News & Agenda A highlight of the course is the opportunity provided by the Bled Community Health Care Clinic and its Director, Leopold Zonik, MD, to visit patients in their own homes for one of the sessions. According to the tradition of the course, there is always a different social programme, taken care of by Nena Kopčavar-Guček and Marko Kocijan (Slovenia).
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THIS YEAR’S TOPICS This year ’s course hit a record both in the number of participants (59) and the number of participating countries (17): UK, Ireland, Portugal, Finland, Estonia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Georgia, Turkey, Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Croatia, Poland, Israel and Slovenia. Introduction and presentation of the participants was followed by introductory lecture by Mateja Bulc, followed by the lecture ‘Medical unexplained symptoms’ (Jaime Correia de Sousa). The next day started with Jo Buchanan’s lecture ‘Effective strategies to deal with difficult situations’. House visits were made to patients of the Bled Community Health centre. On Thursday, we were taught to use Yonah Yaphe’s qualitative analysis in dealing with and teaching students and trainees about difficult situations in family practice. On Friday, we were dealing with doctor ’s health. Henry Finnegan warned participants that even though we were doctors and teachers, so to speak, the crème de la crème of European family medicine, our health could also be at stake, showing his example. His shocking lecture made us realize that doctors are also vulnerable and no ‘gods in white coats’. In the afternoon, we were intrigued by Igor Svab’s Joker session on the joy of being the family medicine doctors, using Penelope, Romeo and Juliet, Sherlock Holmes, Mother Teresa, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Laurence Olivier to open our eyes. Saturday’s country reports are a well-established part of the course, presented by the chairs of teaching and research in national family medicine University departments of participating countries. This time, the number of presentations ran out of time, such interest has been shown. All the knowledge we have gathered in the Bled five-day course, will be transferred to European family medicine teaching departments, to our students, trainees and colleges. The 2013 Bled Course will deal with doctors’ wellbeing. A warm welcome!
News
VdGM: VASCO dA GAMA MOVEMENT
Launching new projects
THE WORLD PRECONFERENCE IN PRAGUE 2013 The Vasco da Gama Movement is delighted to announce that it is participating in the organization of the World Preconference, which will be carried out in Prague on 24–25 June 2013, prior to the Wonca World Conference. The event is organized in partnership with the Rajakumar Movement (Asia-Pacific Region), the Waynakay Movement (Iberoamerican Region) the Spice Route (South Asia Region) and the First Five Years in Family Practice in Canada, and is open to trainees and junior General Practitioners/Family Physicians (GPs/FPs), up to five years after their qualification,
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News & Agenda
from all over the world. The theme of this year’s Preconference is ‘Care for Generations.’ The participants of the Preconference will have the opportunity to exchange ideas, experiences and visions with colleagues coming from all over the world. As they will become acquainted with several national profiles, they will also be able to compare different primary care systems at various levels, such as the organization of the health system, the status of GP/FM and the vocational training programmes. Moreover, there will be discussions on the future of primary care and the development of a strong Family Medicine, which meets the needs of patients in an increasingly complex and diverse world, afflicted by inequalities and an ageing population. The Preconference will conclude with two visionary speeches by Professor Richard Roberts (Wonca President) and Professor Michael Kidd (Wonca President Elect). A plenary session will follow with the presentation of all group works. Information on the World Preconference is available online on http://www. wonca2013.com and http://www.vdgm.eu and will be updated regularly.
A FUTURE BEYOND EUROPE The World Preconference aims to highlight and disseminate the importance of international peer networks. One particular area of interest is the ‘Beyond Europe Exchange programme’, which is projected to start its development in time for the World Preconference. As the number of doctors who would like to visit a Primary Care System outside the European Union is growing, the Exchange and Beyond Europe Groups of the Vasco da Gama Movement are putting a significant amount of effort on building connections with junior GP/FP associations worldwide to establish a new programme as valuable, in terms of educational and cultural contents, as the Hippocrates Exchange.
A NEW RESEARCH FRAMEWORK The research theme group has been focusing on the development of a threeyear strategy for the research stream, having as an objective to build research capacity in primary care for trainee and early-career GPs across Europe. As part of the first step, the Research Group of the Vasco da Gama Movement has invited all interested trainees and junior GPs/FPs to join the free and open ResearchGATE platform (http://www.researchgate.net), which will function as a basic, but yet effective means for raising awareness, support of the organization of programmes of work, innovation and identifying funding.
Charilaos Lygidakis Chair VdGM
[email protected] Greg Irving Research Liaison Person VdGM
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