Tuesday, 19 May 2020
World Family Doctor Day is held every year on May 19. It honours the role and contributions of family doctors in health care systems around the world.
This year’s theme is ‘Family Doctors on the Front Line’ and highlights the challenges and responsibilities of family doctors in the new global coronavirus outbreak. The Medical School acknowledges the key role of family doctors in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic and supports and thanks all of its family doctors.
The first World Family Doctor Day was declared by the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) in 2010. The School’s Department for Primary Care and Population Health is a proud academic member of WONCA since 2016 and contributes to the strengthening of family medicine through the training of family physicians on an online MSc in Family Medicine programme.
During the current pandemic lockdown, the Medical School’s Primary Care Centre continues to provide services to its patients by using telehealth and it also triages patients who need care for other reasons. Furthermore, the Centre has developed an extremely helpful diagnostic tool for COVID-19. The online tool can determine whether a person is a suspected COVID-19 case and gives instructions on what to do next. In addition, it outlines the next steps for confirmed cases and for those who are in self-isolation.