I would like to give you a report of activities and discussions within the UEMO Presidency that have taken place since the very well arranged and successful General Assembly meeting in Istanbul 14-15 October 2005

VICE PRESIDENTS MEETING IN BRUSSELS 10 February 2006.

The new vice President Dr Henry Finnegan was welcomed to his first Vice Presidents meeting.

As you all have heard Elisabeth Sundstrom has moved to the south of Sweden to her fiancée and a new job. I can tell you it was a mutual sorrow when she decided to move, though we really was very happy for her personal choice. Hopefully she will be able to come to our last meeting in Uppsala 20-21 October 2006, where probably also Johan Lindberg, our first executive secretary will be a guest.

As the Executive secretary 2006 we will have the pleasure to have the international secretary of the Swedish Medical Association, Mr Gunnar Lonnquist. We all look forward to have Gunnar as our partner during the last year of the Swedish Presidency.

UEMO: A LEGAL BODY IN BELGIUM.

Since many years we have discussed the necessity to have UEMO recognized as a legal body in Belgium. We now think it is the time to let our legal Working Group chaired by our Secretary General Carl-Eric Thors together with expertise from the CPME-office look at our statutes and see what changes will be necessary. The WG will also look at the costs and advantages and disadvantages of having this legal body, and the time-schedule for such a change
As you know UEMO has today no legal status!

We will prepare all these questions to the next General Assembly in Ljubljana 9-10 June 2006 to be discussed and decided upon by the GA.

THE SPECIALTY IN FAMILY MEDICINE

At the GA in Istanbul Roger Chapman presented the answers of the questionnaire about difficulties with Title III and Title IV GPs in our countries. As you know 12 countries already have a specialty in family medicine!

We also noticed the discrimination in many ways of Title IV GPs in countries with two levels of GPs.

Hopefully all of you have started a discussion at home of having a specialty in family medicine and /or discussing the difficulties in having two levels of GPs.

In the UEMO we want to delete Title IV and have a recognized specialty in family medicine in Title III, like all other medical specialties. In order not to create difficulties including the right to migrate and work in other member states the Title IV GPs of today must then automatically be recognized as Title III GPs when we become specialists..

We will send you a document soon to be used when discussing these important problems in your country. We also have decided to have each of us in the Presidency responsible for 3-4 countries each , to support you in this process nationally. We will also send out some questions to you about these activities nationally- It will be very important to have your answers as complete as possible, because the future activities in the UEMO will depend on them. Dr Terry John will be help us to analyze these questions , to be discussed first in the Specialist training working group and then in the GA in June 2006.

The Legal WG will ask you some more detailed questions about the Title III and Title IV GPs in your country , in a questionnaire to be sent out within some weeks.

As you know the national lobbying is now very important, because it will probably not be fruitful to present new amendments to the fairly new directive during its two-year implementation period . Of course we will continue to promote family medicine as a speciality at the European level as well, but the more countries having a specialty in family medicine the easier it will be to have amendments to the Directive accepted later on.

KEY BULLET POINTS

We will also send out a document putting together the key bullet points presented 2005, to be used nationally and also within the UEMO .

UEMO FUTURE GP UPDATE

The last information from Andy Goldberg is that a Journal will be sent out this year.

CPME- AO.s.

The President´s Committee met in November 2005 at the CPME meeting in Stockholm. This was the last meeting of Dr Bernhard Grewin, Sweden, as the President, and we congratulate Dr Daniel Mart, Luxemburg as the new President. One of the new Vice Presidents of the CPME is Dr Katrin Fjeldstedt, Iceland.

The UEMO- documents Polypharmaci and the elderly and The Mother Child dyad was presented for information.

A CPD conference was discussed and a questionnaire about the future EMO= European Medical Associations , was going to be sent out. This questionnaire has been out for quite a while now and UEMO has answered it.

The UEMO has decided to have representatives in each of the four subcommittees of the CPME, to strengthen the voice of the UEMO and also to promote the idea of common working groups as often as possible.

Dr Eirick Boe Larsen, Norway, represents the CPME in a project concerning Obesity organized by the European Commission.

A round table discussion is planned for 2007 about Prevention of Cardio-vascular diseases, and UEMO is a partner in this activity.

INVITATIONS-MEETINGS

The Secretary general is now finishing his meetings in the work of Safety medication organized by the Council of Europe.

PESCE a project of stop-smoking activities in general practice is planned to start this year.

We are also invited to participate in a project about cardiovascular disease where the commission wants general practitioners to be experts and not only cardiologists.

Probably we will also take part in a project Daphne II Programme: An awareness - raising programme on mental health consequences of violence against women.

Dr Eirick Boe Larsen will present the UEMO document The health of adolescence and young people at the WONCA Europe meeting in Florence in August 2006.

We will attend the EPSA meeting in April. The students of pharmacy will discuss leadership.

The first conference of Gender-medicine in Berlin at the end of February 2006 we will attend.

EACCME - The Accreditation Institute of the UEMS

We have decided in the Presidency to wait with a decision whether or not to become a partner, until we have looked at the possibility for UEMO to become a legal body in Belgium .

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY 2007

The Commission has decided to have the year 2007 AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY YEAR FOR ALL

Our standing committee of EO will have a meeting in June and ideas on activities for the year 2007 will be welcomed by Dr Isabel Caixeiro , chair of the SC and Dr Lynda Hamilton, rapporteur.

Looking forward to seeing your answers to the questionnaires we are going to send out to you within a month. Good luck with the lobbying for our specialty in family medicine and for your important work as general practitioners.