Introducing Victor Ng and Miguel Pizzanelli - new SIG convenors

At the Rio conference several new WONCA Special Interest Groups (SIGs) were announced. This month we feature the convenors of two of these, namely Dr Victor Ng of Canada (SIG on Emergency Medicine) and Dr Miguel Pizzanelli of Uruguay (SIG on Quaternary Prevention and Overmedicalization). Next newsletter we feature the new SIG on Workers' Health.

Join SIG on Emergency Medicine Join SIG on Quaternary Prevention

Dr Victor Ng- SIG on Emergency Medicine

Victor Ng BA (Hons), MSc, MD, CCFP(EM) is an Assistant Professor and Consultant Physician in the Department of Family and Emergency Medicine at the University of Western Ontario. His academic interests are primarily in medical education with teaching responsibilities at the undergraduate and postgraduate level. Victor is highly involved with teaching in the CCFP(EM) program as well as teaching the emergency medicine course to family medicine residents.

Within the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC), he currently serves in a leadership role as the Physician Advisor, Division of Continuing Professional Development and Practice Support. In the past, he has served as the Associate Director, Family Physicians with Special Interests or Focused Practices and as a member of the National Board of Directors. He has sat on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Canadian Family Physician Journal and was a member of the National Committee on Continuing Professional Development at the College of Family Physicians of Canada.

In WONCA, Victor is a member of the Working Party on Education and Working Party on Rural Practice. He led the development of the WONCA Global Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Standards. He also serves as the CFPC senior staff advisor for WONCA Polaris, the North American Region's Young Doctor Movement. He is well published in peer reviewed journals in the areas of medical education and has presented nationally and internationally on the topic.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @victorng_md

Dr Miguel Pizzanelli - SIG Quaternary Prevention and Overmedicalization

My name is Miguel Pizzanelli Báez. I was born in Montevideo in 1962. With Virginia my wife and dear partner, we share raising three children. At this moment we live in Florida, Uruguay. Since 1996 I spent almost all my medical practice time in small rural areas. For seven years (from 2003 to 2010) we had the experience of living and working in a small rural village of 1500 inhabitants. I have varied interests, reading, I try to play several musical instruments in a self-taught way. Hobbies: music, trekking, photography, web-blogs editor.
I am general practitioner (family and community medicine) from 2003. I was part of the first generation of family and community medicine residents trained in Uruguay. I call this the zero generation (remembering of hard times that passed).

I use to disseminate contents in various topics: quaternary prevention, rural medicine, critical thinking development. Quaternary prevention is a concept that defines an attitude ethically center oriented to provide health care focusing on persons trying to share health decisions with them in order to avoid overmedicalization.

Since 2012 I began to actively participate in the society of family and community medicine in Uruguay and from that place in CIMF / WONCA. My role leading dissemination and applied of quaternary prevention concept pushed me to lead quaternary prevention working groups, first in my country later in Iberoamerican region and now in WONCA. My interest in classification and systematic terminologies makes me accept the invitation to participate in WONCA International Classification Committee in the quality of associate member from November 2014 up to date. Since 2008 we develop research focus on Barbara Starfield’s Primary Care Assessment Tool in Uruguay. I participate actively in national regional and international CIMF WONCA Conferences (Praga 2013, Montevideo 2015, and Rio de Janeiro 2016).

I think we need to fight both an individual and collective fight. The Individual fight to set collective interests over personal ones. Only through the collective work of all the family doctors and communities together all over the world we will achieve "real" Primary Care: comprehensive health care, equity, and people-centered health care, focus on health better than illness, making reality the utopia of health for all in a better world.

Email: [email protected]