Dear participants,

On behalf of the Host Organizing Committee, we would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thanks to all of you for your participation at the very first virtual WONCA European Conference 2020. We hope you have enjoyed all sessions within 3 and 1/2 days of excellent presentations.

You could watch
  • 6 Plenary Sessions (10 Keynote Speakers)
  • 34 Live Parallel Sessions (196 Presentations)
  • 30 Interactive Workshops
  • 32 Poster Discussion Sessions (239 "Live" Posters)
  • very lively online interaction with so far more than 600 Q&A messages
  • ...and there is more to watch within Virtual Library (783 Presentations)
Many thanks to all presenters of the conference for their willingness to run through our test sessions, doing pre-recordings – most important – thank you for your excellent contributions, you made the conference!

Also special thanks to our partners and exhibitors who enabled to run the conference during difficult times.

Even though we were having around 500-600 followers at the peak time we understand that not all of you were able to attend all presentations. The recorded presentations for which we received authors’ consent are now being continously added (within next few days) and they will be available at the LIVE EVENT website under the Scientific Program folder (find them once clicking to desired session and clicking the presentations title, please note you must be logged in) until the end of January 2021. There You can also find the Questions which were put during LIVE STREAM event and you can continue to discuss the topic under the folder "Discussion".

All these presentations (including the LIVE discussions) will be also stored within the Virtual Library under the USER ZONE from beginning of January 2021.

Thank you again to all of you and we wish You a Merry Christmas and all the best for 2021.

Stay safe and healthy
Conference Secretariat

NEWS

07/01/2021

Please note the EACCME Certificates and the confirmation of presenting abstract(s) are now available for downloading under your account within USER ZONE.


11/12/2020

The European Conference of Family Doctors (organised by DEGAM, WONCA member), Berlin, Germany, 16/12/2020-19/12/2020 has been accredited by the European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (EACCME®) for a maximum of 22 European CME credits (ECMEC®s).


30/11/2020

CHAIRS AND SPEAKERS

Please find the instructions how to prepare for the Conference as a CHAIR and/or SPEAKER


23/11/2020

Instructions for authors

Instructions for authors of Oral Presentations and Poster Discussions are released.


VIEW ALL NEWS

LEGACY / STATEMENT

CORE VALUES OF FAMILY MEDICINE: THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES
Statement of the WONCA Europe Conference 2020, Berlin

The CoViD-19 pandemic is affecting every aspect of society. Obviously, it also affects healthcare provision. There are strong tendencies towards fragmentation of care. Digital technologies as a mean to tackle CoViD-19 induced restrictions are gaining importance. Conflicting interests are influencing the patients´ choices of services and treatments, but also those offered by health professionals to their patients. Working conditions and preferences of family doctors are rapidly changing. Effective teamwork is crucial when serving an ageing population and an increasing number of patients with multimorbidity. Emerging new health professions with different skills and educational backgrounds can strengthen primary care. However, they increase complexity of the system for patients seeking care and treatment. Proper coordination and cooperation supported by appropriate regulation and communication are ever more crucial.

Values of family medicine are continuously challenged, nevertheless our core values keep their importance. They have been intensively discussed during this conference and in advance. During this pandemic, family physicians continue to ascertain access to care, provide person-centred care and ensure the continuity and comprehensiveness of primary oriented care to individuals, and wherever appropriate in the context of their family and community.

The family physicians/general practitioners from 67 countries attending the virtual 25th WONCA Europe Conference in Berlin are fully aware of the unprecedented historic moment we experience. They reaffirm the core values of family medicine. European Family Physicians urge:
  • European politicians, governments and decision makers to regulate working conditions in line with our core values of working effectively, person-centred and in balanced teams, in order to ensure that we can provide these services for many years without burnout.
  • Family doctors in Europe to commit themselves to providing high-value care and to avoiding over-diagnosis and overtreatment as well as under-diagnosis and under-treatment.
  • Health care professionals in Europe to bear in mind the importance of the face-to-face doctor-patient time, and only substitute it with digital technologies when necessary and to provide it when needed.
  • WONCA Europe Member Organisations to strengthen family medicine in its leading role in primary health care. This includes inter-professional teams with a responsible and well-trained General Practitioner/Family Physician at the center, with the responsibility to coordinate care across all sectors.
The CoViD-19 pandemic has shown that good primary care is essential for patients and for the healthcare system, particularly in a crisis. General practitioners/family physicians must be adequately involved in all planning and all decision-making concerning the management of this situation and future health care in general. We invite all primary care organizations to join us in these efforts.

Signed in Berlin, 19 December 2020

WE GO VIRTUAL

Dear colleagues,

Since the COVID-19 pandemic is going on with traveling restrictions and rules for social distancing we are not able to run a conference with presence in Berlin. This is sad but your safety is our highest priority. In order to maintain our work as family doctors as well as researchers and teachers we think that we can offer an excellent solution.

We have switched to a totally virtual conference with a changed time frame. Many presentations will have real time recording with possibility of immediate discussion. There will be five parallel slots from Wednesday December 16th 14:45 CET to Saturday, December 19th 14:15 with workshops only in the morning time on Thursday and Friday and all other formats in the afternoons or on Saturday morning. All other accepted presentations will be presented in our virtual library. These as well as all presentations recorded in real time can be viewed until the end of January at times of your free choice. So you have the chance to see much more presentations compared to recent years and thus you can collect a lot of CME credit points. We encourage you to come into direct contact with presenters if you have questions or proposals, especially for collaboration. This also includes the possibility to privately organize virtual meetings or workshops outside the conference platform with your own technical possibilities.

Although this is a very uncommon date we think that this is a good opportunity to reflect on the experiences of this year and to celebrate all the heroes working in our offices of General Practice/Family Medicine/Primary Health Care.

With our best regards and hoping to meet all of you during our virtual conference!

Prof. Dr. med. Erika Baum
President
on behalf of the Host Organizing Committee

Prof. Dr. med. Christoph Heintze
Co-Chair

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

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Registration
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FAQ
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Venue

IMPORTANT DATES

October 30, 2020

Authors Payment
Deadline

December 1, 2020

Participants Payment
by Bank Transfer Deadline

December 11, 2020

Participants Payment
Deadline

December 16-19, 2020

VIRTUAL European Conference of Family Doctors & DEGAM Annual Congress

NEWSLETTER

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