WONCA Europe Conference 2019

In the conclusion of the 24th WONCA Europe Conference, we acknowledge that family doctors must work on human and personal lifelong relations with their patients. Fostering open relationships and investing more time with the patients help family doctors increase the quality of prevention and care.

To cultivate these crucial elements, we should:

1. establish a close collaboration with governments, policy-makers and non-governmental organisations, to promote a better understanding of the nature and core services of family doctors and their central role in primary health care, and increase the human resources where necessary;
2. work closer with educational institutions and current and future students of medicine;
3. continue taking care of and comforting our patients by tailoring treatment and avoiding over-diagnosis and over-treatment, as well as under-diagnosis and under-treatment;
4. develop an action plan and collaborate with all parties to improve the conditions of work of the primary health care workforce to ensure their social and mental wellbeing.

Finally, we shall all remember the words of Hippocrates: “It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has.” There is no computer algorithm that can attain that.