WONCA Europe is proud to announce the winner of the WONCA Europe Award of Excellence in Health Care: The 5 - Star Doctor 2022: Dr. Philippe Binder from Poitiers, France
The WONCA Europe 5 Star Doctor Award 2022 was presented at the WONCA Europe Conference 2022 in London, 28 June – 1 July.
About Dr. Philippe Binder:
Dr. Philippe Binder is a GP practicing in a rural area and involved in the identification and early management of patients with addictions (since 1987), and depressed and suicidal adolescents (since 1999). From 1987, finding himself very isolated in providing outpatient care to patients with drug addiction, he approached the French community of general practitioners and then the Minister of Health in 1988 to promote a specific approach in primary care. This "MG-TOX" approach met with other initiatives that Dr Binder federated into a "national association GT” (General practitioners and Drug Addictions) of which he was president from 1988 to 2006. This dynamic, financed in part by the state from 1991 to 2006, enabled the development of an original practical knowledge in primary care (1) and the development of multiple regional addiction cooperative health networks bringing GPs together and creating cooperation with specialized institutional centers and liberal psychologists.
After I, the cessation of state funding of these structures the impetus of this cooperative work continues in many ways in a more autonomous way.
In 2022, the implementation of the reimbursement of psychologists is a direct result of these initiatives.
In 1999, Dr Binder organized an epidemiological study, on the illicit consumption of young people between middle and high school, revealing the importance of suicidality not seen by GPs, From then on, he never
stopped developing a method to help GPs in the identification of suicidality in primary care.
With 14 GPs and a liberal psychiatrist, he created a research team (ADOC group) which gradually expanded with the regional health observatory, then university child psychiatry and then public health at
the University of Poitiers.
WONCA Award of Excellence in Health Care: The 5-Star Doctor is an award to be conferred on physicians, who in the opinion of the WONCA Council, have made a significant impact on the health of individual and communities, through personal contributions to health care and the profession. It is instituted in an attempt to increase the global development of Family Medicine, global networking and partnership.
The selection committee considered the following criteria:
- a nominee must meet the principle of the 5 Star Doctor
- the "Towards Unity for Health" criteria will be kept in mind: the attributes of the 5 Star Doctor are:
- care provider who considers the patient as an integral part of a family and the community and provides high standard clinical care (excluding or diagnosing serious illness and injury, manages chronic disease and disability) and personalises preventive care within a long term, trusting relationship
- decision maker, who chooses which technologies to apply ethically and cost-effectively while enhancing the care that he or she provides;
- communicator, who is able to promote healthy life-styles by emphatic explanation, thereby empowering individuals and groups to enhance and protect their health;
- community leader, who has won the trust of the people among whom he or she works, who can reconcile individual and community health requirements and initiate action on behalf of the community;
- team member, who can work harmoniously with individuals and organisations, within and outside the health care system, to meet his or her patients and community's needs.
- a nominee should be a primary care physician/family doctor in mid-career who in addition to
- providing regular patient care:
- provides innovative services for a community or special patient group;
- developed services where they were previously not available;
- supported colleagues in another region, country or college;
- performed academic work (teaching, research, quality assurance) of exceptional quality and relevance.
- a nominee needs to be a primary care physician/family doctor
- a nominee can work outside his or her region, or create something that can be used outside his or her region or serve as a role model to other regions
The winner of the 2022 WONCA Europe 5-Star Doctor Award will be one of the European candidates for the WONCA World Award of 2023 in Sydney.