Re EURACT Conference Dublin September 8th-10th 2016
Educating Doctors for Family medicine / General Practice 2.0
Dear Colleague
We would like to encourage you to attend the European Academy of Teachers in General Practice/Family Medicine [EURACT]’s first educational conference. The academic programme for this has just been confirmed. We have received abstracts from presenters representing 24 countries and covering all the conference themes. Our first two keynote speakers will explore what is the future of GP/FM, how doctors are prepared for it and how to ensure that we have a strong foundation to deliver high quality education in our medical schools.
The programme offers a balance of presentations about scientific work and experiential workshops. Presenters from France, the UK, Belgium, the Czech republic will outline and assess new approaches to teaching about managing complexity, clinical reasoning, dealing with uncertainty, mind lines in the digital age and how to remain patient centred in the face of modern technology.
We are all experiencing changes in our population due to mass migration. How best to prepare ourselves and our learners to deliver health care to diverse groups will be explored by presenters from Israel, Ireland, Hungary and the Czech republic.
FM/GP requires us to develop and maintain good practical skills and we are pleased to include workshops and oral presentations from Ireland, Belgium and the UK on topics such as suturing, infiltration and providing acute care. As our populations age we have to become expert in managing multi-morbidity and presenters from Belgium and UK will analyse their educational approach in this area.
A wide range of topics will be covered from the perspective of undergraduate teaching by presenters from EURACT’s Basic Medical Education Committee, Estonia, Austria, Belgium and Greece including the impact of FM clerkships, student to student teaching, combining clinical skills and primary health care teaching from year one and how to adapt a course following the formation of a new department.
We will hear about an approach to vocational training in Romania, how the Austrians are managing the need to recruit and retain doctors in remote and rural areas and the different approaches to recruitment to specialty training across Europe. Other topics relevant to specialty training include: a Danish approach to the assessment of reflection, teaching and assessment in ‘real life’ from Belgium, developing doctors as lifelong learners from Israel, the relevance of a mindfulness based stress reduction course from Ireland, the value of inter-professional learning for trainees from primary and secondary care from the Netherlands and the value of overseas placement for Irish trainees.
The continuing development of doctors after specialty training will be considered with perspectives from Denmark on the gap between professional integrity and administrative accountability, developing GP Researchers in Norway, using work plans in Turkey, and training for the provision of end of life care in Ireland. The development of educators will be explored with the demonstration of EURACT’s new appraisal process for GP educators, how a nurse educator contributes to specialty training in the UK and how practice visits can impact on the performance of teachers in Israel.
CME colleagues from Ireland will enable participants to experience their immersive small group technique and it will be possible to contrast this with the Norwegian approach to learning in small groups. Approaches to teaching using the humanities will be reviewed by presenters from Slovenia and the UK.
The conference will end with the Janko Kersnik memorial lecture delivered by Igor Svab who will explore the development of Family Medicine in Eastern Europe.
In addition there will be plenty of time to see the 34 posters which have been accepted for the conference and participate in the interesting social programme.
The full programme can be accessed on http://www.euractdublin2016.org
We are confident that this conference will be enjoyable, of interest to all GP/FM Educators and will provide a stimulating opportunity for networking with colleagues from across Europe.
Yours sincerely
Jan Degryse
Chair Scientific Committee
Darach O’Ciardha
Conference Organiser
Jo Buchanan
President EURACT