Ana Nunes Barata: YDM presence on WONCA Executive
WONCA's Young Doctors' representative on World Executive, Ana Nunes Barata (Portugal), writes:
These have been the first six months of my second term as the Young Doctor Representative on WONCA World Executive. I have the privilege to collaborate with a new team on the Executive, learning through new experiences and knowledge, which make these meetings a true, global experience.
We have just finished our first face-to-face meeting in Beijing, People’s Republic of China where we worked through a busy agenda. While discussing actions, we brainstormed new ideas and set the footing for the development of new initiatives and strategies for WONCA. It was a great example of full team engagement! As the Young Doctor Representative, it was also possible to include the points of view and the ideas of young doctors in these discussions, so as to drive the organisation to include the suggestions and ideas of youth in its future actions.
During our stay, we had the chance to visit the Yuetan Community Health Service Centre, a Primary Health Care centre in Beijing. An amazing, enthusiastic group showed us around and explained all the different services that were provided at the clinic. The services ranged from general GP visits; to preventive mental care; maternity and child health visits and women’s health; and including the collaboration of other healthcare professionals in order to provide nutrition services, rehabilitation, speech therapy and dental care. The clinic also had one floor dedicated to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with rooms set up to provide acupuncture and moxibustion. This clinic had a radiology department, a laboratory and a surgical dressing room. Given that the clinic integrated both Western medicine and TCM, two pharmacies were included in this practice (one for TCM and one for Western medicine). It was fascinating to learn more about how Primary Care is organised in the People’s Republic of China and to see so many young doctors working in primary care!
Photo shows Ana, Viviana Martinez- Bianchi, and WONCA manager, Nongluck Suwisith with Chinese colleagues.
During our stay in Beijing, we were given the opportunity to participate in the 16th Annual Conference of General Practice and Community Health, promoted by the Chinese Medical Doctors’ Association (CMDA). This event had over 2500 participants and WONCA was invited to give a plenary, linked to the opening ceremony where each member of the Executive had the chance to speak about their current work and role in WONCA. (see photo at top). The sharing of these experiences was very well received and we had the honor to show first-hand what our organisation is able to deliver. After this panel, I also participated in a separate session where I presented the Young Doctors’ Movements in more detail to our Chinese colleagues, especially the activities that the YDMs are developing and how it was possible to have more young doctors involved in the YDMs. I hope that many new colleagues will join the Rajakumar Movement!
All in all, I’m truly grateful to all our hosts in Beijing who showed tireless dedication to make our stay easy and made this a memorable experience.
In the YDMs we will continue working on different projects in order to integrate more and more young doctors into WONCA. For those reading, hope to see you soon in the WONCA family!
See YDM news for May 2019