BARROS, Prof Enrique
Brazil - chair, WONCA Working Party on the Environment
Enrique Barros is from Brazil and has just been appointed Pro-tem chair of the WONCA Working Party on the Environment.
What work do you do currently?
I currently live and practice in a rural town of 6000 people in the mountains in southern Brazil - Santa Maria do Herval.
I am also professor at Universidade de Caxias do Sul, and take interns and residents on placements in my community practice. As part of my clinical practice I am on call at the regional community hospital once a week.
What other interesting activities that you have been involved in?
• Host of a national TV show called
Ser Saudável ("Being Healthy") for four years.
• Research project to implement the first Brazilian Family Therapy online for rural communities.
• Helped organize the WONCA Rural Health Conference, held in Gramado Brazil in 2014.
What are your interests as a family physician and also outside work?
It is a privilege to have come to my small community and to serve it - to dutifully and respectfully watch the lives of my neighbors unfold and flourish - to witness the cycle of life (yes!, i just read the book
The Fortunate Man).
I am especially interested in exploring the hidden interdependencies between people and the environment - which crystallize in my consultations and make me understand
Planetary Health in a peculiar way that may be familiar to other general practitioners.
As a good Brazilian, of course I love football! and above all my family (wife and two kids).
How did you come to be involved in the WONCA Working Party on the Environment?
I first became involved while doing research on climate change and primary care in 2008 - later recognized by the Global Forum for Health Research and
The Lancet (
more here).
More recently, Alan Abelsohn and Grant Blashki, former Chairs of the WONCA Working Party on the Environment, invited me to contribute to an e-book
“Family Doctors in the Field”. My story can be read
here.
Now I find myself pro-tem Chair of the WONCA Working Party on the Environment and look forward to taking up this new role.