World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA)

Convenor / Chair

Dr Nagwa Nashat (Egypt)

Prof. Nagwa Nashat Hegazy is a Professor of Family Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University, Egypt, and currently serves as Chair of the WONCA Working Party for Education (WWPE). She is an established leader in family medicine and health professions education, with extensive experience in curriculum development, faculty development, assessment, and quality assurance.

Prof. Hegazy has played a key role in advancing primary care education at national, regional, and global levels. Her work focuses on strengthening undergraduate and postgraduate family medicine education, supporting socially accountable medical schools, and promoting innovative educational strategies aligned with health system needs. She has contributed to multiple international initiatives, including FAIMER programs, WHO regional educational projects, and WONCA-led educational collaborations. In addition to her role with WWPE, she holds several leadership positions in medical education and quality assurance and actively contributes to scholarly work in medical education and primary care. Prof. Hegazy is a frequent speaker and facilitator at regional and international conferences and workshops, with a strong commitment to capacity building for educators and future family physicians.

Through her work with WONCA and partner organizations, she continues to advocate for high-quality, contextually relevant education as a cornerstone for strengthening family medicine and primary health care worldwide.

Email Chair

Co-Convenor or other office bearers

Executive Members

• Esther M Johnston (USA, North America)
• Fabian Dupont (Germany, Europe)
• Henry Lawson (Ghana, Africa)
• Krishna Suvarnabhumi (Thailand, Asia Pacific)
• María Belén Giménez (Paraguay, Región: Iberoamericana-CIMF)
• Mona Osman El Hage (Lebanon, Eastern Mediterranean)
• Nida Ilyas Shamsi (Pakistan, South Asia)

Vision and Mission of WONCA Working Party on Education

The WONCA Working Party on Education will support high quality education, training, assessment and continuing professional development in general practice / family medicine for medical students, doctors in training, and established general practitioners and family doctors.

Terms of reference:

The WONCA Working Party on Education will:

Support quality education, training, assessment and continuing professional development in general practice / family medicine.
Support the setting and maintaining for standards for education, training, assessment and continuing professional development in general practice / family medicine both nationally and internationally.
Develop education, training, assessment and continuing professional development policy for WONCA.
Provide links to education, training, assessment and continuing professional development resources and people for the member organisations of WONCA.
Support high quality education at WONCA conferences by acting as a resource, if invited, for Host Organising Committees of WONCA World and Regional conferences.
Act as a resource on education, training, assessment and continuing professional development for the WONCA Executive, World Council and Regional Councils.

“To have a positive effect on the functioning of health systems and ultimately on health outcomes of patients and populations, educational institutions have to be designed to generate an optimum instructional process.”
The Lancet Commission: Health Professionals for the 21st Century.

Objectives of the WONCA Working Party on Education

2016-2018 priorities

download detailed priorities document
Priorities for the group are to:

Raise the status of FM in the undergraduate (UG) curriculum: Lobbying through WONCA to influence the UG curriculum to support the Singapore and Rio statements. We aim to:
(i) improve the status of the discipline
(ii) attract the brightest and best into FM
(iii) foster high Academic status for FM

Programme accreditation: Continue to build on the published WONCA standards for PG and CPD education building a resource for WONCA to support programme accreditation. Work to promote PG training CPD for FM particularly for underserved areas.

Sharing resources: Develop processes for sharing education resources both within the Working Party and across the WONCA networks and for producing guideline documents applicable across the continuum of education.

News

Family Medicine in the Undergraduate Curriculum: Enjoy a 20% Discount

20% discount with discount code

Editors Present "Family Medicine in the Undergraduate Curriculum" at WONCA Sydney

Prof Val Wass and Victor Ng, editors of the book "Family Medicine in the Undergraduate Curriculum: Preparing Medical Students to Work in Evolving Healthcare Systems" made an appearance at our booth during the WONCA World Conference in Sydney to formally introduce their work to the global medical community

Now available: Family Medicine in the Undergraduate Curriculum

Meet the authors at the WONCA World Conference 2023 in Sydney, Australia, where they'll be available at the WONCA Booth on Friday, October 27th, from 10:00 AM to 10:30 AM.

Education for Primary Care: May Free Access

Education for Primary Care, Vol. 34, free access for May is now available online on Taylor & Francis Online

Education for Primary Care: March Free Access

Publications & Documents

Education for Primary Care
latest issue

Family Medicine in the Undergraduate Curriculum
2024

WONCA Global Standards for Postgraduate Medical Education - 2025
WONCA CPD Standards 2016
WONCA Global Standards for PG FM- Guide for Program Development 2016
Checklist for Medical Student Experiences in FM 2012
Details on the process for development of Checklist for Medical Student Experiences can be found here

Activities

History

Two important key statements underpin the WPE strategy looking forward from 2016

The Rio statement 2016

The World Organisation of Family Doctors (WONCA) calls for all countries to increase the number of family doctors in order to achieve high quality comprehensive primary care and universal health coverage.
Effective strategies include: improving the skills of doctors already working in the community; recognising Family Medicine as a specialty and enhancing the academic basis of the discipline; strengthening the family medicine experience of all medical students; actively recruiting more medical graduates into more postgraduate family medicine training programs; giving all family doctors and members of their teams the resources to carry out their work, recognising their contribution, and ensuring their retention in the workforce – all in order to deliver excellent integrated cost-effective people-centred care.

WONCA Singapore statement 2007

Every medical school in the world should have an academic department of family medicine, or an equivalent academic focus.
Every medical student in the world should experience family practice as early as possible and as often as possible in their training.