KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Frank Vandenbroucke
Lecture: Preparing for the future:resetting public health at the core of our health care system
Minister Frank Vandenbroucke is Belgium’s Minister of Social Affairs and Public Health, and Deputy Prime Minister. Previously he was a professor in economics at the University of Amsterdam and Leuven, and the party leader of the Flemish Socialist party.
During his current time as Minister of Social Affairs and Public Health, he has initiated a reform of how general practices in Belgium are organised and financed, which is currently being negotiated with the relevant stakeholders.
Chris Butler
Lecture: Democratising primary care research: A PANORAMIC view of transforming design and delivery of large-scale randomised, controlled clincial trials in primary care
Prof Chris Butler is a professor of primary care at the University of Oxford, and the Clinical Director of the University of Oxford Primary Care Clinical Trials Unit.
His main research interests are in the diagnosis and management of common infections (especially the appropriate use of antivirals and antibiotics and point of care diagnostics), and health care communication and behaviour change.
He co-leads Platform Randomised trial of treatmeNts in the Community for epidemic and Pandemic iLlnEsses (PRINCIPLE) and the Platform Adaptive trial of Novel antiviRals for eArly treatment of COVID-19 in the Community (PANORAMIC) trials. Between them, these trials have randomised >38,000 participants with COVID-19. Chris also leads for primary care in the European Clinical Research Alliance on Infections Diseases (ECRIAD), and co-coordinates ECRAID-Prime, an EU funded platform for earlier phase COVID trials. Chris was the patient-nominated Royal College of General Practitioners Wales General Practitioner or the Year in 2019, and won the Royal College of GPs Research Paper of the year in 2020. He has published 500 scientific papers.
Machteld Huber
Lecture: Positive Health – A practical approach from the Netherlands to perceive a person as a whole and to engage her/him into a process towards more health
Machteld Huber, MD PhD, was originally a general practitioner. During her own experience with illness, she discovered that she could actively and positively influence her recovery. She decided to focus more attention on "increasing health". On the one hand she became a researcher and on the other she started working with seriously damaged people: drug addicts and people with war trauma. She developed a new, dynamic concept of health, which she elaborated into the broad concept of "Positive Health" with six dimensions. Huber was named most influential person in public health care in 2016 and received several awards for her work.
To support practical implementation of this patient-centered approach she started the Institute for Positive Health in 2015. Presently Positive Health is included in Governmental documents, in medical education and is widely used in medical practices as well as in human resource management in businesses. The ‘Handbook Positive Health in general practice, the Dutch example’ appeared in 2021.
Sibyl Anthierens
Lecture: Looking beyond effectiveness: contributions of applied social sciences within international infectious disease research in primary care
Prof dr Sibyl Anthierens is associate professor at the Department of Family Medicine and Population health and the co-director of Qualitative Research in Health care (QUALUA), UAntwerpen, Belgium. She is a member of the Coordinating Committee of ECRAID (European Clinical Research Alliance on Infectious Diseases; www.ecraid.eu), an international research infrastructure representing applied social science research in infectious diseases in Europe.
As a social scientist her specific roles are to initiate and coordinate strategic opportunities to deliver cross-cutting social science research across clinical and epidemiological work in primary care infectious diseases research. Together with her team, she evaluates the use of evidence-based treatment and management strategies in everyday practice by patients and professionals in primary care. In addition, she analyzes how this new evidence can be used to improve practice by tailoring, evaluating, adapting interventions, and their implementation in daily care.
She passionately believes that researchers need to work beyond the traditional silos and have to actively engage: with other ideas, and with the world around. In her view, inspiring research is a team sport with collaboration across disciplines.
Zlata Ožvačić Adžić
Lecture: Professional well being - minimizing the adverse effect of clinician burnout on quality and safety of care
Zlata Ožvačić Adžić is a family medicine specialist and associate professor at the Department of Family Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb. She is also a practicing family physician working at Health Center Zagreb - Centar, so she has insight into the translation of knowledge to practice. She is a member and past executive board member of the European Society for Quality and Safety in Family Medicine (EQuiP), a WONCA Europe's network for quality improvement and patient safety.
Her main research interests are in the area of quality and safety in primary care, especially in the field of teaching quality and the relation between professional health and quality and safety of care. Recently she also joined Örenäs Research Group (ÖRG), a European collaborative group of primary care researchers focused at research on early diagnosis of cancer in primary care.
Els Torreele
Lecture: Why are our medicines so expensive? Spoiler: not for the reasons you are being told…
Dr Els Torreele is a global health and innovation expert, focusing on transforming medical R&D to address priority health needs and ensure equitable access to knowledge and technologies, including for epidemic preparedness and response. A Bio-Engineer and PhD from Brussels University, for over 20 years she has combined medical R&D work, policy research, and advocacy at Brussels University, Médecins Sans Frontières, Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, Open Society Foundations and is now independent consultant and Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, University College London. A recent Rockefeller Bellagio Centre resident (March 2022), she’s also an Honorary Science Fellow at the VUB, author on over 50 international journal publications, and regular contributor to the societal debate through media and social media (@ElsTorreele; @elstorreele@universeodon.com).
John Brandt Brodersen
Lecture: Overdiagnosis: Soon we will all be patients
(with Alexandra Brandt Ryborg Jønsson)
John Brandt Brodersen is a general practitioner with over thirty years of experience in clinical practice. Dr Brodersen has a PhD in public health and psychometrics and works as a professor in the area of prevention, medical screening, overdiagnosis, overmedicalisation, evidence-based medicine and multi-morbidity at the Centre of Research and Education in General Practice, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen and at the Primary Health Care Research Unit, Region Zealand. He is also a visiting professor at the Research Unit for General Practice, UiT The Arctic University of Norway.
Professor Brodersen has been awarded several scholarships and was in 2015 awarded the Nordic research prize "Magda and Svend Aages Frederiechs mindelegat". He is a member of the board and scientific committee of the international society Preventing Overdiagnosis.
Alexandra Brandt Ryborg Jønsson
Lecture: Overdiagnosis: Soon we will all be patients
(with John Brandt Brodersen)
Alexandra Brandt Ryborg Jønsson is a medical anthropologist working within the field of health inequities with a particular focus on overdiagnosis, marginalized people and patient experiences. Jønsson is an associate professor of health and society at Roskilde University and visiting professor in medical anthropology at The Arctic University of Norway. She holds a BSc 2008, MSc 2011, PhD 2018 medical anthropology, University of Copenhagen, and was a Fox International Fellow at Yale University in 2016-2017. Jønsson has given several keynotes on international conferences and has won several research prizes. Jønsson is a member of The Danish Young Academy under the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.
France Légaré
Lecture: The multiple facets of shared decision making in primary care
Initially trained as an architect, France Légaré is currently a practising family medicine doctor. She holds a master’s degree in community health from Université Laval and a PhD in population health from the University of Ottawa. She is a full professor in the Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine Department at Université Laval and holds the title of Canada Research Chair in Shared Decision Making and Knowledge Translation since 2006. In 2020, she received the Dr. Léo-Paul Landry Service medal awarded to a member of the Canadian Medical Association who has made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of health care in Canada. She also received the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada President's Award in 2020 for exemplary national leadership in academic medicine. In June 2022, she was named a Knight to the National Order of Quebec, the highest distinction awarded by the Quebec government, in recognition of her work in patient engagement in health care decisions.
