WHO EMRO reports on WONCA conference

The WHO intranet reports on the recent WONCA East Mediterranean region conference.. and do watch the great video "Family practice: towards universal health coverage".

The third Family Medicine Congress was organized by the World Organization of Family Doctors East Mediterranean Region (WONCA EMR) in Dubai on 17-19 March 2016.

In attendance were more than 100 experts in the areas of service provision including family medicine specialists. The WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean presented a session on the first day of the meeting in which participants discussed challenges, lessons learned and priorities to enhance family practice programme in countries of the Region and regional strategic directions to scaling up the production of family physicians in the short, medium and long term. WHO also presented an advocacy video on the role of family practice in universal health coverage that may be accessed via the link below.

During WHO session three presentations were shared: scaling up family practice in the Region, on line training course to improve knowledge and skills of general practitioners and on–site training of regional master trainers on family practice. A panel discussion on challenges, lessons learned and priorities to enhance family practice programme in three groups of countries followed by a question and answer session. The panel included representatives from WHO, ministries of health, academia and WONCA EMR.

WHO has collaborated with WONCA over the past couple of years in several areas including regional consultations on strengthening service provision through family practice approach, assessment of family medicine education and training capacity in the Region, and scaling up of family practice in countries.