World Family Doctor Day 2026: Compassionate Care in a Digital World

Brussels, December 2025 - The World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) has announced that the theme for World Family Doctor Day (WFDD) on 19 May 2026 will be "Compassionate care in a digital world".

After World Family Doctor Day 2025, WONCA surveyed its Member Organisations about how we can better support local celebrations. A clear message came back: announce the theme earlier and give more time, tools and guidance to plan activities. This announcement is our response, and an open invitation to Member Organisations and partners across all seven WONCA regions to join and support the 2026 campaign.

WONCA, with its Secretariat in Brussels and regional organisations in Africa, Asia Pacific, Eastern Mediterranean, Europe, Iberoamericana, North America and South Asia, represents more than half a million family doctors worldwide. From this global network, World Family Doctor Day has become a shared annual moment to recognise and strengthen family medicine in every setting.

History of World Family Doctor Day

World Family Doctor Day (WFDD) is marked each year on 19 May. WONCA first declared World Family Doctor Day in 2010, with the first celebrations held in 2011. Since then, it has grown into a global occasion to highlight the vital role and contribution of family doctors and primary care teams in healthcare systems around the world.

Each year, a theme focuses attention on a key issue in family medicine. In recent years:

2023: Family Doctors: The Heart of Healthcare – recognising family doctors’ central role in person-centred, continuous care.
2024: Healthy Planet, Healthy People – highlighting the deep links between planetary health and the health of our patients.
2025: Building Mental Resilience in a Changing World – emphasising the role of primary care in mental health and resilience.

In 2026, we turn to how compassion can not only survive but thrive in an era of rapid digital change.

Why this theme: Compassionate care in a digital world

The 2026 theme builds on priorities set out by WONCA President Dr Viviana Martinez-Bianchi in her inaugural address at the WONCA World Conference in Lisbon. In that speech, she called on family doctors to engage with digital health and artificial intelligence (AI) in ways that protect equity and strengthen relationships, reminding us that “we belong in AI if we help build it”.

Digital tools and AI are now part of everyday practice in many settings, from electronic records and telemedicine to decision support systems and patient-facing apps. They have real potential to improve access, continuity and coordination of care. Yet poorly designed systems can add administrative and cognitive burden, deepen inequities, and strain the time and attention that compassionate care requires.

World Family Doctor Day 2026 will:

Affirm that compassionate, person-centred care remains at the heart of family medicine in every context, including digital and virtual care.
Highlight how family doctors, patients and communities can help shape digital tools and AI so that they support, rather than fragment, primary care.
Connect the WFDD campaign with WONCA’s wider work on the ethical use of AI, digital health standards, equity and core values.

Objectives for World Family Doctor Day 2026

Celebrate the contribution of family doctors and primary care teams who provide compassionate care in an increasingly digital world.
Promote people-centred digital transformation in primary care, grounded in family medicine’s core values and in the voices of patients, caregivers and communities.
Raise awareness of both the benefits and risks of digital health and AI in primary care, including their impact on equity, access and clinician workload.
Support advocacy for safer, fairer and more humane digital systems, using WONCA’s AI ethics work and digital health resources as practical tools.
Motivate action by encouraging every Member Organisation to commit to at least one activity linked to the 2026 theme.

Key messages

Member Organisations are invited to use and adapt these three core messages in their own communications and events.

1. Family medicine’s values must guide digital care

Family medicine’s values, and the voices of patients, caregivers and communities, must guide how digital tools and AI are designed and used in primary care. Digital innovation should be co-designed with those who use it, so that tools are equitable, accessible and culturally relevant, especially for people at risk of digital exclusion.

2. Digital health and AI in primary care must earn trust

Digital health and AI in primary care must be safe, ethical, transparent and evidence-based. They should be designed to earn the trust of both patients and family doctors, with clear accountability, strong data governance and active work to avoid bias and widening inequities.

3. Good technology clears the path for compassionate care

Good digital tools reduce administrative and cognitive burden, fit real primary care workflows, support clinical judgement and protect time for relational, compassionate care. They should help coordinate care across sectors and settings, not add new layers of fragmentation or bureaucracy.

WONCA’s work on AI and digital health

The 2026 theme is closely linked to ongoing efforts within WONCA’s Working Parties and groups:

AI position paper and ethical guidance: The WONCA Working Party on Ethics and Professionalism is developing an AI ethics in primary care position statement on the ethical use of AI in primary care, addressing fairness, accountability, transparency, professional responsibility and the impact of AI on the doctor–patient relationship.
Working Party on Digital Health (eHealth): The WONCA Working Party on eHealth (Working Party on Digital Health) leads work on digital health in primary care, including a global digital health training needs study, webinars, and the recently published book Digital Health in Primary Care.
Core values and primary care standards: WONCA’s wider projects on core values in family medicine and on global standards for training and quality in primary care also inform this theme, helping ensure that digital tools align with person-centred, continuous and community-oriented care.

Linking to WONCA’s Accreditation and Assessment of Digital Systems

To support safe and effective use of digital tools in primary care, WONCA has developed an Assessment of Digital Systems as part of its Accreditation & Development and Enhancement Program.

This service offers a certification framework that evaluates digital health solutions through a family medicine lens, across three core dimensions: comprehensiveness, validity and scalability. It helps clinicians, healthcare managers and digital health companies ensure that digital tools are aligned with family medicine standards, support better care and foster trust.

Digital health partners who are developing or adopting digital tools are invited to learn more and consider how this assessment can support quality improvement:

Learn more about WONCA’s Assessment of Digital Systems

Planned WONCA World activities for WFDD 2026

At world level, WONCA will coordinate a set of activities to support Member Organisations and partners in making the most of the 2026 theme:

WFDD 2026 toolkit (multilingual): A practical toolkit with key messages, social media graphics, posters, sample speeches, suggested activities and template press releases. WONCA will make this toolkit available in English and, as far as possible, in other widely used languages across our regions.
Global webinar series: Online sessions with family doctors, patients, community representatives and digital health experts on topics such as compassionate virtual consultations, equity in digital access, AI in everyday practice, and maintaining doctor well-being in a digital environment.
Educational spotlight – Digital Health in Primary Care: Promotion of the WONCA book Digital Health in Primary Care and related resources, including the interview with editors Ana Luisa Neves and Liliana Laranjo, to help clinicians and educators integrate digital health into training and practice.
Stories from practice: A call for short written and video stories from all regions, showcasing how family doctors are using digital tools to strengthen relationships with patients and communities.
WFDD 2026 global round-up: A post-campaign report and online feature highlighting activities from Member Organisations around the world, building on the World Family Doctor Day 2025 reports.

Links:

Interview with the editors of Digital Health in Primary Care

World Family Doctor Day 2025 – reports from Member Organisations

Toolkit and languages

The WFDD 2026 toolkit will be designed for easy translation and adaptation. WONCA will:

Provide editable files for social media and print materials.
Offer suggested text in plain English, suitable for machine translation.
Work with regional organisations to prioritise translation into key languages used across the seven WONCA regions.

Member Organisations are encouraged to translate the materials into local languages, adapt them to national contexts and share them with their networks, including young doctors’ movements and patient groups.

Invitation to Member Organisations, partners and family doctors

WONCA warmly invites:

Member Organisations to commit to at least one activity linked to the 2026 theme, whether a national event, a webinar, a social media campaign or a local story-gathering initiative.
Individual family doctors and primary care teams to share their experiences of digital care and to highlight how they keep compassion at the centre of their practice.
Partners in digital health and AI – including patient organisations, academic institutions, technology developers and policymakers – to align their work with the campaign’s key messages and to engage constructively with family doctors and communities.

World Family Doctor Day is a celebration, but it is also a call to action. On 19 May 2026, and throughout the year, we invite the global family of family doctors to show how compassionate care can flourish in a digital world – and to work together so that every digital innovation strengthens, rather than weakens, the relationships at the heart of primary care.

For more information

For questions about the World Family Doctor Day 2026 campaign, or to share your plans, please contact Diarmuid Hayes, WONCA Senior Communications Officer.