The 86th EGPRN meeting was held in Lille, France from 10-13 May 2018. The topic of the meeting, “Changing doctors for a changing world: How to face the future of primary care?”, mirrored key challenges in daily general practice.
136 participants from 28 countries were present. Amongst them, 21 had at least one abstract accepted, and 19 of them presented theme papers. 80 presentations were selected out of 114 submissions. The great number of the submitted papers confirmed the interest of GPs in research and in particular in the theme of the meeting. The event was also honoured with the presence of many colleagues from all over France and neighbouring countries.
Key speeches were given by Prof. Thomas Frese - “How to face the future of primary care in a changing world” and Dr. Olivier Saint Lary - “Changing doctors for a changing world: How to face the future of primary care?”, and provided a privileged opportunity for all the participants to listen and discuss these topics.
One of the major aims of EGPRN is to stimulate and promote Collaborative Studies, covering a variety of topics in different areas. These include, for instance, FPDM - TATA - WomanPower, HEFESTOS, ATTENTIVE, PIPE, Googling in the waiting room, and the Örenäs Research Group. All studies are led by active EGPRN members and most of them received financial support from the organization.
The meeting was held in the traditional EGPRN format which included a variety of Pre-Conference Workshops, presentation of freestanding papers, and a parallel poster session. These activities had a high participation rate and provided the ideal setting for participants to share their research interests and questions with specialists in the field of general practice.
The titles of the workshops were intriguing and it was rather difficult to choose among “Online services and primary health care: research, development and assessment”; “Adapting primary care to a changing word: how can research help GPs to face the future?”.
Theme and Freestanding Papers offered the participants the opportunity to discuss the presenters’ latest research and achievements. Additionally, One Slide/Five Minutes Presentations and Fellowship Presentations gave young specialists the chance to have a ten-minute face-to-face meeting with an expert and learn more about their research topics.
This comprehensive and varied programme enabled the participants to discuss crucial problems and issues in the field of family medicine, as well as to provoke discussions which provided the presenters with constructive feedback.
This year, Romina Raczy Mas, from Spain, was awarded the prestigious poster prize for her study “Effectiveness of a multidisciplinary biopsychosocial intervention in non-specific sub-acute low back pain, in working people: A cluster randomised trial”.
The 86th EGPRN meeting also introduced new and effective ways to promote family doctors’ engagement in research, including the publication of the Abstract Book of the conference, with an “ISBN number”.
EGPRN is widely recognized as an organization with focus on research supporting young doctors to start their academic development. The knowledge of the more experienced members is critical to support young colleagues to formulate their research ideas and develop their potential, as well as to facilitate capacity building. In this context, the EGPRN Fellowship Program is a new example of a successful and unique activity. First started in the Riga meeting, in May 2017, the EGPRN Fellowship Program currently aims to provide three young fellows (from Greece, Turkey, and Ukraine) with the knowledge and skills to carry their own research projects.
Last but not least, this meeting brought to light EGPRN’s efforts developing and promoting the online Web-Research Course, which counted with the collaboration of 25 lecturers. The first graduates of the course have been awarded with the respective certificates.
At EGPRN, we aim to build up on previous initiatives to tackle key challenges in General Practice. Our accomplishments so far have encouraged us to work even harder to disseminate the most significant achievements of family doctors around the world.
We firmly believe that next year’s meeting of EGPRN, which will be held between the 4th and October 7, 2018, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, will be another opportunity to move forward into better practice in Primary Care.
Authors
Radost Asenova, and all the members of the PR and Communications Committee:
Tiny van Merode
Ana Luisa Neves
Ayse Caylan
Tuomas Koskela
Sanda Kreitmayer
Vania Lazic
EGPRN 31 July, 2018