WONCA World Conference 2025
Published on September 29, 2025
The 2025 World WONCA conference was held in mid-September in Lisbon, Portugal. For those perpetually confused by the acronym, WONCA is the World Organisation of Family Doctors, and takes its name from the first five letters of its erstwhile title, the World Organisation of National Colleges, Academies, and Academic Associations of General Practitioners/Family Physicians(!). WONCA has 133 member organisations in 111 countries, and its biennial world conference is a truly international and multicultural event.
GPSA had two abstracts accepted for presentation – one a workshop on strategies to minimise diagnostic error and the other a paper presentation on best practice supervision in the general practice setting. I was very proud to attend and present on the world stage on behalf of GPSA. But more on this later.
There were a few memorable keynote addresses. Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, spoke passionately about the central role of general practice/family medicine in a cost effective, efficient and patient-centred health care system. Hearing this (and not for the first time), I must say that I felt more than a little frustration with the lack of genuine investment into our profession in Australia.
The conference had multiple parallel streams on a broad range of themes, including clinical, doctor’s health, technology, health promotion and patient experience. But it was the education and training sessions that I specifically targeted. These included an interesting workshop on how anthropology (defined as ‘the study of human beings in their diversity’) can inform medical education. And a fun session on gamification of medical education and how game elements can increase engagement and learning (an area GPSA has been actively exploring).
I especially enjoyed an excellent workshop on ‘faculty development’ (GP supervisor professional development) by a group from Switzerland. They discussed the foundational functions that define quality primary care known as the seven Cs – first contact, continuity, comprehensiveness, coordination, patient-centredness, community engagement and complexity – and how these should frame professional development. They also highlighted the importance of following supervisor education with reinforcing activities, something GPSA will endeavour to do more effectively.
While the brief paper presentation I delivered on best practice supervision was relatively orthodox, the workshop on diagnostic error was far from it. I had been allocated a tiny room which was already packed 15 minutes before I was due to start, with dozens of people milling about outside. So, I decided to make the impromptu (and, to the conference organisers at least, disruptive!) decision to run the session unplugged in the foyer. It ended up as one of the most memorable educational experiences I have ever facilitated, an organised rabble of over 100 delegates in a semicircle around me, shouting questions and sharing experiences of cognitive bias and near misses with their peers.
The connections, both formal and casual, made at an international conference of this nature cannot be underestimated. Over the three days I spruiked GPSAs resources, lined up a number of webinars, and met people from over 40 countries*. And gathered a host of ideas on how to support our members to continue delivering high quality general practice supervision.
* Norway, Dominican Republic, Qatar, Poland, Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada, UK, Belgium, Brazil, Hong Kong, Ireland, Romania, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Denmark, South Africa, Singapore, Slovakia, Uganda, Czech Republic, Oman, Botswana, Ghana, Türkiye, Bulgaria, Finland, Jamaica, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Israel, Nigeria, Estonia, Japan, Italy.
Dr Simon Morgan, Education Manager
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