As a locum GP, I tend to have limited contact with the permanent staff of the practices I work in, and I therefore rely almost entirely on myself to look after my professional development (there is currently no revalidation scheme for doctors in Portugal).

Once a year I try to visit and shadow a prominent GP for a few days somewhere around the world in order to gain new ideas and inspiration that can help me improve my work. I decided to travel to Aarhus, Denmark, and visit Per Kallestrup, who is the initiator of the Hippokrates programme, a popular European exchange programme for GP trainees and GP’s. Dr Kallestrup is, along with seven other colleagues, a GP partner at Skodstrup Laegepraxis, a surgery in the outskirts of Aarhus serving about 12 000 patients. more…

In 1960, Portugal’s infant mortality rate was 77.5 deaths per 1000 live births, which is comparable to that of many Sub Saharan African countries today. In 2010, Portugal’s infant mortality rate was 2.5 deaths per 1000 live births, one of the lowest in Europe and in the world. more…

Does the name Grzegorz Chodkowski ring a bell with you? It didn’t with me until recently. Chodkowski is a Polish doctor who has worked in the UK, and who created an organisation called Medpharm Careers, which claims to be “Europe’s largest international medical jobs fair.” He and his staff came to Lisbon on 31 March, and contrary to their expectations, thousands of medical students, doctors, nurses, dentists, and pharmacists attended. The majority of the participants were doctors, which just goes to show that job prospects for young doctors in Portugal are worsening significantly. more…

I did something very unusual for a GP last weekend, which was to attend a conference on a highly specific topic, namely shoulder injuries. GP’s in Europe usually have a well defined mainstream circuit of national and international conferences, but this event was completely outside my comfort zone. None of the speakers were primary care doctors or worked in a primary care context, rather they were leading Portuguese orthopaedic surgeons, rehabilitation doctors, radiologists, physiotherapists, and exercise and fitness professionals. I was probably the only GP. My motivation to attend was simple. Firstly, most cases of muscular-skeletal injuries that I see in my practice are shoulder injuries rather than hip, knee, or back injuries, which most of the time end up requiring, among other things, sound rehabilitation and physiotherapy. It thus felt right to attend the event in order to gain new knowledge that could potentially help improve my practice and my patient’s care. Secondly, I’ve come to realise that the quality of physiotherapy that my patients get in the community is highly variable, so I felt I needed to start to target my referrals better to the best physiotherapy providers, and for that I needed to network. more…

I’ve recently returned from a medical mission in the Philippines. Despite the frequency of natural disasters striking the country (typhoons, earthquakes, floods) and the reputation for being an extremely unsafe country, it has an enormous natural appeal to me due to my Filipino roots.

I was very eager to go this year since the demands and rigid timings of general practice vocational training never allowed me to take time off to go. But being a locum GP has a few advantages, and one of them is definitely the possibility of having more control over taking time off when I simply want to. more…

When I first met Andrew Wilner, an American physician, a few years ago, it was the first time I had heard of the word “neurohospitalist.” I obviously knew what a neurologist or a neurosurgeon are, but a neurohospitalist was an absolute novelty, and I have a feeling it is not a well known role in Europe, if it exists at all.

But Dr Wilner works as a neurohospitalist in the New England area of the United States. So, some time ago, I had a chat with him to learn the ropes of the job (and he gave me permission to reproduce some of his comments). According to him, “a neurohospitalist is a neurologist who sees patients exclusively in the hospital.” Meschia defines a neurohospitalist as a doctor providing care “to patients with neurological abnormalities that either lead to hospitalisation or complicate their stay in hospital.” more…

About 10 months ago I blogged that an exodus of doctors from Portugal would be a sign of Portugal’s worsening economic situation. Medicine has always offered one of the few stable and prosperous careers. Most doctors are still in employment, and our income levels are usually above the national average as many doctors juggle professional commitments in both the public and private sector. more…

Whilst Italy’s government was falling, general practitioners from 21 countries convened in Turin on 11 and 12 November for the autumn meeting of the European Union of General Practitioners (UEMO), which is a leading European medical organisation based in Brussels.

As well as providing clinical care to their patients, there are a number of reasons why general practice needs a strong voice at a European level and to be increasingly respected by politicians and society. more…

Last week I left the 30ºC heat of Lisbon for the almost sub-zero temperatures of Krakow, and made premature use of my winter gear. But the cold was not enough to deter me from attending one of my favourite conferences, the biannual meeting of the European general practice research network, which gathers dozens of people interested and involved in primary care research. more…

The primary care innovation seminars group, a primary healthcare think tank that was created in Spain in 2005, convened this weekend in Barcelona. The group used to meet several times a year in Madrid. This year, group members gathered for the first time outside the Spanish capital, with the added bonus of the presence of many leading GPs from around the world, who were in Barcelona for the annual meeting of the World Organization of Family Doctors International Classification Committee (WICC). Many of the WICC members were speakers at the seminar, including Juan Gérvas, a Spanish GP and leader of the primary care innovation seminars group. more…