Asia Pacific region Montegut Scholar, Dr Mya Win Hnit

Dr Mya Win Hnit, of Myanmar, was selected as a Montegut scholarship winner to attend 2017 WONCA Asia Pacific Regional Conference, which was recently held on November 1‐4 in Pattaya, Thailand. He is pictured receiving his scholarship from WONCA CEO, Garth Manning.

Dr Hnit reports:

“It was my very first time to attend an international conference organized by WONCA and so it had already become a memorable moment of my professional life. These new experiences and lessons learned from the conference will be beneficial not only for patients from my clinical practice, but also for the development of primary care research in our country. Therefore, I would like to thank the Montegut Global Scholars Program of the American Board of Family Medicine Foundation for giving me this great opportunity to attend the WONCA Asia Pacific Regional Conference 2017."

Activities

Pre‐conference Day (October 31, 2017)

I had a chance to attend the WONCA Asia Pacific Council Meeting as one of the two observers from Myanmar.

Conference Days (November 1‐ 4, 2017)

At the very beginning of the conference, I was taught by Dr Donald Li (WONCA President Elect) about the role of family physician in the community before, during and after a disaster. From his keynote speech, I had learned about the innovative methods of disaster training for family doctors, including the use of virtual reality simulation tools.

I also attended the keynote lecture of Prof. Amanda Howe (WONCA President), who highlighted the challenges facing family physician in the 21st century. According to the lecture, it was noted that a significant number of challenges were be encountered not only in the developing countries but also in the developed ones. It also reminded me about the challenges we were facing day to day in our clinical practice, especially the limitation of time, technical, financial and structural resources.

Photo: (from l to r) Tin Myo Han (Myanmar FM leader), Amanda Howe (WONCA President), Mya Win Hnit, Meng-Chih Lee (APR president)

In the afternoon on day 1, I stood beside my poster and presented our study, "Awareness of type‐2 diabetic patients on healthy diet: A preliminary study in selected general practitioners' clinic in Yangon, Myanmar".

On day‐2, after attending the lecture of Prof Meng‐Chih Lee, I was well‐aware of how the health care system was reformed in Chinese Taipei since 1995 and the development of their family and community medicine department. At that time, I was thinking about my own country, where our health authorities were currently trying to promote family medicine by establishing the department of family medicine in medical universities.

In the next keynote session, Prof. Michael Kidd gave me clear insight on what role I could play as a family doctor, and I was inspired by his answers on the question of "how do you know when you've had a good day in your family practice?".

Then, being a beginner in primary care research field, I joined the workshop on 'building up research capacity in primary care: how to write a scientific paper' and then the family counseling workshop;

On the 3rd day, from the keynote lecture of Prof. Zorayda Leopando, I had learned a concept that it is necessary to integrate occupational health and safety in primary health care and family physicians should take a leading role in this integration.

Then, I attended a plenary session on primary health care policy implementation in the Asia Pacific region, and had a chance to compare and contrast several different lessons from each of those countries with that of our country, Myanmar.

The last plenary session of the conference was also attractive for me as its topic was geriatric assessment and health screening. As a volunteer doctor working in a charity clinic for the elderly, I was eager to learn detailed assessment and health screening methods for the geriatric population.

Action points

I have already donated part of my Montegut scholarship award, 500 US$, to our Myanmar General Practitioners' Society during its monthly meeting on 8th November for the development and establishment of primary care research unit under our GP Society.

I will continue to be involved in the activities of our GP Society, as a young and active life‐member.

I have decided to do more primary care research studies, which will be useful to promote the evidence‐based primary care practices in Myanmar.

I will share the information about WONCA Young Doctors' Movement to junior doctors in my country, and also keep in touch with the representatives of the Rajakumar movement (TRM), whom I had met during the conference, via online to have a chance to participate in future TRM conferences. Photo below shows Dr Hnit (back row second from right) with TRM members