“Around us you will feel at home...just as we acquired so much kindness and friendship during the years, when we are all together, you will feel as if you were surrounded by family.”
Main Theme:
Balint work and Globalisation
Including the following subtitles:
- Writing a prescription is easy - understanding your patient is not so easy
- Tradition and change in Balint work and in clinical practice
It is my honour and pleasure to invite you to attend the 16th International Balint Congress. We all hope you want to be part of the proceedings concerning the main theme chosen by the Romanian Balint Society, Balint Work and Globalisation. It is my deep belief that those who previously attended other International Balint Conferences in Romania are fascinated by our pristine landscapes, and will eagerly want to return. We welcome everyone who wants to join us to help maintain the scientific prestige of the congress.
On behalf of the Organising Committee, the Romanian Balint Association (R.B.A.) and the International Balint Federation (I.B.F.), I look forward to welcoming a broad cross section of those interested in the Balint movement and in improving health care for patients.
With friendship,
President of the Organising Committee
Henry Jablonski MD - President of the International Balint Federation, IBF.
The theme of this congress - "Balint work and globalisation" and the sub-themes”Writing a prescription is easy – understanding your patient is not so easy” and "Tradition and change in Balint work and in clinical practice” are most stimulating and challenging topics.
Firstly it points at the rapid changes demographically, politically and culturally that are taking place in the world right now - unprecedented since the fall of the ancient Roman Empire. These changes affect the microcosm of the consulting room.
Then again, there are other enigmas that the doctor meets with when relating to his patients that are universal and timeless. Thus we feel familiar with clinical accounts whether they took place in St Petersburg, Edinburgh, Vienna or Prague in the nineteenth century - or anyplace in the Western cultural sphere in the twenty-first century.
Finally, within this framework of the congress we are also invited to reflect on, reassess and develop the methods and practices of Balint group work which is so essential for a living tradition!
Michael Balint already, at the end of the forties, advocated the idea that the doctor has to be trained to integrate the medical technical aspects on the one hand, with the personal understanding of the patient, the interplay between the doctor and his patient on the other. Otherwise, how would the doctor be able to assess whether he treats, preaches and teaches to his patients in a meaningful way? In consequence, with this idea, Balint envisaged a health care system in which the wise, committed and competent GP/ family doctor is at the centre of the health service. Since then, quite a few nations have successfully implemented this idea in their health care systems.
The global changes and the health system framework may also complicate the doctor-patient relationship. Do diminishing social barriers tempt the doctor to become the friend, advocate or even accomplice of his patients? Does the social welfare system or an authoritarian system transform him into a representative of the social authorities? Do the drugs available today and the way they are marketed, combined with the work load and lack of clinical presence of the doctor tempt him to prescribe a more or less standardised, too often inadequate (and costly) medication to his patients? Does the privatisation of the previously publicly organised health care turn him into a businessman rather than a doctor? Is there a danger that evidence based treatment programmes for various diseases make us lose the assessment of the patient as a whole person and that treatments running parallel to each other may be less good for our patients? How can we cope with that?
Balint group work offers a respectful and creative setting in which to discuss emotional, intellectual, ethical and existential issues that doctors meet with in their daily work in relation to their patients.
Most doctors improve professionally and personally by allowing themselves to learn from mistakes and from difficult clinical situations. It has been shown in a controlled study that participation in a Balint group increases the doctor’s professional self esteem and work satisfaction.
The Romanian Balint Society with its well-known hospitality and bon-esprit is going to provide the congress participants with very pleasant surroundings – both physical and spiritual. As you will see, they have spared no effort to provide a comprehensive programme at a very reasonable price. I will end my welcome address by using the words of my predecessor, Dr. Med. Heide Otten in the wonderful Lisbon Congress in 2007, and I make them my own:
I am looking forward to exchanging thoughts, listening to papers, and to participating in vivid discussions about the doctor-patient relationship, about the development of the Balint method as an important supportive tool for all clinically engaged doctors, and about values in contemporary medicine.
On behalf of the IBF I wish you very welcome to the 16th International Balint Congress!
