' and trainees' programmes
· Develop a teaching strategy on the doctor-patient relationship in general practice that can be used in his/her country

The course fee is set at 200 EURO and will include course materials, organisation of the course, conference attendance and the participation in exciting social events. There is a 40 EURO reduction of the course fee for EURACT members. A limited number of sponsored places is available through the EURACT sponsorship programme. Details are available at the EURACT website: www.euract.org. The detailed programme is available on Slovene Family Medicine Society webpages www.drmed.org and www.drmed-mb.org.

The participants of the course and educators in primary care will be also able to attend the 1st annual meeting of GP/FM teachers in Europe and to present their products from the group for the price of attending the course. All others are invited to submit their work - abstracts for presentations and workshops - by e-mail (janko.kersnik@s5.net) to the board of directors, which will decide which presentations will be accepted and the way the papers will be presented. Abstracts for the presentations and workshops not exceeding 250 words should be send in word format by e-mail to the programme committee by the June 20.

The conference is aiming at the educators in primary care who are involved in teaching at the university or practice level and will be held in English. The main aim is to exchange the experiences and to propose effective strategies, models, curricula and methods of teaching GP/FM on undergraduate and postgraduate level. During the conference there will be a mixture of invited lectures, presentations, panel discussions, poster presentations and group work. The modules produced during the 13th international course will be presented to the conference audience. The conference fee for those attending only the conference is 100 EURO. We have chosen an array of interesting keynotes and have invited distinguished speakers to cover the issues. We invite you to send an abstract for the parallel presentation or for the workshop. Three workshops will be covered by the products of the course on teaching patient centred care.

The interested participants should send their preliminary applications until June 20 to Janko Kersnik, Koroska 2, 4280 Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, phone: +386-4-58-84-601, fax: +386-4-58-84-610, e-mail: janko.kersnik@s5.net.