On 21 and 22 March 2024, a conference of deans of medical faculties from Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia was held in Banja Luka (Bosnia and Herzegovina) under the title “Strengthening the capacity of family/family/general medicine departments at medical faculties to improve primary health care”. The organizers of this conference were former president of WONCA Europe, prof. Igor Švab, Faculty of Medicine, Ljubljana, and prof. Ranko Škrbić, Faculty of Medicine, Banja Luka. The aim of the conference was to strengthen cooperation between the faculties of family medicine in the region and to improve primary health care at an academic level.
The conference was attended by deans, vice-deans and faculty members of the Department of Family Medicine from 18 medical faculties. Right at the beginning of the conference, the WHO Regional Director for Europe, Dr Hans Kluge, addressed the participants via video link, welcoming the initiative and emphasizing the importance of strengthening the capacity of family medicine for the development of primary health care in our region.
After a rich discussion and presentation of family medicine in the curricula of the medical faculties, the “Banja Luka Declaration of Strengtening Family Medicine in Higher Medical Education” was signed, with which the deans of the medical faculties expressed their willingness and support for the academic development of this profession through the implementation and improvement of the curricula of the medical faculties.
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