Blogging as President of the World Medical Association
Here at the General Assembly meeting in Bangkok, Friday, October 12, 2012 I was privileged to be installed as President of the World Medical Association (WMA). This is a great honor and I look forward to serving as a voice for the WMA and our profession worldwide.
Based on the experience of previous physicians who have held this office there will be extensive travel providing the opportunity to meet and interact with physicians and others across the globe. I look forward to this and plan to write a blog sharing experiences and observations along the way.
The blog will be titled: “Around the World with WMA President Cecil B. Wilson, MD” and a link to it will be on the WMA web home page.
I invite all to follow the blog and feel free to reproduce it in your own medical association publications. I will also welcome comments and questions related to subject matter in the blog.
I am proud that the WMA provides an important voice and speaks for the medical profession on health-related issues of worldwide significance.
Working with colleagues around the globe I am reminded of the commitment physicians all have to the profession of medicine.
I am reminded of the similarity of the challenges we face regardless of our country of origin.
And, reminded that there are different ways to respond to those challenges. Each of which has its own value.
As I travel during the coming year the focus of my message will be on what I believe are three most important issues facing physicians and world health. They are:
- The moral imperative of ethics in medicine
- The challenge of noncommunicable diseases
- The threat of climate change
The WMA has extensive policy addressing these and in subsequent blogs I will discuss each.
Friends in Thailand have told me that part of the tradition of Buddhism is to do things three times – bow three times, pray three times, etc. The observation is that doing something once could be an accident. Doing something twice could be a coincidence. But doing something three times means one really means it.
Being in Bangkok for the WMA meeting has been a delight. The hospitality of the Thai people is unparalleled. I know I speak for the delegates to the General Assembly when I say to our hosts the Medical Association of Thailand, thank you, thank you, and thank you.
