VDGM young doctors' forum in Ireland in February


The Second Vasco da Gama Movement Forum
Dublin, Ireland, 20th – 21st February 2015
Family Medicine 2.0: Innovation and Awareness

The second Vasco da Gama Movement Forum will take place in Dublin, Ireland on 20th and 21st February 2015. VdGM is the WONCA Europe network for new and future General Practitioners / Family Physicians and the VdGM Forum is a two day conference for new and future European family doctors. It is the only such meeting to take place anywhere in the world. The title for the 2015 Forum is Family Medicine 2.0: Innovation and Awareness, and these themes will be reflected throughout the meeting.

The overall aims of the forum are to provide a high quality invigorating robust educational and scientific collaborative learning experience with an empowering and horizon expanding vision of European and global family medicine along with an enjoyable, rewarding and stimulating social programme focused on showcasing the unique heritage and culture of Dublin and Ireland, all of course with a sufficiently European flavour.

Over two days, 300 delegates will descend upon Chartered Accountants House in central Dublin to attend a mixture of workshops, plenaries, discussion panels and oral and poster research presentations. A dynamic and robust programme will provide them with a diverse menu of conference options. In addition, there is also an invigorating social programme planned including an Irish Set Dancing workshop.

The programme will feature four plenary sessions including a session on how the primary care systems in countries most affected by the economic crash (Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland) coped during the last five years, a session in which outcomes from the Design Thinking Workshop will be presented, a session in which a number of speakers will give personal insights into innovation and awareness, and ten year intro and prospective look at the Vasco da Gama Movement and WONCA Europe.

The Programme will also include five oral research sessions in which 20 scientific papers will be presented and a 90 minute moderated poster session in which 48 posters will be presented in six different theme groups. There will be 12 workshops, with four 45 minute workshops each running twice and eight 90 minute workshops running once each. The workshops will cover a wide range of themes from Balint groups, to leadership, to changing attitudes and testing change, to the use of bio-design, to online medical professionalism, to research networks, to the impact of gender on medical practice, to end of life management skills, teaching and competence in GP training and quality circles. There will also be sessions on mindfulness.

To complement the formal Conference programme, a number of satellite events will take on the Friday morning including a Design Thinking Workshop, a visit to Google, and a walking tour of Dublin. Thirty forum participants will also spend two days ahead of the conference visiting Irish general practices in what has become a VdGM tradition; the pre-conference mini-exchange. Finally to round off the meeting, a very special post forum celebration will take place on the evening of Saturday 21st February. At the time of going to print only limited places were left and it may be that all places are now fully booked. To check and see, full information here

Dr Peter Sloane
Chair VDGM