wma 7-2.indd - World Medical Association

Medical Ethics, Human Rights and Socio-medical affairs
rial in an international journal, preparing
a monograph with the papers presented at
the Second Geneva Conference, responding
positively to requests from WHO for
collaboration on people-centred care strategies
adopted by the 2009 World Health
Assembly, and further development of the
International Network for Person-centred
Medicine to help move forward collaboratively
an optimized vision for health care.
Constructing the International
Network for Person-centred Medicine
The International Network for Person-centred
Medicine (INPCM) is a non-for-profit
educational, research, and advocacy organization
emerging from the above outlined
Geneva Conferences process and aimed at
developing opportunities for a fundamental
re-examination of medicine and health care
to refocus the field on genuinely personcentred
care.
Person-centred medicine is dedicated to
the promotion of health as a state of physical,
mental, social and spiritual wellbeing
as well as to the reduction of disease, and
founded on mutual respect for the dignity
and responsibility of each individual person.
To this effect, the INPCM seeks to
articulate science and humanism in a balanced
manner, engaging them at the service
of the person. The purposes of the INPCM
may be further summarized as promoting a
medicine of the person (of the totality of the
person's health, including its ill and positive
aspects), for the person (promoting the
fulfillment of the person’s life project), by
the person (with clinicians extending themselves
as full human beings with high ethical
aspirations), and with the person (working
respectfully, in collaboration, and in an
empowering manner).
The expected INPCM activities include the
following:
• Organization of conferences and other
scientific meetings promoting personcentred
care in medicine at large and in
its various specialties and related health
fields;
• Preparation of person-centred clinical
practice guidelines relevant to diagnosis,
treatment, prevention, rehabilitation and
health promotion;
• Preparation of educational programs, including
curricula, aimed at the training of
health professionals on person-centred
care;
• Conduction of studies and research projects
to explore and validate person-centred
care concepts and procedures;
• Preparation of publications to disseminate
and advance the principles and practice
of person-centred medicine;
• Development of advocacy forums and activities
to extend and strengthen personcentred
medicine with the participation
of clinicians, patients and families, as well
as members of the community at large;
• Establishment of an internet platform to
support archival, informational, communicational,
and programmatic efforts on
person-centred medicine.
All organizations and individuals who
have participated actively in relevant programmatic
activities, such as the Geneva
Conferences, will be invited to participate
in the INPCM. It will be organizationally
developed and guided initially by a board
of five to eight persons with a clear track
record of work on person-centred medicine
and who are committed to the promotion
of the fundamental purposes of the organization.
Additional structures to be considered
are an advisory council (composed
of eminent experts and representatives of
major collaborating organizations) and an
operational council (composed of leaders
of emerging INPCM Programs, i.e., conceptual
and ethical bases, diagnosis, clinical
care, training, research, health systems, and
public policies).
Support for the INPCM and its activities is
expected to come, as it has been for its initial
steps, from academic institutions, professional
societies, governmental organizations,
foundations, person-centred medicine
and psychiatry non-profit program funds,
and conference registration fees. Any support
from industry sources will be accepted
provided it is transparent and unrestricted.
Further information on the INPCM can be
obtained at www.personcenteredmedicine.
org.
Colophon
Early scientific and ethical efforts coalesced
through the First and Second Geneva Conferences,
and are finding fruition in the
International Network for Person-centred
Medicine. Encouragement is afforded by
the wide array of collaborating organizations,
the scholarly dedication of committed
individuals, and the conviction that the
greatest asset of any community is its capacity
to organize itself.
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