What a fantastic day! Eternal gratitude to everyone who gave up the sunniest day of the year to listen to why we think that general practice is a global specialty.

Out programme for the day!

We had a lovely opening key note speaker, Professor Anita Berlin, Professor of Primary Care Education at Queen Mary’s University of London who gave us a brilliant speech on universal health coverage and the pivotal role that GPs have in providing this.

This was followed by a panel of Claire Thomas (Vasco da Gama President), Katriona Graham (Winner of Hippkrates Prize), Padma Wignesvaran (volunteer in RCGP/VSO project in Sierra Leone) and Emily Clark (former JIC Beyond Europe Lead) who gave us an insight into international opportunities in general practice.

We had an excellent panel with Angela Burnett from Freedom from Torture, Jennie Corbett from Doctors of the World, Emily Clark (again) and Karishma Singh (JIC Education and Training lead and Doctors of the World champion) explaining the rights of migrants in the UK.

From L to R, Claire (VDGM president), Emily (former JIC beyond Europe Lead), Padma (RCGP VSO volunteer in Sierra Leone), Katriona (Hippokrates Prize winner) and Vongai (our Beyond Europe Deputy)

We had a hilarious key note speech from the brilliant Ed Parry-Jones (RCGP medical director for Sub-saharan Africa) who told us the value of tenacity and the role of general practitioners in global health. We also had Alessio, Italian GP now working in the UK, who introduced us to the VDGM forum that will be held in Italy next year.

We finished with a fantastic workshop by Doctors Worldwide showcasing the pitfalls of humanitarian work and how teamwork and collaboration is the absolute key in making things work in the field. This really made us think! Thanks DWW for a great afternoon!

Big thanks guys – to all the speakers, to our Education & Training team, our JIC secretary, our JIC image team, and most of all to our delegates who asked great questions and got tucked in to why GP is a global specialty.

My favourite comment of the day was when one of the delegates approached me and said that she had found her GP family within the international primary care network. That’s totally how I felt when I met the JIC three years ago!!

That’s me! I’m giving the talk on what is the JIC!