UEMS PRM Section and Board General Assembly, Plovdiv, 6 – 7th Sept 2019

by | Feb 4, 2020 | News

UEMS PRM Section and Board (European Union of Medical Specialists Section of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine and European Board of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine – Union Européenne des Médecins Spécialistes Section de Médecine Physique et de Réadaptation, Collège Européen de Médecine Physique et de Réadaptation) General Assembly was held Friday 6h to Saturday 7th September 2019 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

The first day has been dedicated to working groups activities.

The Board continued with certification activities of fellows, senior and life fellows, trainers, training centres, including the success of the new procedure for extraordinary certification of medical doctors, designed for non-UEMS colleagues: 17 PRM doctors have obtained certificates of Fellow of the European Board of PRM (FEBPRM), a real seal of excellence at the European level. The Online delivery of European PRM Board examination starts 29th September 2019 in all European countries in accordance to CESMA (Council of European Specialist Medical Assessment) strict rules. National managers (NMs) have been able to try and practice at the new platform during the workshop. A Feedback to NMs concerning the process of MCQ making has been given, with a short tutorial on how to produce good MCQs. Seven new scientific events were accredited since the last Board Jury meeting held in Budapest, March 2019. A detailed Survey of National and European Board Logbooks were presented and discussed with an open call to NMs to provide comments on ways to improve European Logbook and get information to agree to a minimal standard for national logbooks recommended for PRM trainees. The Board` Action Plan 2018-22: state-of-art includes the improvement of the educational materials available on the EBPRM platform, the increase of the quality of Board exam and its online delivery, the circulation of a letter addressed to the national ministries of health supporting the concept of replacing national exams with the European Board Examination. There is a call to NMs to propose more incentives to be given to Fellows to increase the perceived value of achieving/maintaining the status of Board Fellow. In order to enh ance the achievement of required standards in PRM postgraduate and continuous education, a letter to the Presidents of National Societies of PRM has been written to increase their awareness about the existence of the European Training Requirements in PRM. There are actions warranted to support continuing medical education and research in PRM field by offering e-courses on different topics relevant to the discipline, updating the e-book “PRM for Medical Students” and adding the slide collection to increase the use of the e-book in order to achieve the goal of supporting continuing medical education in PRM field. The e-learning platform (prmcollege.eu) hosts the 3rd Edition of ESWT online course. Up to now approx. 200 physicians from all over the world have attended the ESWT Course, that was organized in collaboration with ESPRM SISC for ESWT. A new edition of the ESWT course will start in December 2019. Three different European Schools were endorsed and received financial support by the Board in 2019. Both the European SCI school and the Robotic Rehabilitation Summer School (R2S2) were attended by 15 PRM trainees, who came from 12 and 13 different European countries, respectively. The European School Marseille was attended by 28 European PRM Board registered trainees. A preliminary proposal of a Balneology Summer School to be held in Portugal, to be organized in June-July 2020 was announced. Furthermore, Summer School “Rehabilitation of Pain and Pain-related Disability” was proposed.

Professional Practice Committee continued the work on the Book on Field of competences part III, with updates on papers in: Oncology, Cerebral palsy, Neurodegenerative, Neuromuscular, Sarcopenia, Multiple Sclerosis, Limb loss and Pregnancy. News of Multidisciplinary Joint Committees in: Pain medicine, Spinal surgery, Sports medicine, Manual medicine, Adolescent medicine were presented. Projects of Cochrane Rehabilitation were presented: Prioritization project, Be4rehab (part of WHO – Package of Rehabilitation Interventions project), Rehabilitation Definition and RCT in Rehabilitation Checklist project (RCTRACK). Standards for practice in Europe survey has come to a conclusion with the report to be finished. Professional Practice Committee and Clinical Affairs Committee worked together on Global roadmap for implementation of ICF across Europe, respectively: Development of an International classification system for service organisations for health related rehabilitation (ICSO-R 2.0), European Framework for rehabilitation services types (or “Framework” and associated clinical assessment schedule (CLASs), Demonstration and Cultural validation of ICF simple intuitive description based tool (ICF Rehabilitation set) – completed versions already in Italian, Polish, Belgian/Dutch, Croatian and Turkish.

Clinical Affairs Committee worked also on the Individual Rehabilitation Plan/Project and Guidelines. IRC Stroke Rehabilitation Moscow programme was supported for accreditation.

In Saturday`s morning General Assembly the report of each working group has been discussed and voted, and the Declaration of cooperation with Bulgarian Association of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine was signed. Wim Janssen has been elected as Deputy Treasurer. 

Plovdiv and Bulgaria demonstrated not only deep commitment to European PRM values but also provided the delegates with unique hospitality. Prof. Elena Ilieva, serving as Bulgarian delegate and National manager but also as Deputy Secretary for Professional Practice Committee of UEMS PRM Section, with the support of Bulgarian PRM Association`s president Prof. Tatyana Angelova and her team were excellent hosts. On behalf of all delegates, warm thanks to them and their association.

Next General Assembly is scheduled on 26th to 28th March 2020 in Jahorina, Bosnia and Herzegovina.