WONCA Europe Kraków - we hear from Adam Windak

Early bird registration closes December 31, abstracts close December 17.

register now

Prof Adam Windak, Conference Scientific Committee chair for the coming WONCA Europe conference in Kraków, speaks to the WONCA editor about this conference and comparisons to the previous excellent WONCA conference he help organise in Warsaw in 2011.

In Poland, we have a proverb saying that “you can’t enter twice the same water in the river” and I believe this is true. In 2011 we wanted to organise the WONCA Europe Conference in Kraków, which is my home place and a beautiful medieval city. Unfortunately, at that time we didn’t have our proper conference centre, which could host over 3,000 delegates. To be honest in Warsaw, such a place also didn’t exist, but there was at least the exhibition centre, which, with effort could provide the facilities to meet our needs.

At the end of the day, the WONCA Europe Warsaw conference was a success, and we learnt a lot.

Now our situation is completely different. We have a beautiful, modern conference centre now built in Kraków, and it stands in the centre of the city, facing the Vistula River and Wawel King’s Castle. It is surrounded by three modern hotels and if we are lucky even fourth will be finished before the conference in Kraków. There are also hundreds of other hotels in a walking distance from the conference centre (Kraków is very popular tourist destination). So, this time, we don’t need to bother about the conference venue, the transportation, the accommodation and few other things which created quite serious logistic problems in Warsaw.

Our College hired the same PCO company, which organized the conference in Warsaw for us. So, we all have past experience which hopefully will make our job easier. Generally speaking we are optimists.

Two weeks before the deadline, the number of abstracts already submitted was almost the same as in Warsaw seven years ago and more were expected.

We have confirmed excellent key-note speakers and contributions from many network organizations and special interest groups. The plans for a social programme are also looking promising.

So, we look forward to host family doctors from all over the world next spring in Kraków.

Adam Windak is this month's WONCA featured doctor.

Keynote Speakers

- Dr Mukesh Chawla - Head of Knowledge Management in the Human Development at the World Bank, Washington, USA.

- Prof. Michael Kidd AM - Past President of the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA), Professor and Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto, Canada.

- Dr Andrzej Rys - Director of Directorate C, Public Health and Risk Assessment, DG Health and Consumers, European Commission.

- Dr Sera Tort - Clinical Editor, Cochrane Library, Cochrane Editorial Unit, Cochrane Central Executive.

More details can be found about speakers here

Overview and websites

Conference dates: May 24-27, 2018, with preconference for young doctors on May 23

Venue: ICE Congress Center, Kraków, Poland

Theme: Family Medicine: Quality, Efficiency, Equity

Organized by: The College of Family Physicians in Poland, WONCA Europe

Conference websiteVasco da Gama movement preconference
For all recent information subscribe to DragonNews newsletter
Follow us on Twitter @WONCAkrakow
Follow us on Facebook.