World Family Doctor day - 2018 feature
World Family Doctor Day (FDD) – 19th May - was first declared by WONCA in 2010 and it has become a day to highlight the role and contribution of family doctors in health care systems around the world. The event is a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge the central role of our specialty in the delivery of personal, comprehensive and continuing health care for all of our patients. It’s also a chance to celebrate the progress being made in family medicine and the special contributions of family doctors globally.
This year – 2018 – we chose as the key theme “Family doctors – leading the way to better health”.
Some activities have been submitted to the WONCA editor but of course this is just a small sample of the enormous worldwide activity on this day. Many items were also posted on Facebook and twitter.
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World Family Doctor Day – Editor’s picks
This year we saw the words “World Family Doctor day” being translated into more languages including Greek and three Indian languages as shown in the series of posters below.
Many countries now develop their own posters incorporating the World Family Doctor day logo there are numerous poster examples in the reports to follow but here are a couple of interesting ones.
A beautiful and colourful poster from Hong Kong at right and Portugal another great poster at left.
In Qatar – the poster was on a car – one version in Arabic and another in English.
In Nigeria it was on T-shirts.
Innovative ideas keep coming with new things every year. In Spain -the #LoveMFyC” meaning “Keep Calm and Love Family Medicine” campaign was run with great success and engagement
Another innovation: A book from New Zealand – “a day in the life of a kiwi GP”. You can see the book and some support videos on this page- website
Young Doctors’ Movement focus
This year's #WFDD2018 is about leadership. What do the young doctors think about the topic "Family doctors – leading the way to better health"? Let's hear from them first-hand! In this video
VIDEO: "Family doctors – leading the way to better health"?
Family doctors-leading the way to better health -the young doctors’ perspective
- family doctors are the first point of contact with the healthcare system
- family medicine is an art based on the values of compassion friendship and humility
- care in family medicine is provided from cradle to grave, following a holistic model that integrates a biopsychosocial approach
- teamwork and leadership skills are core competencies of a family doctor
- Young family doctors are the family doctors of the future
- Using mHealth and eHealth, young family doctors are leading the way into innovative solutions to provide healthcare
- Strengthening the collaboration and promoting the inter-peer knowledge exchange is helping young family doctors to step out of their comfort zone and to draw creative strategies for the patients and communities.
The young doctor who advocates for family medicine is the leader of tomorrow..