International Family Medicine Conference Draws To A Close

Dubai – United Arab Emirates, 26 February, 2020: The 7th edition of International Family Medicine Conference – IFM a specialized event dedicated for family physicians successfully concluded today at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Center after 3 days of highly enriching and engaging conversations on the most significant issues facing family physicians and practitioners. Running under the theme ‘Gateway to Excellence in Healthcare’, the 3-day pivotal gathering, focused on the latest healthcare updates, new practices and most recent developments taking place in the family medicine landscape, while also attracting over 3,000 visitors from the region and abroad.

From his side, Dr. Mohamed Farghaly, Conference General Secretary, IFM, said, “In its 7th edition, International Family Medicine Conference focused on many important topics related to the field of family medicine including both preventive and curative medicine, Non-Communicable Diseases NCD’s, the disease of the century which is ‘Diabetes’ and we also provided insights on the ‘New Corona Virus – COVID-19’, evidence based medicine, maternal health, geriatrics and mental health and neurology, which is a regular topic covered every year. We laid special emphasis on diabetes, as it is widely prevalent in the region in high volume and we focused on early detection, ways of screening and prevention methods.”

He added, “According to the UAE National Agenda Vision 2021, which aims to reduce the prevalence of diabetes from the current 19 percent to 16.3 percent by 2021, the UAE is making tremendous efforts to meet those targets and as type 2 diabetes is mainly covered by family physicians, it is important that family physicians play an integral role in this effort. Moreover, to reduce the overall healthcare costs associated with various types of diseases, family medicine is certainly the most efficient field of medical specialty and in many ways family physicians are the gatekeepers of any country’s health care system.”

Commenting on her part, Dr. Noha A. Dashash, Consultant Family Physician and Assistant Director of Health Affairs, Ministry of Health, Saudi Arabia, said, “Prevention is certainly the most important area of concern for family physicians as evidence supports that preventing a disease from happening or detecting it early saves lives by avoiding premature death, prevent complications and provides a better quality of life for patients. As family care practitioners, disease prevention and health maintenance are the most critical issues where we need to focus more and align our resources, priorities and healthcare practices accordingly in order to pave the way for an efficient response.”

She added, “As family physicians practicing in the Gulf region, we are often faced with multiple conditions and diseases that are related to the local culture as well as the diseases of the modern developed countries, which are at times overwhelming for us family physicians. In this regard, family practitioners need to constantly update themselves with the latest knowledge in the healthcare industry as they deal with all ages, genders, conditions and disease types, which makes it a challenge to constantly keep abreast with the changes. We believe specialized gatherings like International Family Medicine conference, gives us a great platform to come together, share new insights and updated knowledge in the field of family medicine.”

On the third and final day, IFM conference featured important discussions on ‘Advancement & Digital transformation in Patient Facing Services’, ‘Beyond A.I.: The Future Role of Quantum Computers in Healthcare’, ‘Novel Approach of Primary Prevention of CVD’, ‘Continuous Glucose Monitoring in Diabetes Management’, ‘Depression associated with other conditions’ and ‘Over View and Update in Dementia’.

On the sidelines, a dedicated 2-day workshop concluded at IFM, involving a series of lectures, discussions and simulation activities, which was held under the title ‘Self-Care of Non-Communicable-Diseases NCD’s’, targeting primary health care (PHC) providers. The workshop was aimed at introducing self-care as an approach in engaging individuals to self-manage their NCD’s including cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases.

International Family Medicine Conference– IFMis organized annually by INDEX Conferences and Exhibitions – a member of INDEX Holding and is supported by the UAEMinistry of Health & Prevention, Dubai Health Authority (DHA), Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences and The Saudi Society for Evidence Based Healthcare. IFM is sponsored by Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, Abbott, Roche, Medtronic, MSD, Mundipharma, gsk, Sandoz, Lundbeck and Boehringer Ingelheim.