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Council meeting - Aarhus, Denmark, September 2004 Report of the Meeting

Council Reports Contents

Wednesday 22 September 2004

Pre-Council Executive Board Meeting

The Executive Board met before the Council Meeting and discussed the following issues:

• Dr. Yonah Yaphe is going to provide the final version of checklist for teaching practices to Agnes Goethuys. She will organize printing in Belgium and bring them to the Spring Council Meeting 2005.
• The next Council Meeting can be organized in Halkidiki, Greece. This will cost EURACT 6000 euro. Dr. Simeonidis is ready to organize this meeting. The relevant decision must be taken by the Council.
• Dr. Egle Zebiene was the only nominee for the Presidency of EURACT. According to the bylaws she is elected the new President.
• The new Honorary Treasurer should be elected during the current meeting. The Council will be informed about it. Candidates should propose themselves for the post.
• The Web-site group working before the Council Meeting came to the conclusion that no password protected access to our web-site is needed.
• The Task Force on EB/Council relationship is going to present the progress report which will not be discussed during the Council Meeting. All members will be asked to comment by e-mail after the meeting.
• EURACT will recognize the contribution of Igor Svab to its work presenting him with a special gift from the Council. Jan Heyrman and Agnes Goethuys will organize it in Leuven.
• Co-option of Bernardina Wanrooij and Justin Allen will be decided by the Council. The person concerned will leave the room for the discussion on the topic.
• An Education Research Strategy will be proposed for further discussion by Job Metsemakers for the Spring meeting. This issue will be not discussed during the current Council Meeting.
• All Council Committees should elect or appoint their chairmen. The Committees have to discuss their potential contribution to the Kos WONCA Congress. New Council Members should select the committee in which they would like to continue their work in EURACT.
• The "5 minutes 1 slide" session will be chaired by volunteer outside of the EB.
• Paula Vainiomaki informed EB that she received a phone call from Janos Szabo who is proposing to host the Council Meeting in Spring 2005. She asked him for more detailed declaration, which he promised to send by e-mail within the time frame of the ongoing Council Meeting.
• Dr. Justin Allen, Roar Maagaard and Job Metsemakers will attend the three network meetings during the WONCA World Congress in Orlando.
• The issue of Secretariat has to be reviewed and discussed by the Council. It is unclear for how long Agnes Goethuys can continue her function.

Session 1: Introduction to the meeting

The President, dr. Justin Allen, welcomed all the Council members, and especially the new members from Czech Republic, Latvia, Switzerland and Slovenia. Then the Council members discussed in pairs their professional experiences during last few months. Afterwards the President announced the changes to the agenda of the ongoing meeting. He informed us that the Honorary Treasurer is stepping down from his post and the new officer to this post has to be elected. He asked everybody to consider his/her readiness to overtake this post.

Session 2: SCOT analysis

The whole Council was divided into 4 groups. Each group had a task to consider strengths, challenges, weaknesses and threats for EURACT. Each group focused on one of the above aspects while having in mind the others, producing three bullet points related to their main topic.

After a small group discussion, the group representatives reported to the plenary. The lists presented by the groups were enlarged by other members of the Council, who added more ideas. Finally four following lists have been produced:

Strengths:

• focus on quality production
• broad range of expertise in the Council
• professional academic approach
• friendly atmosphere

Challenges:

• no clear benefits for members of EURACT
• difficulties sometimes in communication
• difference in participation of Council members and their feeling of responsibilities
• intermittent activities
• lack of political will
• lack of legal status
• lack of long-term strategy (business plan)

Opportunities:

• more emphasis on young doctors
• to promote all values of EURACT
• collaboration with networks, WONCA, UEMO, AMEE
• use of information technology
• increases interest in our products
• PHC still a hot topic in Europe
• etwork research on education

Threats:

• expansion and growth of EURACT Council
• external threats to the status of GP teachers
• too much focus on products instead of networking
• poor link of EURACT to research medical community

Dr. Wolfgang Spiegel, Francesco Carelli and Yonah Yaphe will try to design the draft version of the action plan deriving from the analysis. This will be presented during the "5 minutes 1 slide" session.

Thursday 23 September 2004

Session 3: Business meeting

• At the beginning the notes from Madeira meeting were reviewed. The report was approved.
• The Treasurer presented the financial report. According to this report, EURACT's financial situation is rather good, however there is a need to think about an increase in income to have more chances to develop more activities. The full report is available as Annex 2.
• The President informed us that according to the procedure agreed upon during the last meeting in Madeira only one eligible application for the new presidency arrived in time. Accordingly dr Egle Zebiene will serve as EURACT president from the end of the Spring 2005 EURACT Council Meeting.
• Dr. Okay Basak was proposed as a candidate for the post of Honorary Treasurer. His candidature was supported by Dr. Fergus O'Kelly and Yonah Yaphe. Since no other candidate was proposed, Dr. Basak was elected as a new Honorary Treasurer and he will fill the post from the end of the Spring 2005 EURACT Council Meeting.
• The Council discussed the co-option of Council members in 2005. Two persons: Dr. Bernardina Wanrooij and Dr. Justin Allen, who is going to leave the Council at the end of this year as an UK representative, applied for co-option. The candidates left the room for the time of the discussion. The Council members discussed separately both candidatures. A secret ballot was organized. As a result Dr. Bernardina Wanrooij was not co-opted for a further period. Dr. Justin Allen was approved as a co-opted member for 2005.
• Prof. Job Metsemakers presented the interim report from the work of the Task Force on EB function. He described the process of the work done until now, asking for further comments. The group should be ready to present the results during the next Council meeting.
• The report from Young Doctors Program before and during the WONCA Europe Congress 2004 in Amsterdam was presented by Dr. Athanasios Simeonidis. EURACT played an important role in it providing 6 group leaders for the project. Our involvement was judged very positively both by WONCA Europe and junior doctors taking part in the program. The Greek Association of General Practice – the organizer of WONCA Europe 2005 – is going to continue the initiative.
• A 3-network meeting is going to be organized during the WONCA World meeting in Orlando in October 2004. The Council members present in the Congress are going to contribute.
• The report from the Leonardo-EURACT course for trainers in family medicine, which took place in Zakopane, Poland in May 2004, was presented by Dr. Adam Windak and Dr. Egle Zebiene. The course was very positively perceived by both the faculty and the participants. The course is ready for further implementation. Portugal is ready to host it in 2006 and the host for 2005 is still sought.

Friday 24 September 2004

Session 4: Task groups

The Council split into 3 small groups and discussed separately 3 initiatives:

• further development of Educational Agenda
• expansion and competence review of New Definition
• further development of Young Doctors initiative

At the end of the session the Council gathered back together and short reports from the work of the small groups were presented.

• The group of Educational Agenda stated that the current version is not the final one. The final version should be ready at the end of 2004. There will be a special form designed and distributed with request for comments. It is planned to review the document regularly every 2 or 3 years. Changes on the content and the structure of the document are still expected. There are also new ideas deriving from the work on Educational Agenda. One of them could be on assessment. This and other related topics could be presented as a series of new booklets. The group stated the need for promotion of the Educational Agenda and working plan for its implementation in all European countries. There are plans to organize a conference on the topic in 2007.
• The group working on further development of New Definition and Core Competences noticed that current form of the document is still inconsistent and there are still some errors. The presentation of core competences is still a little bit unclear and needs to be rephrased. This can be done by the preparation of a shorter version.
• The group discussing the Young Doctors Program discussed the further progress and development of the project in the line of WONCA Europe 2005 Congress in Kos and beyond it. As a first step, the Kos Conference organizers will contact the leaders of young doctors organization asking about their needs and expectations. Then we as EURACT will react to it and try to assist the project. This can be expressed in a letter to WONCA from our President.

Session 5: Business meeting - continued

• The new members of the Council presented themselves giving some information about their personal and professional backgrounds. Dr. Bernhard Rindlisbacher, Janko Kersnik, Vladimir Marek and Rita Ruba joined the Council as new representatives of their countries. The President welcomed them on behalf of the Council expressing our hope for further fruitful collaboration.
• The web-site task force group gave the report from the work done during their meeting before the Council Meeting. Needs for changes and updates were discussed on the basis of review of every page. A new front page is needed and many updates must be introduced regularly. A procedure to assure timely changes was discussed. The work will be continued by the group with the support from the whole Council.
• Prof. Jan Heyrman presented the first result of the landscape project as it is ready for publication on the web-site. At this moment the product allows the access to the data from different perspectives (country, type of training etc.). There are plans to update the data annually. Council members will be approached before every meeting to correct the data concerning their country in relation to one field of education. The current version will be published on the web-site before the Spring Council meeting in 2005.
• The Spring meeting 2005 will take place in Hungary on 20-25 April 2005. The exact place will be announced later by the local organizers.
• The letter from International Balint Federation was discussed. The Federation asked for clear support to the idea of inclusion of Balint training in every vocational training in Europe. Different options and perspectives were presented by Council members. Generally the majority of them agreed that Balint training can be of value for vocational training of general practitioners. However according to the majority opinion this is only one of the available methods. It is welcomed and can be of use for different stages of training in family medicine. The categorical statement supporting the obligatory inclusion in VT is at this moment unacceptable from EURACT point of view. The President will write a letter reflecting the above views.
• Prof. Igor Svab left the Council due to his expected election as the future WONCA Europe President. If elected, he will be co-opted as Council Members ex officio. To recognize his contribution to EURACT, a special decorated plate will be produced and presented to him.
• New members from the following countries were approved: Finland – 2, Italy – 7, Latvia – 1, Portugal – 1, Bosnia & Herzegovina – 3, Romania – 1, Sweden – 3, Turkey – 5, UK – 2, Czech Republic – 7, Estonia – 1.

Session 6: Standing committees

Four standing committees worked separately discussing their working agendas. The following committees had their meeting:

• Basic Medical Education
• Vocational Training
• Continuous Professional Development
• Member Service

Saturday 25 September 2004

Session 7: Feedback from the committees

The standing committees gave the reports to the plenary, reflecting their discussion during the small group work.

Basic Medical Education (Anders Baerheim)

Dr. Yonah Yaphe has been re-confirmed as a chair of the committee. The committee plans to conduct several projects and activities. The first one involves early clinical exposure for students starting their medical studies. They plan also to prepare a workshop for the WONCA 2005 Congress in Kos about cross-cultural differences.

Vocational Training (Roar Maagaard)

Dr. Roar Maagaard has been elected new chair of the VT committee. Their first issue discussed was is the trainees assessment of trainees. According to the committee this issue should be reflected better in the Educational Agenda document. Some amendments are needed and the group is going to prepare them. Selection of trainees across the Europe was the second issue discussed by the committee. The group wants to finish the project started some time ago. The third issue was the structure and length of vocational training and differences in this field across Europe. This arises from the Young Doctors' Program. The Fourth issue is financing of vocational training. The group is going to explore it. The Fifth idea is a trainee forum. The group will develop this initiative through the Young Doctors' Program. The full version of the report is available in Annex 4.

Continuous Professional Development (Paula Vainiomäki)

Prof. Paula Vainiomaki has been re-confirmed as a chair of the CPD committee. The committee discussed possible tools which would facilitate CPD. Another issue discussed by the group was potential accreditation of CPD programs. Involvement of pharmaceutical companies worries the committee. The group is afraid that in many cases their involvement can drive the content of the training. They realized that knowledge about the specificity of CPD is limited. The booklet developed together with EQuiP seems to be too difficult. Perhaps a shorter and clearer description will be needed. The group is going to work on it. The full text of the report is available in Annex 4.

Member Service (Egle Zebiene)

Dr. Egle Zebiene was re-confirmed as a chair of Member Service Committee. Preparation of the next issue of Leonardo-EURACT course was discussed. The course materials were finally discussed and improved. The organizational details of the 2005 and 2006 courses were discussed. The date and venue for 2005 will be Kusadasi, Turkey – May 22-25. The number of countries can be increased even to 8. This would mean more work and problems for the faculty but facilitate easier and wider dissemination of the course. Other condition for participation (4 persons from the country, support of local institution, cost of travel covered by participants). Sponsorship for Bled course was discussed and the group proposed to remain the rules the same. Five participants from low-income countries would be supported by the grant of 500 euro. Also 5 participants of the conference of teachers will get sponsorship to cover the conference fee. The article about the Leonardo-EURACT course and workshop for Kos Conference in 2005 will be prepared. The full version of the report in available in Annex 4.

Session 8: "5 minutes 1 slide" presentations

• Dr. Janko Kersnik advertised the 2^nd meeting of teachers in General Practice which will take place in Kranska Gora, Slovenia on September 23-24, 2005. Different activities like keynote speakers, workshop, oral and poster presentation are planed. Prof. Manfred Maier, Dr. Mladenka Vrcic-Keglevic and Dr. Justin Allen are already confirmed to be keynote speakers. The main title of the conference is "Assessment in FM/GP".
• Dr. Monica Lindh presented the experiences from Swedish exam for family doctors. This is a voluntary exam covering several issues like self-assessment, review of professional development, evaluation of the support given to the students, the clinical day contents video records of students consultation, review of records and discussion of projects and written part of the exam. The whole exam takes a lot of time and as such is an educational process as well.
• Dr. Francesco Carelli presented his thoughts on EURACT self-advertising. He showed the presentation used by him in Italy. This is aimed at promotion of the group and its products.
• Dr. Wolfgang Spiegel – teaching about sexual feelings in physician-patient relationships. This presentation described the personal experiences of the presenter in teaching in this field. He proposes to attract attention of WEURACT to that issue. Possible common action could be a workshop in Kos.
• Prof. Anders Baerheim – Are female medical students overlooked or harassed? This issue was explored by the author within a European project, conducted at Bergen University. The initial results are interesting. Many Council members would be interested to join the project.
• Dr. Iuliana Popa – Reflection on country reports. The author reflected on the structure, content and procedure of presentation of the country reports. The essential question is: What is the use of the report? Do we need them? If so, what format is really required? The content of the reports from last two meetings was varied. The conclusion is that the current experience is far from the desired model. She proposes to set up clear rules for country reports.
• Dr. Wolfgang Spiegel – proposed a new way of working in committees. He proposes to organize an open space procedure allowing the members to join other committees temporarily. This would allow better linking of the work of different committees and better opportunities for Council members to contribute to various fields of EURACT work.
• Dr. Wolfgang Spiegel, Dr. Francesco Carelli – This group suggested that EURACT needs better recognition and official status, which would facilitate external contacts. The format of an NGO might suit us best. In that case we could be accredited by the WHO, UN or EU. A second issue is the lack of incentive for membership. This could be increased by regular publication of an Educational Newsletter containing articles on educational research. A third point is that EURACT has great potential to conduct research in the field of medical education.

Session 9: Future meetings & evaluation

• WONCA Europe Congress 2005 in Kos is going to be an important event for EURACT. Our organization is going to provide 3 moderators for morning sessions (Drs. Mladenka Vrcic-Keglevic, Roar Maagaard, Job Metsemakers). Another issue is our contribution to the Young Doctors' Program. The details of our involvement will be discussed during the next Council meeting. In addition, EURACT is going to organize several workshops under its umbrella. To ensure the high quality of our products , only workshops produced by the standing committees will be identified in the program as EURACT events.
• The Bled course has been in existence for 13 years. There is a lot of good experience based on the input of course directors. There is space for more persons to contribute. Those who are interested should contact Dr. Janko Kersnik directly.
• At the end of the meeting all Council members expressed their feelings about the meeting. All of them expressed their gratitude to Roar Maagaard for the excellent organization of both the Council Meeting and the Danish conference on assessment.

Post-Council Executive Board meeting

• The format of country reports needs to be discussed during the Winter EB meeting (form, content, distribution etc.).
• The analysis of the SCOT exercise will be the major item for the residential meeting. It will be based on the notes from the Council Meeting.
• Formal registration could be the problem for future work of EURACT. Dr. Justin Allen will try to explore the legal status of EGPRN and EQuiP during the WONCA meeting in Orlando.
• The transition of officers' duties will be done by the President and by the Hon. Treasurer at the end of Spring meeting in 2005. Till that time newly elected officers should actively participate in the work of EB to learn as much as possible about their new functions.
• The President will write a letter to the representatives of the WONCA Junior organization offering them support during the Kos Conference and beyond. Our involvement will be discussed during the residential EB meeting.
• The Leonardo-EURACT course will be held in May 22-25, 2005 in Turkey. Dr. Egle Zebiene will provide information to the countries involved and ask for names of participants by December 15, 2005. In 2005 the course will be still invitational for countries who are expected to develop the course in their own countries. In 2006 the course may be open to individual participants. At the WONCA 2005 Congress we will present a workshop highlighting our experience with the course.
• Dr. Yonah Yaphe and Dr. Athanasios Simeonidis are responsible for further Web-site development. They will prepare the working agenda for introduction of changes. The whole web group will assist them as well as the EB.
• Dr. Justin Allen will present a short interim report on the progress of the work on the New Definition for the residential EB meeting.
• Dr. Mladenka Vrcic-Keglevic is going to develop a short discussion paper on the further role of EURACT in the Young Doctors' Program especially focused on the issue of how we can increase participation in educational activities produced by EURACT. This will be discussed further during the next EB meeting.
• Dr. Yonah Yaphe will contact Agnes Goethuys to ensure the printing of the checklist for course organizers.
• Dr. Roar Maagaard will explore the current status of Hippocrates Program. He will contact the program coordinator to get as much relevant information as possible.
• "5 minutes 1 slide" needs more careful supervision. The future presenters have to stick exactly to one slide and 5 minutes + 5 minutes for discussion. This will be chaired by EB member who will be responsible for selection of no more than 6 presentations. The presenter must be clear on the message or the question to be put forward.
• A Public relations strategy for EURACT will be a subject for discussion by the Member Service Committee during the next Council Meeting.
• The next EB meeting will take place on January 14-16, 2005 in Thessaloniki.
• Reimbursement of the travel expenses:

  1. Iuliana Popa	580
  2. Ruta Riba	260
  3. Egle Zebiene	340
  4. Okay Basak	540
  5. Adam Windak	520
  6. Llukan Rrumbullaku	590
  Total	2830

Summary of EURACT Council and EB decisions – Aarhus 2004

• Dr. Yonah Yaphe & Agnes Goethuys are responsible for printing of the checklist for teaching practices.
• No password on EURACT web-site.
• Prof. Jan Heyrman and Agnes Goethuys are responsible for purchase of a special gift for Igor Svab.
• EURACT President Elect Dr. Egle Zebiene will assume the function of EURACT president from the end of the Spring 2005 EURACT Council Meeting.
• The newly elected Honorary Treasurer Dr. Okay Basak will assume the post from the end of the Spring 2005 EURACT Council Meeting.
• The council co-option of Dr. Bernardina Wanrooij has been terminated.
• Following his term as president, Dr. Justin Allen will be a co-opted member of Council for one additional year.
• The EURACT Council spring meeting in 2005 will take place in Hungary on 20-25 April 2005.
• The President will answer the International Balint Society rejecting their request for a statement on compulsory Balint training.
• Thirty-two new EURACT members from 11 countries have been approved by the Council.
• The Following chairs of the standing committees have been elected: BME – Dr. Yonah Yaphe, VT – Dr. Roar Maagaard, CPD – Prof. Paula Vainiomaki, Member Service – Dr. Egle Zebiene.
• The next Leonardo EURACT course will take place in Kusadasi, Turkey on May 22-25, 2005. Dr. Egle Zebiene will organize the enrollment of participants.
• Only workshops produced by the standing committees will be marked in the program of WONCA conferences as EURACT events.
• Dr. Yonah Yaphe and Dr. Athanasios Simeonidis will manage further Web-site development.
• The next EB meeting will take place on January 14-16, 2005 in Thessaloniki.