Garth Rattray THE PRACTICE of medicine today poses a plethora of challenges for the family physician. Advanced technology, scientific observation and research make for constant changes in investigative and treatment protocols. No longer can doctors simply "practise medicine" based on what they learned years ago in medical school, things change from year to year and what we knew not so long ago becomes obsolete within a short period of time. Sometimes treatment regimes once thought to save lives are discovered to be counterproductive and put aside for more up to date methods.
A small group of doctors had the uncommon vision to recognise the need for intensive continuing medical education (CME) for our Family Physicians and thus the Caribbean College of Family Physicians (CCFP) was inaugurated in Jamaica way back in November 13, 1987. The CCFP philosophy is to deliver the best health care by pooling ideas and resources. It is a voluntary organisation that is Caribbean based and deemed "Liaison Organisation within CARICOM" by ministerial decree. The mission of the College is to improve the health status of Caribbean people by providing the highest standard of family practice patient care through co-operation, research, information sharing and a community of well-trained members.
MEMBERS
Members of the CCFP are Primary-Care Physicians, Specialists in Medicine and Allied Health fields, Interns and Residents who espouse the aims and objectives of the college. The College is linked internationally with similar organisations through its membership in the World Council of Academies and Colleges of Family Medicine (WONCA) and provides monthly CME accredited workshops and seminars utilising the highest calibre of lectures and presenters.
Keeping up with the perpetual flux in medical science is challenging to medical practitioners but the intensive Continuing Medical Education (CME) provided by the Caribbean College of Family Physicians (CCFP) goes a far way to provide opportunities for our doctors to keep abreast of internationally accepted modern standards of practice. In like fashion, the Ministry of Health (through the National Committee for Continuing Medical Education) has in fact instituted mandatory CME accreditation as a prerequisite for the annual registration of our health care professionals.
The Jamaica Chapter of the CCFP will be hosting the Second Pan Caribbean Conference to be held at Le Meridian Jamaica Pegasus Hotel from Thursday 25th September to Sunday 28th September 2003. The over-all theme of the conference is "Challenges and Opportunities in Family Medicine". Daily themes include "The Challenge of Chronic Diseases and the Family Physician", "Family Physician's Contribution to Health Care", "Paediatric and Adolescent Medicine", "Care of the Elderly" and "Family Medicine - New Perspectives". This will be the largest gathering of English-speaking (Anglophone) and French-speaking (Francophone) doctors in the Caribbean. Delegates from Haiti, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Cariacou, Aruba, the Dominican Republic, Nigeria, Spain, the USA and of course, Jamaica are scheduled to attend.
AWARDS LUNCHEON
The CCFP will also be honouring five of their founding members at the awards luncheon on Saturday, September 27, 2003 at 1:00 p.m. These doctors have been stalwarts and trustees, donating their wide knowledge and time to the overall good of the College. They are Drs. Michael Hoyos, Mathew Beaubrun, Sonia
V. Roache-Barker, Winsome Segree-Mackay and Kamala Dixon. It was their brilliant vision of continuing medical education (CME's) for primary health care providers that launched the College. CME's are invaluable tools-in-trade for physicians and our nation's people have become the beneficiaries of this conception. The five awardees will be conferred with the "Fellow of the Caribbean College of the Family Physicians" (F.C.C.F.P).
The practice of medicine has changed drastically over the past few decades. In the United States medicine has become a financial entity controlled by lawyers and the insurance companies. In Canada and England medicine is controlled by the state. Both systems are seriously flawed because they have wrested the humane and caring practice of medicine out of the hands of the physician and placed it into the hands of lawyers, actuaries and government policy makers. Caribbean doctors aim to maintain control of their chosen profession and honour the trust placed in them by maintaining high standards of medical practice.
Dr. Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice.
