WONCA South Asia Region Core Values Workshop: South Asia’s contribution to redefine core values of Family Medicine 

The WONCA Core Values Project kicked off last year under the leadership of Dr. Anna Stavdal, then WONCA President. The purpose of the Project is to conduct a global brainstorming process on core values and the definition of the specialty of family medicine to raise awareness of these principles for clinical practice and research and to build a common identity.

The regional leads of the project had agreed to conduct workshops along with each regional conference. As the first region to organise a regional conference, the South Asia region conducted a workshop with the aims of serving as a brainstorming session to nurture WONCA core values project and raising awareness about family medicine core values among the participants.

The workshop was initiated with an introduction to the WONCA core values project by Dr. Anna Stavdal. The Regional Lead of the project, Dr. Sankha Randenikumara, presented the preliminary results of the survey conducted among the family doctors of South Asia which reflected newly emerged core values and core values that are culturally relevant. Then the floor was opened for discussion. An extensive and rich dialogue took place among the participants regarding different aspects of core values, obstacles encountered in including family medicine core values to undergraduates and postgraduate curricular, and different methods that could be used in identifying core values. The enthusiasm shown by the attendees further justified the purpose of the core values project. The core values team highly appreciated the feedback received and pledged to enrich the next steps with those ideas. Furthermore, the importance of having a common denominator for our professional development and advocacy was reiterated by the core values project leads.

In addition to the above core group, Dr. Zainab Anjarwala (Pakistan), Prof. Chhabhi Lal Adhikari (Bhutan), Dr. Kinley Bhuti (Bhutan), Dr. Paramita Kari (Bangladesh), Dr. Kabir Khan (Bangladesh), Dr. Ramakrishna Prasad (India), and Prof. Shyamalee Samaranayake (Sri Lanka) contribute to the project as team members of South Asia.