Featured Doctor

BUENO ORTIZ, Dr José Miguel (English/español)

Spain : semFYC International Officer

Español

Dr José Miguel Bueno Ortiz is International Officer for the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (semFYC) and a familiar figure at WONCA conferences.

1. What work do you do currently?

Since I finished my vocational training scheme in Alicante in 1990 I have been working as a full time GP. First of all, in an urban health centre (HC) in Alicante (South East of Spain), then in two urban HCs in Barcelona and, since 1996, in a rural HC in Murcia (South East of Spain), Centro de Salud de Fuente Álamo, where for a few years, I have also done out of hours work.

Family Medicine trainees spend their two months rural practice vocational training scheme period with us and we also have medical students.

I have just finished serving for 10 years on the General Medical College Executive Board in my Region, Murcia. First as Vice Honorary Secretary and afterwards almost eight years as Honorary Secretary. I have been serving as member-at-large representative of Primary Care since December 2015. During my tenure the College Quality Management Systems obtained ISO 9001: 2008 certification (2012) and recertification (2015).

It was a very interesting experience because I had the opportunity to contact with every doctor (not only GPs) and with every scientific medical society in my Region (6,800 members and 25 Medical Scientific Societies). But being Honorary Secretary was very demanding and very time consuming especially when you also work as a GP full-time every day (08.00-15.00 hours). I am much more relaxed now and looking forward to spending more time with my family and friends.

2. What other interesting activities have you been involved in?

As a medical student I was a member of the International Federation of Medical Students Association (IFMSA) and I was in charge of foreign exchange medical students in my region (Murcia, South East of Spain). I spent one month as an exchange student in Israel and two months in Germany. As a trainee I spent two months in UK and three months in Germany. It helped to open my mind and to learn more about different cultures and different health systems and to improve my German and my English.

I have been the semFYC delegate in WONCA Europe Working Party on Quality and Safety (EQUIP) since it was founded. So far we have organised three EQUIP meetings in Spain. I served on its executive board as member-at-large for three years.

For 15 years I have been a tutor of the Master of Quality Management of Health Services at the University of Murcia, directed by Prof Pedro Saturno.

I have chaired the working group in charge of producing the low back pain guidelines in my health area – Cartagena- with almost 250,000 inhabitants registered. It is composed of two GPs and other specialists in traumatology, rheumatology, rehabilitation, anaesthesiology, radiology, internal medicine and family medicine as well as physiotherapists, informatics experts and health authorities.

I have run more than 60 low back pain workshops in international, national and regional conferences.

I have been a member of the Committee of Clinical Essays in my health area (Cartagena) for more than 15 years. It has helped me to keep in contact with research and with hospital specialists with whom I have very good relationships.

I have been a member of the very active and productive semFYC Working Groups of Physical Activity & Health and Communication & Health for the last 20 years.

I have been member-at-large of my regional Family and Community Medicine Society in charge of the Prevention and Health Promotion Program (PAPPS) for six years.

3. What are your interests as a family physician and also outside work?

My special interests in medicine are low back pain (photo: Jose teaching stretching exercises in Back workshop in Istanbul), physical activity, medical interview and clinical communication, quality & safety, and prevention & health promotion.

My other interests beyond medicine have always been cooking, reading fiction and non-fiction, travelling, jogging, trekking, chess, photography, learning languages, and watching BBC, in particular “Hard talk” and “Dateline London”. I also enjoy going to the theatre and to classical music concerts and dance performances with my family. Murcia has one of the best concert halls in Spain and we are season ticket holders.

4. Can you tell us about your work as International Officer for Spanish Society of Family and Community medicine (semFYC) and the involvement with WONCA?

I have been semFYC International Officer for six years. It is a very rewarding and demanding activity. I have had the chance to get to know very many interesting, committed and inspiring colleagues.

Photo: José at the WONCA world conference in Prague in 2013 (seen at right in the crowd with conference organisers Bohumil and Vaclav at left. (photo courtesy of Guarant photographer)

I have also learned how much family medicine varies in the different countries and cultures and how fast it is changing nowadays. It has helped me to appreciate my daily work, my patients, my colleagues, semFYC and my family much more.

We hold regular Skype meetings with most of the 40 semFYC International Section members and we are due to achieve our 25 goals in 2016.

Photo: José at the recent WONCA Europe conference in Istanbul, with WONCA Europe President, Job Metsemakers (left), and WONCA Europe Executive member, Mehmet Ungan (right)

We translate into Spanish some sections of WONCA News (From the President, Policy Bites and others) every month and we include it in our semFYC monthly newsletter called Noticias semFYC. Also every month we send an e-mail about the contents of WONCA News and other international affairs to semFYC executive board members, semFYC international section members and to the chairs of the 31 semFYC working groups in order to keep them updated. We have received many e-mails thanking us for this initiative and telling us they enjoy them very much. We would like thank WONCA News editor, Dr Karen Flegg, for her excellent work

We are happy to have semFYC delegates in every WONCA World and WONCA Europe Working Group and Special Interest Group as well as in some of its committees and we hope we will have a member in the next WONCA Europe Executive.

Since I was a trainee, more than 25 years ago, I have regularly attended WONCA Europe Conferences and I have taken active part not only assessing abstracts but also in their committees. I was chair of the International Advisory Committee (IAC) and vice chair of the scientific committee of the WONCA Europe conference, in Malaga, in 2010 and IAC member of many WONCA Europe conferences.

We are very proud that Spain is the country who has contributed to WONCA Europe conferences the highest number of delegates and the highest number of abstracts in the last 10 years.

WONCA Europe council in its last meeting held in Turkey (October 2015) passed a motion that semFYC put forward in which we proposed requesting WONCA Europe conference organizing committees to recommend its speakers (presenters) use “Easy English”, (which could be A2-B1 level). In our WONCA Europe conferences English language is a barrier. We will also put this motion forward in the next WONCA World council meeting to be held in Rio (Brazil) in October 2016.

We also informed the meeting about poor family doctor working conditions in Spain and we put forward another motion that was passed in which we urged WONCA Europe to carry out a thorough survey to obtain detailed information about (poor) working conditions for family doctors in European countries. EQUIP and UEMO will help.

photo: Rally against poor working conditions of family doctors held during SEMFYC Conference 2015: #AtenciónPrecariaNO

SemFYC is also members of WONCA Iberoamericana - CIMF region where we share our experiences and we speak the same language as well.

Email José: [email protected]