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This website is meant to involve everybody, interested in Family Medicine (FM) as a fundamental right for everybody.

The WHIG (Dutch) is involved in travel medicine and import diseases; FM for migrants and research in this field.

The WHIG brings together information on FM for students in Africa, Europe; trainees in FM and Family Practitioners (FP).
You can find relevant publications, info on the postgraduate FM-training in Kenya and Ruanda.
Click on a continent or Africa on the map of the globe on the front page if you look for any connection with a country of your choice.

Goal

The WHIG wants to promote exchange of knowledge between Family Practioners (FP) on global health issues and to use that knowledge in primary care in The Netherlands (travel advice, care for migrants). The WHIG supports research in that field and supports training in FM in countries that lack such a tradition.

How (strategy)?

1.  Organising the training in travel advice, promoting its position in General Practice and supporting its Quality assurance.
2.  Training and teaching of registrars in Tropical Medicine and students of the Masters program of International Health; 
     Coaching students and Dutch FM-trainees who do electives in FM abroad.
3.  Supporting FM-training of Doctors to specialise in FM in other countries that lack such training. (Kenya, Ruanda).
4.  Documentation and research in the field of FM and International Health e.g. import diseases in The Netherlands.

This website is meant to involve everybody, interested in Family Medicine (FM) as a fundamental right for everybody.

The WHIG (Dutch) is involved in travel medicine and import diseases; FM for migrants and research in this field.

The WHIG brings together information on FM for students in Africa, Europe; trainees in FM and Family Practitioners (FP).
You can find relevant publications, info on the postgraduate FM-training in Kenya and Ruanda.

Click on a continent above if you look for any connection with a country of your choice.

Interesting reading on International Family Medicine:

The special edition of Medicus Tropicus on International Family Medicine: click here

Interesting reading from the Annals of Family Medicine May/June 2012: “The Joys of Family Medicine”, Family Physician Reflects on Why He Loves His Work in El Salvador: click here

South Africa is leading in the built up of a good primary care system.
They welcome FP/GPs. Look first on AHP (African Helath Placements)

You want to read about a successful example set by FP Marga Vintges on a FM-approach of anHIV-program? Click for the article in the Volkskrant in Dutch.

Job news around Joburg
This is an email I got from Dr Shabir Moosa, Family Medicine & Primary Health Care, District Family Physician Johannesburg
Senior Clinical Lecturer, Wits University, Gauteng, South Africa

It’s been a rollercoaster in the last three months and I can’t help sharing my juvenile excitement about development of primary health care in Joburg!  With lots of work recruiting doctors Family Medicine has grown the real doctor population in Joburg from ±40 to 120+ in 2 yrs. It’s been a major boon to clinical leadership, strengthening Community Health Centres (CHCs) as medical referral centres (incl. emergency-procedural services) and expanding doctor outreach visits to clinics.  There are many parts of Joburg that still need Family Physicians and Medical Officers.  

MORE: There is a plan to expand HIV treatment sites and strengthen medical services as extensions of the Department of Family Medicine & PHC in areas underserviced by doctors eg Midrand or Orange Farm. There are many HAST Posts available NOW!
A really exciting project is being piloted in Mofolo, Soweto around Family Medicine Registrars, building family practices with strong community-orientation. We are ‘registering’ a small practice population … to make a major contribution to the National Health Insurance (NHI) debate. Interested in a 1-2 yr Pepfar Fellowship to help these develop? 

General Practitioners (GPs) are part of the District Health Service and Dept of Family Medicine & PHC (DFM) in Johburg! We will also be slowly visiting / meeting GPs (starting with Soweto) to strengthen relations and encourage GPs to be part of the team. Sessions are also available. 
Check on details HERE.

Whilst we have 120+ doctors it is hardly sufficient – there should be 40 more with vacancies. Even moreso the National Department norms of 1 to 10 000 patients suggest we should have 300 doctors to serve the 3.0m uninsured people and their 6m visits in clinics / CHCs (excluding the District Hospitals!). So you can imagine! There are a lot MORE JOBS possible for doctors in the District Health Services of the City of Johannesburg.  Have a look HERE for ALL JOB DETAILS and follow the process of application. The next interview date is 2nd Feb 2010 at Wits Medical School. Closing date for this interview is 25th Jan 2010. Keep sending applications as closing dates will generally be at the end of every month with interviews in the 1st 2 weeks of the next month.   There are also other posts incl. Palliative Care in Soweto and Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) doctors in Southern Africa. Help us grow – pass this on to any friend/s who might be interested.

Check eDistrictNews regularly: 

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Experience in a developing country may be just as valuable for later performance in general practice as experience at home.    

Did you experience working in a developing country as relevant to your future work as a doctor as working in your own country? There is now some evidence that such medical experience abroad is probably just as valuable as experience at home. That is relevant to convince those concerned with medical education who hesitate to let young doctors go get medical experience in such a setting. Let’s hope this paper helps to remove barriers for those who justly want to spend some time in their medical career in the developing world.

Conclusions

We found interesting differences in clinical and organisational performance between GP’s with and without medical experience in developing countries and between their practices. It is not possible to attribute these differences to this experience, because the choice for medical experience in a tropical country probably reflects individual differences in professional motivation and personality. Experience in a developing country may be just as valuable for later performance in general practice as experience at home.    

For the link Ctrl click: Experience as a doctor in the developing world: does it benefit the clinical and organisational performance in general practice?

van den Hombergh P, de Wit NJ, van Balen FA.

BMC Fam Pract. ;10(1):80.

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The birth of an African journal 

A brandnew journal for PHC and family medicine in Africa has been published. This is great.

Click here for year 1 nr 1.