WONCA Young Doctors’ Lead Report

August - September 2023 Young Doctors Movements Feature Stories

September, 2023

New YDM Operational Guidelines

A subcommittee worked on revising the YDM Operational Guidelines which contains the new process of selecting the Young Doctors’ Lead, including young doctor liaisons and representatives of other young doctor groups in the YDM Council, etc. The revised guidelines were endorsed by the WONCA executive in April 2023.

YDM Global Fund

It was decided to start and operate the YDM Global Fund as a subaccount under the WONCA account. A SOPs document was drafted and approved by the YDM Committee.

YDM collaborations with WPs/SIGs

Young Doctor Liaisons in WPs/SIGs
Following WONCA WPs/SIGs now have young doctor liaisons in their executive committees:
• WPs on Education, Mental Health and E Health
• SIGs on Emergency Medicine, Health Equity & Family Violence
• Rural Seeds represents young doctors of the WP of the Rural Practice

YDM-WP/SIG collaborative Webinar Series
Five joint webinars with the WONCA WPs/SIGs have been conducted in this period.
• January - Digital Health: The Role in Family Medicine (Polaris and WP on eHealth)
• March - Health Equity around the World (Spice Route and SIG on Health Equity)
• July - The Role of Young Family Doctors in addressing Rural Health Challenges (AfriWon and WP on Rural Practice)
• September - Hot topics in Emergency Medicine for Family Medicine (EYFDM and SIG on Emergency Medicine)

Integrating Care Leadership & Advocacy Program by WONCA WP on Mental Health and WONCA YDM
The second step (beta-testing) of the above programme conducted by WONCA Working Party on Mental Health in collaboration with the YDM, commenced in August 2023 with the participation of 8 selected young doctors from the LMICs. Programme runs for the 8 months.

World Family Doctor Day Celebrations 2023 May

YDM prepared a video to promote the core values of family medicine for the WFDD with contributions from all regions which was highly appreciated by the WONCA community.

WONCA World Conference, Sydney 2023

The organising committee appointed by YDM Committee representing all the regions for the WONCA World Conference 2023 in Sydney has now worked out the programme of the YDM Preconference and activities related to the world conference.
Preconference programme

YDM Global Projects

ASPIRE programme – Special webinar series on ‘Leadership’ was conducted by the ASPIRE Programme which was well attended by young doctors and medical students.

WONCA World Rising Star Award 2023

The WW Rising Star Award selection process was revised completely by the YDM committee to make the assessment more objective. Regional nominations have been received and in the process of final assessment.

Selection of the New YDM Lead

• According to the WONCA Bylaw change and new operational guidelines, the new YDM Lead election was conducted for the first time by the YDM committee. A special YDM council meeting was held to offer a fair opportunity to the candidates to present their candidacy and to reply the questioned posed by council memebrs. Elections were conducted at the special YDM Committee meeting held on 06.08.2023.
• Chan Yuen Ching (Cheryl) of Hong Kong was elected as the Young Doctors’ Representative for next biennium.

Collaborations with the IFMSA
YDM started to work closely with the International Federation of Medical Student Associations (IFMSA). Two of the IFMSA members were given bursaries by exempting registration fees for the WONCA Europe Conference 2023.

Contributions to the CPD activities
• I physically attended two conferences within this period, namely WONCA Europe Conference 2023 in Brussels, Belgium and International Symposium 2023 by Colombian Society of Family Medicine (SOCMEF) along with Waynakay Meeting in Cali, Colombia and actively participated in young doctors' events took place in those conferences.
• I serve as a faculty member of the Integrating Care Leadership & Advocacy Program conducted by WONCA WP on Mental Health in collaboration with WONCA YDM and as a resource person in YDM ASPIRE Leadership Development webinar series.
• I was invited to speak in several international events and these opportunities were used to promote family medicine and YDMs among the early career doctors. Some of those events were;
o World Medical Association(WMA) Junior Doctors’ Network (JDN) Fall (April 2023)
o Waynakay Meeting in Cali, Colombia (September 2023)
o International Symposium 2023 by Colombian Society of Family Medicine – SOCMEF (September 2023)