From the CEO's desk: Many meetings and Rio planning dates

Hello again. In last month’s column I had said that I would report back on both the WONCA Eastern Mediterranean Region conference and the latest Executive meeting. However editorial deadlines have meant that I have been asked to produce copy BEFORE those events have taken place, so I apologise but will report back in May’s News.

Busy times!
It’s the start of a very busy few weeks for me, and I will be travelling quite a lot on WONCA’s behalf to attend a variety of meetings and events.

As I write this, I’m packing my cases to head to Dubai for the WONCA EMR conference, and from there I travel to Abu Dhabi for the WONCA Executive meeting. After a short break over Easter it’s off to Brazil for a series of visits and meetings all linked to the forthcoming World Council and conference. I’ll visit Paraty, south of Rio, where the WONCA Executive will hold a meeting in advance of the World Council. Then it’s back to Brazil for an intense day of meetings with the Professional Conference Organizers (PCO) responsible for all the logistics to do with the various events, before being joined by Dan Ostergaard and Bohumil Seifert and our colleagues from the Brazilian Host Organizing Committee, for a busy two days of meetings and visits. We will inspect the facilities at the Windsor Hotel, in Barra di Tijuca, where the World Council will be held, and also RioCentro, the conference venue.

The HOC just reported this week that they received over 3,000 abstract submissions from 78 different countries. They are delighted at the response, and are more convinced than ever that this will be the biggest and best WONCA world event yet. You can look more closely at the breakdown of abstract submission on the WONCA website

And – for your diaries – below is a timetable for the Executive and Council meetings, regional meetings and meetings of Working Parties and Special Interest Groups, as well as the conference itself. I hope this is useful for you all.

Dates	Event
Tuesday 25th October	Executive travel to Paraty for meeting
Wednesday 26th to noon Friday 28th October	Executive meeting Paraty.
early afternoon Fri 28th October	Executive travel back to Rio
Saturday 29th October	Regional meetings in Windsor Hotel, Barra da Tijuca  Evening welcome reception for Council delegates
Sunday 30th October to lunchtime Tuesday 1st November	WONCA World Council, Windsor Hotel
Tuesday 1st November	Lunchtime meeting of new WONCA Executive
Wednesday 2nd November Breakfast meeting (0730 – 0900)	new Executive, together with new Chairs of WONCA WPs and SIGs
Afternoon of Tuesday 1st and all day Wednesday 2nd	Meetings of WONCA WPs and SIGs at conference venue (RioCentro)
Evening of Wednesday 2nd November	Opening ceremony of WONCA World Conference – RioCentro
Thursday 3rd to Sunday 6th November	WONCA World Conference  Sunday 6th will have an Iberoamericana theme

After Brazil I will then travel on to San Jose, Costa Rica, where I will meet up with the President and President-elect to take part in the latest Iberoamericana Cumbre, or Summit, of key health leaders in the region. This will be followed by the first-ever Mesoamerican conference, also in Costa Rica, and we look forward to a typical Latin American welcome and hospitality.

World Family Doctor Day – 19th May

I make no apology for returning to the theme of World Family Doctor Day. This really has become an important day in the health calendar – a chance to highlight the role and contribution of family doctors in health care systems around the world and also a chance to say “thank you” to all of you who provide such brilliant family medicine care to your patients throughout the year.

We want to hear from you to let us now what events and activities you are planning to celebrate the day. As I indicated last month, we’d especially like to suggest the topic of smoking cessation, and we have made a number of resources available to our members for them to use during FDD:

- The FDD logo is available via the WONCA website

- Our colleagues in the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) have very kindly allowed us to access their smoking cessation tools. These can be accessed here and all we ask is that you acknowledge AAFP as the source of the materials.

- IPCRG (the International Primary Care Respiratory Group) also produce a number of helpful resources for family doctors available here, including a very useful desktop helper: “Helping patients quit smoking: brief interventions for healthcare professionals”

We look forward to getting reports from Member Organizations in due course with news and photos of the events held, and many of these will be featured in future editions of WONCA News.

Next month
There will be many things to report back on next month. The WONCA EMR conference, Executive meeting, CPC meeting in Rio and the Iberoamericana Cumbre and conference in San Jose, Costa Rica. Our best wishes until then.

Dr Garth Manning
CEO