World Family Doctor Day, which takes place every year on May 19, has as its motto in 2024 ‘Healthy Planet, Healthy People’. Seeking to draw attention to one of the most important issues today - the climate emergency and the environmental crisis the planet is experiencing - the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) decided to emphasize the relationship between the environment and the health of everyone. It thus launched the challenge to all national organizations of specialists in General and Family Medicine (GFM) to, on this May 19, 2024, once again draw attention to the importance of the role of family doctors in health systems and organizations, considering their global approach to the health of each person they care for. Guaranteeing people's health means guaranteeing the health of the individual, family, and social environment in which they live and, consequently, of the entire planet, argues WONCA for this World Family Doctor's Day. In Portugal, World Family Doctor Day will be celebrated across the country, in hospitals, health centers and other health organizations. At Hospital da Luz Lisboa, and in connection with this date, on May 15th there was a clinical session organized by the General and Family Medicine team, which included the special participation of Karen Flegg, president of WONCA. In her lecture, dedicated to the theme “Strengthening Primary Health Care through Family Medicine”, the leader of that international organization covered the historical milestones of WONCA and its strategic plan, highlighting how the specialty of GFM plays a leading role in strengthening care primary healthcare. This World Day also serves as an excuse for the holding, in several hospitals and clinics of the Hospital da Luz network, of a Family Doctor Open Day, an opportunity to get to know the General and Family Medicine teams of the Luz Saúde units , with the carrying out medical consultations and health screenings that are free and open to the entire population. Find out more about this initiative at Family Doctor Open Day: take a free screening The World Organization of Family Physicians (WONCA), created in 1972, brings together more than 600,000 doctors and 130 specialist associations from around the world, representing family doctors and the practice of general and family medicine.
