Featured Doctor

HEATH, Dr Iona: WONCA Executive member 2007-2013

(UK)

Dr Iona Heath was a member of WONCA executive from 2007 to 2010 and in this role also served as the WHO liaison person.

Dr Iona Heath CBE FRCP PRCGP worked as a general practitioner from 1975 until 2010 at the Caversham Group in Kentish Town in Lindon, a deprived but wonderfully diverse inner city area. Over nearly 35 years she looked after three generations of many families.

She has been a nationally elected member of the Council of the Royal College of General Practitioners since 1989, and chaired the College’s Committee on Medical Ethics from 1998 to 2004 and the International Committee from 2006 to 2009. She is currently President of the Royal College of General Practitioners, having been elected for a three-year term from November 2009.

From 1993 to 2001, she was an editorial adviser for the British Medical Journal and chaired the journal’s ethics committee from 2004 to 2009. She was a member of the UK Human Genetics Commission from 2006 to 2009. She has been a member-at-large of the Wonca World executive and chair of the Membership Committee since 2007.

She writes regularly for the British Medical Journal and has contributed essays to many other medical journals across the world. She has been particularly interested to explore the nature of general practice, the importance of medical generalism, issues of justice and liberty in relation to healthcare, the corrosive influence of the medical industrial complex and the commercialisation of medicine, and the challenges posed by disease-mongering, the care of the dying, and violence within families. Her book entitled 'Matters of Life and Death' was published by Radcliffe Publishing in 2007.