The next Nordic Congress of General Practice will be arranged in Tampere, Finland. The opening ceremony will be held on Wednesday 21st of August 2013 in the main auditorium of Tampere Hall and the closing ceremony will take place at noon on Saturday 24th. The responsible organization is the Finnish Association for General Practice, together with Tampere University and Pirkanmaa Hospital District.
The title of the congress is ”Promoting partnership with our patients - A challenge and a chance for primary care”. The theme of patient orientation is nowadays emerging in all connections where development of health care is discussed. The interpretation of terminology varies, not to speak of its implications for management of daily practice. Patient orientation is included in the European definition of general practice, but are we really doing patient orientated work in primary health care? Are we giving our patients a chance to be involved in their own care? And how should we change our practices to achieve this goal?
The Nordic Congress of General Practice will enlighten partnership with patients from many perspectives and levels. The invited plenary lectures come from both the Nordic countries and from outside the Nordic countries to obtain a wider scope for the theme. Professor Jan de Maeseneer, chairman of the European Forum for Primary Health Care, from Gent, Belgium. Professor Kirsti Malterud comes from Norway and her studies are more focused on the level of patients’ experiences. Professor Martyn Evans from Durham University (UK) discusses the theme from an ethical perspective. Professor Johan Eriksson and associate professor Ilkka Kunnamo represent the hosting country. Professor Eriksson gives an interesting input on the discussion of epigenetics that started in the previous Nordic congresses. Ilkka Kunnamo has a remarkable career in developing computerized systems to help daily work at clinical practice.
The congress organization has received a large number of workshop and symposia proposals, and the programme will be very rich, whether you look at it from the perspective of clinical or scientific work or from the viewpoint of education and training. The programme will also include a few specific large entities such as separate GP trainee sessions and a summative symposium of the Finnish diabetes programme (DEHKO). There will also be specific sessions for Nordic GPs who want to apply family therapy methods in their patient encounters.
The social programme is always an important part of the congress. We are putting a lot of efforts in creating a non-formal and relaxed atmosphere for our evening programme to promote social intercourse and networks. Also pre-congress and post-congress programmes are available. Tampere is a beautiful city on the ridge between two big lakes. It is an important piece of industrial history of Finland, and as such worth to stay a while to take a closer look around.
All information: www.nordicGP2013.fi.
Welcome to the Nordic Congress of General Practice 2013!
