“......and those matchless heroes
Who from Portugal´s far western shores
By Oceans where none had ventured
Voyaged to Taprobana and beyond...”

Os Lusíadas
Luis Vaz de Camões  1572

Statement of Intent

 Young doctors in the WONCA Europe region have established a movement to promote the discipline of general practice/family medicine through:

1. Providing a forum, support and information for trainees and young GPs through access to WONCA Europe regional conferences and pre-conferences.
2. Establishing a communication network between European trainees and young GPs and identifying their concerns, doubts and needs and helping to address them.
3. Improving the quality of training programmes for general practice by establishing a central information database on European programmes, and setting quality standards.
4. Writing and publishing newsletters concerning the movement for national colleges and associations
5. Working with host organizing Committees in organising junior doctors preconference meetings held during WONCA Europe regional conferences
6. Collaborating with national colleges and associations in general practice, and stimulating the formation of national representation of young and future GPs
7. Collaboration with international organisations of general practice and the representation of the movement at international meetings.

This is a new and exciting movement, setting out on a journey of discovery, developing ideas for the discipline of general practice in the future. These ideas were set down in a meeting in January 2005 in Lisbon, the home port of Vasco da Gama, from where he set out on a similar voyage of discovery, and for this reason his name has been applied to the movement.

 It will be formally launched at the Kos WONCA Europe Conference in September 2005.

 To help in achieving these ambitions each WONCA Europe organisation is asked to develop a robust process of identifying and sponsoring young and future general practitioners to the movement. 

(The movement defines young and future doctors as those in training for general practice and in the first five years after qualification as a GP)

 Members of the Vasco da Gama Movement Core Group:

Birgit Pedersen, GP trainee, Denmark
Dimitris Karanasios, GP, Greece
Donata Kurpas, GP trainee, Poland
Fatma Goksin Cihan, GP, Turkey
Frank Peters, GP trainee, Germany
Hendrik Teunissen, GP, The Netherlands
Ingrid van der Heijden, GP, The Netherlands
Joao Sequeira Carlos, GP trainee, Portugal
Majid Jalil, GP trainee, UK
Monica Knutsen, GP trainee, Norway
Monica Novac, GP trainee, Romania
Stijn Festraets, GP, Belgium