Hello fellow members:

As we are approaching to the end of 2018 and entering 2019. I would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a happy new “Piggy” year!

We now have nearly 6,000 members, with 13 professional development committees in TAFM dealing with all sorts of affairs, as well as undertaking projects from the government including from the Health Promotion Administration, Center of Diseases Control and the National Health Insurance Bureau, and the Health Insurance Agency. We are really quite busy doing a lot of work, hence I would like to thank the hard works and efforts of our staffs at TAFM , the chiefs, the deputy chiefs and members of each committees. Special thanks to the vice president, the convener of the board of supervisors, the secretary-general and the deputy secretary-general for their hard work and assistance in supervision. The support and encouragement of the supervisors enable the various affairs of each committee to be carried out smoothly. Last but not the least, I am most grateful for the support and enthusiastic participations of all of our members.

This year, TAFM Annual Conference venue was changed to the National Taiwan University International Conference Center, and nearly 2,700 members attended, which was 200 to 300 more than that of in previous years. We also received a total of 174 papers submission, which was a record-setting number. Next year's annual conference will continue to be held at the National Taiwan University International Conference Center due to the convenience of transportation. The spring conference was held in Tainan in March, and the fall conference was held in October in Taichung, we were grateful of the assistance from National Cheng Kung University hospital and China Medical University hospital as both conferences went very smoothly. The Spring conference will be held on March 17th 2019 at the Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, which was decided before the current mayor was elected. The fall conference will be very special one as it will be an international combined conference with the Taiwan Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics, which will be held at the Taipei International Convention Center on October 23-27. We welcome all of you to sign up for it and enjoy the early bird discount.　　
 

This year, the 519 World Family Physician Day event was held in Taipei City Mayor's residence. We presented the English abstract and photos of the event to the World Family Doctor Organization International Communication Media (WONCA NEWS), and promoted the image of TAFM to the world. As with the interactions with China across the strait, we attended the 5th annual conference of Cross- Straits Medicine Exchange Association at Liyuan Villa in Nanning, Guangxi, in March this year, and participated in the annual conference of the 2018 Chinese Society of General Practice held in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China in September, and were able to maintain a very positive interaction with China. There was also a Chinese forum held during the 2018 WONCA World Conference, which was held in Seoul, South Korea in October, where Mandarin speaking family doctors/general practitioners from across the Taiwan Straits shared their experiences together.

At the 2018 WONCA World Council meeting and WONCA Asia Pacific Regional Council meeting held in Incheon, South Korea in October 12-16 this year, our outstanding performance had attracted the attention of global representatives. First of all, congratulations to Honorary Present Meng-Chih Lee, and Director Brian Chang, for being successfully re-elected for WONCA Asia-Pacific Region Chairman and Honorary Secretary-General, Director Ya-Luan Hsiao was elected the Vice President of the Asia-Pacific Young Doctor Movement. Congratulations to Professor Shih-Tzu Tsai, was once again appointed as the chief member of the World WONCA Nominating and Awards Committee. Director Ping-Shun Chang, the chairman of the first Youth Doctor Committee of the TAFM, performed well in the election of the President of the World Young Doctor Movement, but unfortunately did not success in the election. These remarkable successes are the results of hard works from the TAFM Public Relations and WONCA Committee members and staffs, and because of these great efforts, the TAFM has truly establish its place not just within Taiwan, but also in the Asia-Pacific region, and we will continue to march towards the world. I was very honored to be able to present the Taiwan Family Medicine Research Awards to four award-winning young doctors from India, Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, as the president of TAFM, and at the same time presented the history of this award at the WONCA awards ceremony. It was truly an exciting and touching moment to be able to present Taiwan to the world.

This year, we completed the TAFM website revision after half year’s hard work, in addition to improving the layout of the webpage, we have adopted the Responsive Web Design, which the system will automatically adjust the layout according to the equipment used by the members (Windows / MAC / Android / IOS jobs), whether you are using a desktop computer, laptop, tablet or mobile phone, the screen will adjust automatically and you no longer need to zoom in and out. The English webpage has also been updated, hoping that we can introduce TAFM to more foreign family doctors and experts. At present, the number of visitors to the website has exceeded 6 million, it is the highest amongst all Taiwan's medical associations and medical related organizations, indicating that the website of TAFM is highly interested amongst members and the general public. Members are welcome to take advantage of the website to browse the updated news and related information of TAFM.

2019 is the year of great opportunities, as the government is actively promoting appropriate allocation of level of medical care, requiring medical centers and regional hospitals to transfer 2% of outpatient visits to local clinics or local hospitals. We believe that by continuing to promote the Family Physician Integrated Care Project is the best supporting measure, which by providing excellent quality of primary medical care, patient who only requires primary care will be able to receive the care they need locally by their family physicians. I hope that all members can actively participate in this program and make good use of electronic referral system and online health care information. At the same time, we should also actively participate in community health care, home medical care, and in Long Term Care 2.0 program. Let us work together to create a better future for Taiwanese family physicians and primary care.

I wish all of you a prospective, health and happy Chinese New Year.

President Shinn-Jang Hwang
2018.12.25