Karen Flegg

Lecture: Cultivating The Future
Date: 25 September
Time: 17:30

Assoc Professor Karen Flegg is President of WONCA World. She is a specialist family doctor from Australia, who has practised in primary care medicine mostly in rural and very remote areas.
She is an Associate Professor in the Rural Clinical School, of the Australian National University. Teaching and mentoring the next generation of specialised general practitioners is an ongoing passion. Her clinical interests are Aboriginal health, women’s health, and geriatrics.

Shlomo Vinker

Lecture: Cultivating The Future
Date: 25 September
Time: 17:30

Prof Shlomo Vinker, family physician and academic from Ashdod, Israel, has a rich career blending clinical practice, academic work, and leadership in medical organizations. He practices family medicine in an urban clinic, emphasizing patient-centered care, and holds a Full Professorship in Family Medicine at Tel Aviv University, where he has also served as an associate Dean and former Chair of the Department. With around 260 published papers, his research significantly contributes to family medicine.
Vinker has held key roles in medical associations, including President of WONCA EUROPE, and has been pivotal in enhancing family medicine education and practice on a European scale. In Israel, he led reforms in residency programs and initiated a research grants plan as Chairman of the IAFP. He also launched a medical Wiki website to support the medical community and patients.
As Chief Medical Officer of Leumit Health Services, he manages healthcare for about 730,000 members and founded a research institute in 2018 to boost family medicine and primary care research. Dr. Vinker's career reflects his deep commitment to advancing family medicine, impacting both current and future medical practices.

Susan Smith

Lecture: The Future Generalist: Managing multiple long term conditions in general practice
Date: 26 September
Time: 10:00

Prof Susan Smith is Professor of General Practice at Trinity College Dublin and works as a General Practitioner at Inchicore Family Doctors in Dublin 8. Her research interests include improving outcomes for patients with multimorbidity and related clinical issues such as medicines management. She has been the PI or Co-PI on eight RCTs of interventions for chronic disease management in Irish primary care settings and has just commenced a national three arm cluster RCT evaluating two interventions for people with multimorbidity taking ten or more medicines, GP based pharmacists and link workers providing social prescribing. She is an editor and author with the Cochrane Collaboration and is Clinical Lead for the HRB Evidence Synthesis for Clinical Guidelines programme, which supports production of Ireland’s Clinical Guidelines. She also has an interest in health equity and coordinates the Deep End Ireland Group, which advocates for needs-based resource allocation for primary care services for socioeconomically disadvantaged groups.

Alexandre Gouveia

Lecture: Clinical Uncertainty and Artificial Intelligence: Discovering New Routes in Primary Care
Date: 26 September
Time: 10:00

Dr Alexandre Gouveia is a family physician with a specialization in Family Medicine (Portugal) and General Internal Medicine (Switzerland). After his initial undergraduate and postgraduate training in Portugal, he worked for 5 years in a Family Health Unit in Viana do Castelo, Northern Portugal. During that period, he was a guest lecturer in Community Health at the School of Health Sciences of the University of Minho in Braga, a member of the Executive Board of the Portuguese Association of General Practice and Family Medicine (APMGF) and served as the Portuguese delegate in EQUiP. Dr. Alexandre Gouveia is currently the head of the Policlinique de médecine générale, a postgraduate training unit at Unisanté (Center for Primary Care and Public Health, University of Lausanne). He serves as one of the Swiss delegates at the WONCA Europe Council, representing the Swiss Society of General Internal Medicine (SSGIM). In addition to his clinical, teaching, and research activities, he is currently attending the Master of Medical Sciences in Medical Education at Harvard Medical School.

Eva Kozub

Lecture: The three sisters: Let's sow the seeds of planetary health in primary care teams
Date: 26 September
Time: 13:45

Dr Eva Kozub is a general practitioner in a rural area of southern France.
She trains medical students in her practice and is surrounded by a supportive team of primary care health professionals. She has been involved in planetary health since 2017. She focuses on the issue with patients as with national health institutions.
She is a co-founder of Alliance Santé Planétaire - France. This association promotes planetary health to all sections of the public.
Next to this, Dr Kozub chairs planetary health working group of independent doctors in Occitanie, a large region in southern France.The group develops tools to raise awareness of the topic and its consequences. It also encourages professionals to develop eco-responsible practices.
She is chair of a working group on planetary health within the Collège de la Médecine Générale (CMG). The group creates a toolbox with various seeds ready to grow in every general practice.
Dr Kozub enjoys meeting people in search of meaning and coherence in their practices. For most of them, committing to planetary health is a relief. A resolute optimist and lover of nature, she likes to share and develop the dreams, ideas and actions needed for an enviable, liveable future.

Jörg Smith

Lecture: Health for all within planetary boundaries - GPs as change agents in the face of multiple crises
Date: 26 September
Time: 13:45

Dr Jörg Schmid is a physician in training to become a specialist in general practice with a focus on nutritional medicine and emergency medicine. In addition to his clinical work, he works for the German Alliance on Climate Change and Health (KLUG) on the topic of nutrition and planetary health. There he addresses the effects of our diet and food production on the vitality of our livelihoods, the planetary systems. The focus is on the question of how a more plant-based diet can feed the growing world population in a healthy and sustainable way in the future.
As an activist of the grassroots movement Health for Future, he draws attention to the consequences of global environmental changes such as global warming on human health. In addition to educating people about the consequences of environmental destruction, he believes it is important to have an emotional understanding of the need for a socio-ecological transformation towards a more sustainable society and economy. He argues in favour of the health benefits for the individual through measures such as green cities, renewable energies or more plant-based diets.
In his scientific work, he focusses inwards into the healthcare system. Aware of the multiple systemic crises of our time, he argues in favour of a further development of the medical ethos, responsibility and practice that includes the protection of our vital ecosystem as a medical duty. He is involved in numerous projects in the training and teaching of medical students and the general public on issues of planetary health.

Niels Chavannes

Lecture: Evidence-based eHealth: When is digital innovation of added value in practice?
Date: 27 September
Time: 10:00

Prof Dr Niels H. Chavannes MD, PhD, graduated in Medicine at Maastricht University, the Netherlands in 1998. He combined his specialization as a Family Physician (2003) with several diagnostic and therapeutic studies in primary care, resulting in his 2005 PhD thesis: “Tracking and treating COPD in Primary Care: An integrated approach to diagnosis and therapy” at the CAPHRI Research Institute of Maastricht University. In 2006 his team received the National Public Health Stimulation Award for the Kroonluchter COPD Project, implementing a highly successful integrated COPD management program.

Clinical Care: In Rotterdam he was involved in setting up an innovative multidisciplinary health care center in a deprived area since 2003, and practised there as a Family Physician in an integrated primary healthcare team. After working as a part-time Family Physician in Zeist, he now enjoys working at the Streetdoctor Group in Rotterdam, taking care of the homeless and deprived at the inner city Pauluskerk.

Current Positions: In 2015 he was appointed as a Full Professor of Primary Care Medicine, Strategic Chair of eHealth Applications in Disease Management, and in 2016 he became Head of Research at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Leiden University Medical Center. In 2020 his Chair was continued as eHealth Applications in Population Health Management and he became Chair of the Theme Prevention and Lifestyle within the Research Council of LUMC. He is an Associate Editor of the Nature Partnering Journal Primary Care Respiratory Medicine (Impact Factor 3.2). He is a Visiting Professor at the Respiratory Research Institute at Fudan University, Shanghai, China. Together with prof Chunxue Bai of Fudan University he is co-chief editor of the novel KeAi/Elsevier-backed journal Clinical eHealth. He is the Vice-Chair of the Dutch Asthma and COPD Advisory Group (CAHAG) and the National Advisor of the Dutch Action Program on Chronic Lung Diseases of the Lung Alliance Netherlands (LAN). In March 2018 he opened the National eHealth Living Lab, a patient-centered multidisciplinary Open Science platform to scale up a large number of eHealth initiatives in an evidence-based manner, currently running 92 studies, using innovative eHealth methodology and stimulating public-private partnerships.

Past positions: He spent two years as a Consultant Family Physician at United Family Hospital in Shanghai, China, combined with an Assistant Professorship at Leiden University Medical Center, 2008-10. He is the past President of the International Primary Care Respiratory Group, and formerly associate Editor BMC Family Practice (Impact Factor 2.1), former Chair of the General Practice and Primary Care Scientific Group at the European Respiratory Society (www.ersnet.org) and former Planning Committee Member of the Global Alliance against Respiratory Diseases at the World Health Organization. He co-authored the 2004 ATS/ERS COPD Guidelines, as well as the 2008 ARIA Guidelines and the Dutch Primary Care Standards for Asthma, COPD, and Smoking Cessation (2007, revised in 2015 and 2017) as well as the multidisciplinary Tobacco Dependence and Smoking Cessation Guideline (2016).

Research: He has been supervising 42 PhD students, of whom 12 now have graduated, two cum laude. His multidisciplinary team currently consists of 8 postdocs, 5 assistant professors and 4 associate professors with clinical, psychological, epidemiological and biomedical expertise, and several projects are embedded in the Medical Delta eHealth Institute, of which Chavannes is one of the founders. He published over 300 peer-reviewed articles on topics like eHealth and mHealth, medication adherence, rehabilitation, asthma, COPD, smoking cessation, self-management and disease management programs in primary care and hospital to home setting. He contributed to 18 books as first author and 7 books as second or last author. He has been a member of over 60 different committees and raised over € 52 million in funding over the past 15 years.

Ana Luisa Neves

Lecture: Virtual consultations: opportunities and challenges for better, safer and more equitable primary care.
Date: 27 September
Time: 10:00

Dr Ana Luisa Neves is a Clinical Senior Lecturer in Digital Health and Director of the Global Digital Health Unit (GDHU), a research hub for innovation and entrepreneurship in health care. In line with the aims of the School of Public Health, the mission of the Global Digital Health Unit is to develop innovative, evidence-based solutions for delivering healthcare and health promotion, and for supporting public health research. We are a multidisciplinary team, collaborating on a number of local, national and international activities.
Dr Ana Luisa Neves leads a team of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, conducting research in digital health, with a focus on the use of digital technologies to deliver safer, more effective, and patient-centred care. She has more than 15 years of research experience, and >40 papers published in peer-reviewed journals (>3,000 citations), using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies.
Ana qualified in Medicine and completed specialist training in General Practice, and has worked as a medical doctor in both high- and low-income countries. She undertook academic and research placements at Institut National de la Santé et Recherche Médicale (Paris) and at Cambridge Health Alliance/Harvard Medical School Affiliate (Boston), before obtaining her PhD in Clinical Medicine at Imperial College London (2018). Between 2017-2023, Ana took a variety of research roles at the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial, the latest being as Associate Director / Advanced Research Fellow at Imperial NIHR Patient Safety Translational Research (PSTRC). As part of this role, Ana also oversaw the academic support to the WHO Global Patient Safety Collaborative, a multi-national consortium designed to strengthen leadership, capacity building and research development in low and middle-income countries.
In what concerns teaching activities, she is the Module Lead for Digital Health in the Masters Public Health and Global Master of Public Health at Imperial College London. Ana is also Module Lead (Health Data Collection and Principles of Health Data Science) at the PhD Programme in Health Data Science at University of Porto, where she holds a post as Associate Professor.
Dr Ana Luisa Neves is currently an elected member of the Executive Board of the European General Practice Research Network and of the Working Party on eHealth of the World Organisation of General Practice

María Pilar Astier-Peña

Lecture: Your Health, Our Priority: Strengthening Care Continuity and Human Performance for Safety
Date: 27 September
Time: 13:45

Prof María Pilar Astier-Peña is a specialist in Family and Community Medicine and Preventive Medicine and Public Health. She currently serves as a Family Doctor at a Primary Health Care Centre in Zaragoza, Spain. Alongside her clinical duties, she holds the position of Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Zaragoza, where she mentors medical students and actively participates in multi-professional teaching units focusing on family and community medicine, as well as family nursing residency programs. She is also mentor of family medicine residents.
Driven by her commitment to patient safety and healthcare quality, she holds leadership roles as the Chair of the Patient Safety Working Party at the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (SEMFYC), and as a member of various international bodies such as EQUIP (The Quality and Safety Network in WONCA Europe), and as vice-chair of the Policy Advocacy Working Party of Wonca Europe. Additionally, at WONCA World level she contributes her expertise as a member of the Quality and Safety Working Party and a Member-at-Large on the WONCA World Executive Committee for the term 2023-2025.
Her primary research focus lies in enhancing patient safety and healthcare quality, with a specific emphasis on primary healthcare, physicians' health and wellbeing, and the enhancement of clinical reasoning as a core competency among family doctors. ORCID Number: 0000-0002-3192-7672

Mercy Wanjala

Lecture: Advocacy for Leadership and Innovation in Quality Improvement of Primary Care Services: Running the Race You are Dealt and the Race you Choose.
Date: 28 September
Time: 10:00

Dr Mercy N. Wanjala is a Family Physician and Health Systems lecturer from Kenya with a rich background in clinical care, administration, and leadership. With a deep understanding of primary healthcare coordination and leadership, policy development, and project management across governmental and non-governmental sectors, she has made significant contributions to healthcare systems at national, regional, and global levels. Her educational journey, including master’s degrees in general Comprehensive Medicine from the University of Medical Sciences of Havana and an MBA in Healthcare Management from Strathmore University Business School, has equipped her with a diverse skill set ranging from clinical management to policy advocacy, research, and education. She professional trajectory encompasses pivotal roles such as the Head of Primary Health Care for the County Government of Embu Health Department. Her leadership has been instrumental in establishing primary healthcare networks, developing operational plans, and strengthening community-oriented primary health care principles. As the Executive Coordinator of the Africa Forum for Primary Health Care, she spearheads regional and global partnerships, driving collaborative projects in primary health care across the African region. She has contributed significantly to research, publications, and international conferences, advocating for primary health care policies, and fostering collaborations for health systems strengthening. With a passion for improving health outcomes and a relentless drive for excellence, she continues to make indelible contributions to the field of global health and primary care.

Tomas Zapata

Date: 28 September
Time: 10:00

Dr Tomas Zapata is a medical doctor specialised in Family Medicine in Spain. He holds a Master’s degree in Health Policy, Planning, and Financing from LSHTM and LSE and a specialised course on Human Resources for Health by Harvard School of Public Health.
Dr. Tomas Zapata leads the Health Workforce and Service Delivery Unit in the WHO Regional Office for Europe based in Copenhagen. He has more than 13 years of experience in policy advice, research, and programme implementation on health workforce and service delivery, in more than 20 countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa.