My first time participation in a WONCA World conference in Rio was a privilege and an exciting experience. I had the opportunity to facilitate a workshop on International Partnerships in Family Medicine. I talked to an audience of approximately 60 young family physicians about the Grantham-KNUST Family Medicine Twinning Project. This is a Global Health partnership between my hospital in Ghana and a GP Practice in London, UK. It is aimed at supporting each other to undertake projects that will promote efficient delivery of primary care through family medicine. The workshop inspired and provided guidelines to participants on how to develop and sustain partnerships. My partner, Dr Vikesh Sharma, and I also used our meeting at the conference to evaluate the achievements of our 1-year old partnership and devised strategies to meet our goals.
In Rio, I was elected secretary of AfriWon Renaissance for a 2-year term. This is the African version of the Young Doctors Movement (YDM). This will further boost my efforts at making a contribution to the growth of family medicine in Ghana, Africa and the world.
I met very distinguished Family Physicians like Prof Amanda Howe, President of WONCA World and made new friends from across the globe. I participated in several scientific workshops which gave me deeper insights into the development of primary care, management of chronic illnesses and publication of scientific papers.
The WONCA world conference in Rio was therefore very beneficial to me and I am grateful to WONCA Europe for the financial support.
Dr Nana Kwame Ayisi-Boateng
Family Physician
University Hospital
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)
Kumasi – Ghana