Thu. May 16, 2019 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM Room 1 (1F Main Hall)

Organizer: Christopher Dowrick(Department of Health Scieneces, University of Liverpool, UK)
Chair: Christopher Dowrick(Department of Health Scieneces, University of Liverpool, UK), Ryuki Kassai(Department of Community and Family Medicine, Fukushima Medical University, Japan)

Common mental health problems such as depression are now the leading cause of disability worldwide. Yet there is a substantial treatment gap: less than one-quarter of those who would benefit from evidence-based interventions actually receive them. The integration of mental health and primary care is an international priority, and family medicine is well placed to provide effective patient care close to home. Family doctors have recently identified mental health issues as their most pressing educational need.
This symposium, presented by leaders of the WONCA Working Party for Mental Health, will provide up-to-date information on key challenges and opportunities for the delivery of primary mental health care in the Asia-Pacific region.
We will begin by describing the core competencies needed by family doctors to deliver high quality primary mental health care, using case examples to explain how they can work in daily clinical practice.
Then we will give the first international conference presentation of a Train the Trainers in Depression Course for family doctors in Japan, organised by WONCA and EACH (Internaional Association for Communication in Healthcare). This course is an excellent example of how to enable family doctors to increase their knowledge, skills and confidence in managing common mental health problems in primary care.



Christopher Dowrick
Christopher Dowrick is Professor of Primary Medical Care in the University of Liverpool, a general practitioner in Aintree Park Group Practice, and Professorial Research Fellow in the University of Melbourne in Australia. He is Chair of the OPrld Organisation of Family Doctors (OPNCA) OPrking party for mental health, and a technical adviser to the OPrld Health Organisation’s mhGAP programme.
His research portfolio covers common mental health problems in primary care, with a focus on depression and medically unexplained symptoms. He critiques contemporary emphases on unitary diagnostic categories and medically-oriented interventions, and highlights the need for socially-oriented perspectives. He is currently exploring the concept of self in primary care encounters and developing mental health care for marginalised communities, including asylum seekers and refugees.
He has published five books and over 250 research papers. Through OPNCA he has produced a series of guidance documents on primary mental health care for family doctors.



Ryuki Kassai
Dr Kassai is a founding Professor and Chair of the Department of Community and Family Medicine at Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima, Japan. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Japan Primary Care Association and acts as Senior Advisor of its International Committee. He graduated from Hokkaido University School of Medicine, Sapporo, and completed a residency training in family medicine at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In 1996 he founded the Hokkaido Centre for Family Medicine (HCFM) and started the first formal family medicine training program in Japan. After having made the HCFM a successful model of Japanese residency program, Dr Kassai moved to Fukushima to found the first medical school department of community-based family medicine in Japan at Fukushima Medical University in 2006. He is a Vice Chair of the Organizing Committee, and Chair of the Scientific Program Committee of WONCA APR 2019 Kyoto.