WONCA Europe Five Star Doctor 2013 - Dr Athanasios Symeonidis

WONCA Europe is proud to announce the winner of the WONCA Europe Award of Excellence in Health Care: the 5-Star Doctor 2013. The award will be presented at the WONCA Conference in Prague, June 25-29, 2013.

The winner of the 2013 WONCA Europe 5-Star Doctor Award will be one of the three European candidates for the WONCA World 5-Star Doctor Award of 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.

Dr Athanasios Symeonidis was Nominated by the Greek Association of General Practitioners (ELEGEIA). From the ELEGEIA, Dr Symeonidis meets the criteria of a 5-Star Doctor as follows:

A care provider

Dr Athanasios Symeonidis has been in active practice as GP since 1981. He was serving in a rural single handed practice in North Greece, from mid 1981 to February 1987, when he moved to Chalastra Health Centre of Thessaloniki county, until August 1999. From 1999-2009, he served the Health Centre of Paleohori in rural area of Chalkidiki and then from 2009, in the Health Centre of N Mihaniona.

He has developed a reputation for clinical skills in diagnosis and management of chronic diseases while he has a special interest in hypertension, diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis, pain relief, terminal care and depression, dementia.

He has worked with the Greek Association of GPs in a number of projects having to do with multidisciplinary home care, hypertension, prevention, health promotion, communication skills.

A decision maker

Dr Athanasios Symeonidis was one fo the founders of the Greek Association of General Practitioners (ELEGEIA), in 1986. He has been serving ELEGEIA through offices like Honoraty Treasurer , Gen. Sectetary and Vice President. He had been the National Representative on EURACT from 1992-2007, being its Honorary Treasurer for six years.

He worked with a number of important European GPs (Igor Svab, Justin Allen, Adam Windak, Yonah Yaphe) in EURACT developing the Teaching the Teachers Course: that course was conducted in a number of countries, having as a result the production of more than 1500 GP teachers. Dr Athanasios Symeonidis
transferred this know how to Greece; by designing, organizing and running the Teaching the Teachers Course for the last 12 years.

He also worked with the President of ELEGEIA for the acceptance of ELEGEIA as a full organisational member of WONCA. He was a member of the Host Organising Committee for the WONCA Europe confernce 2005, which was held on Kos Island, Greece

Since 1992, he has been working as tutor in the vocational training scheme in Thessaloniki.

A community leader

Dr Athanasios Symeonidis has participated in community interventions dealing with the promotion of breast feeding, prevention of cervical cancer, hypertension, osteoporosis, mental health, cancer prevention.

He organised a network of active GPs who through a training programme got adequate skills for the implementation of screening and treating diseases as depression and dementia in rural areas.

A team member

Dr Symeonidis has been chairman of the Education Committee of ELEGEIA, since 1990. Currently, he coordinates ten task force groups.

He has been member of the Organising Committee of all 25 national conferences of ELEGEIA and designer, organiser and trainer of a big number of courses, seminars, workshops and symposiums for GPs.

WONCA congratulates Dr Athanasios Symeonidis on winning the WONCA Europe 5-Star Doctor Award.