WONCA Europe 5-Star Doctor 2013: Dr Athanasios Symeonidis

Wonca Europe is proud to announce the winner of the Wonca Europe Award of Excellence in Health Care: The 5-Star Doctor 2013:

Dr Athanasios Symeonidis
Nominated by the Greek Association of General Practitioners (ELEGEIA)

From the ELEGEIA description of the nominee’s activities:

A care provider

Dr Athanasios Symeonidis has been in active practice as GP since 1981; he was serving in a rural single handed practice in North Greece from mid ‘81’ to February 1987 when he moved to Chalastra Health Centre of Thessaloniki county till August of 1999 ; from 1999 he has been serving to Health Centre of Paleohori in rural area of Chalkidiki (1999-2009)and Health Centre of N.Mihaniona from 2009 till now. All working places belong to the National Health System providing primary care including acute and chronic disease management, preventive activities and out of hours service (24h/7days). He has developed a reputation for clinical skills in diagnosis and management of chronic diseases while he has a special interest in hypertension, diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis, pain relief, terminal care and depression, dementia.
He has worked with the Greek Association of GPs in a number of projects having to do with multidisciplinary home care, hypertension, prevention, health promotion, communication skills.

A decision maker

Dr Athanasios Symeonidis has been active in the Greek Association of General Practitioners (ELEGEIA) from its establishment (1986) till now, since he was one the founders. He has been serving ELEGEIA through offices like Honoraty Treasurer , Gen. Sectetary and Vice President. He had been the National Representative in EURACT from 1992 to 2007 being its Honorary Treasurer for 6 years.

He worked with a number of important European GPs (Igor Svab, Justin Allen, Adam Windac, Yonah Yaphe) as members of the Member Service Committee of EURACT which developed the Teaching the Teachers Course; that course was performed in a number of countries having as a result the production of more than 1500 teachers in GP.Dr Athanasios 2

Symeonidis transferred this know how in Greece, designing, organizing and running the Teaching the Teachers Course for the last 12 years. He also worked with the President of ELEGEIA for the acceptance of ELEGEIA as a full organizational member of WONCA. As member of the Organizing Committee he worked for the hosting of the WONCA EUROPE 2005, which was held in Kos Island, Greece. Since 1992 has been working as Tutor in Vocational Training Scheme in Thessaloniki, while he is Chairman of the Summative Assessment Committee. In 2006 he was member of the working group for the reform of the NHS of the Ministry of Health.

A community leader

Dr Athanasios Symeonidis has participated in community interventions having to do with the promotion of breast feeding, prevention of cervical cancer, hypertension, osteoporosis, mental health, cancer prevention. He organised a network of active GPs who through a training programme got adequate skills for the implementation of screening and treating diseases as depression and dementia in rural areas.

A team member

Dr Symeonidis has been Chairman of the Education Committee of ELEGEIA since 1990.The current period he coordinates 10 Task Force Groups working on different issues on BME,VT and CME. He has been member of the Organizing Committee of all 25 National Conferences of ELEGEIA and designer, organizer and trainer of a big number of courses, seminars, workshops and symposiums for GPs.3


The 2013 Wonca Europe 5-Star Doctor Award will be presented at the WONCA Conference in Prague, 25 – 29 June 2013.
The winner of the 2013 Wonca Europe 5-Star Doctor Award will be one of the three European candidates for the Wonca World 5-Star Doctor Award of 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.