New WONCA President wants to elevate general practice

It was in 1998 that Associate Professor Karen Flegg boarded a plane to attend her very first World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) World Conference in Ireland.
 
Little did she know at the time, that 23 years later, she would be elected to lead the body as President.
 
Set to take on the role in 2023, Associate Professor Flegg told newsGP she sees her impending appointment as an opportunity to further elevate and lobby for the profession, following what has been a challenging two years through the pandemic.
 
‘WONCA is about making a difference and strengthening primary healthcare, particularly the general practice component of that,’ she told newsGP.
 
As well as being an advisor to global health bodies, including the World Health Organization, Associate Professor Flegg also looks forward to facilitating an information exchange between WONCA’s member organisations, including the RACGP and other colleges particularly within the Asia Pacific region.
 
‘It might seem like we, in Australia, don’t need that much support,’ she said. ‘But you can imagine, a college like ours that’s been going for 63 years is able to be supportive of a younger college like the Fiji College of General Practitioners, which is a newer organisation.
 
‘We take for granted that the GP is the ‘gatekeeper’ to secondary care in our health system, but you can’t take that for granted in other countries where everything tends to be hospital focused.
 
‘You never really know what the flow-ons are for having the leader of an international organisation sitting in the country or the region.’
 
Associate Professor Flegg, who will take the reins from current President, Norway-based Family Medicine Specialist Dr Anna Stavdal, boasts an impressive CV.
 
Having started her career as a registrar in the two-doctor town of Warialda, NSW, the rural GP went on to be selected as the third female on the RACGP’s Council in 1995. Associate Professor Flegg was later appointed RACGP treasurer, during which time she was approached to become the CEO of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (RNZCGP).
 
It was during this time that she had the opportunity to represent New Zealand at the WONCA World Conference in 1998. In 2010, she became WONCA’s editor and later website manager. She eventually was elected the organisation’s Executive Committee in 2013, coinciding with Professor Michael Kidd’s presidency of WONCA.
 
Associate Professor Flegg has practiced as a GP in various rural and remote parts of the country, most recently in the Northern Territory, where she plans to soon return while also undertaking a role at the Australian National University’s Rural Clinical School.
 
‘I’m looking forward to working with medical students again,’ she said. ‘It’s a chance to influence workforce of the future.’
 
Associate Professor Flegg will be inducted as WONCA President at WONCA’s World Conference hosted by the RACGP in 2023, in Sydney. The college won the right to hold the conference to mark WONCA’s 50th anniversary of its founding, in Melbourne, in 1972, but the conference was postponed for one year due to COVID-19.
 
It is also a homecoming of sorts for Associate Professor Flegg, who holds Sydney dear to her heart.
 
‘It’s quite exciting to take office in the city where you were born, and educated,’ she said.
                                         
‘A world conference comes to Australia so rarely that the matching of coincidences is just fantastic. It’s a rare opportunity and it will be one of the first chances for everyone to get together.
 
‘People on the International Advisory Committee are already saying “Don’t make the days too long, we want to see each other”. So we’re hoping that several thousand GPs and family physicians from overseas will come to our conference in Sydney in 2023.’
 
As well as giving doctors and academics the chance to come together, Associate Professor Flegg sees the conference as an opportunity to showcase general practice, and the work of the RACGP.
 
‘It’s an opportunity for us to benefit from international expertise coming and to perhaps strengthen our position in the health system,’ she said.
 
‘Who knows what’s going to be going on in October 2023? The issues will be different.’
 
In the meantime, Associate Professor Flegg sent a message of unity to her GP colleagues, with hope of better days ahead.
 
‘It’s important that GPs are strong during the pandemic,’ she said. ‘And I would not dare to say that we’ve had a difficult time in Australia compared to some of our colleagues in other countries.’
 
‘I’m hoping I’ll be taking over as President in a recovery period, when we start to get to meet face to face again.’
 
The 2023 WONCA World Conference will be hosted by the RACGP in Sydney from 26–29 October, 2023.
 
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