On September 29, the Open Society Georgia Foundation (OSGF) hosted a meeting with the physicians that took part in the Salzburg Medical Seminars. Physicians talked about experience gained in Salzburg and gave recommendations to OSGF representatives and their colleagues in order to improve specific aspects of the seminars.
“It is rather important to us to be aware of benefits you gain from the seminars. We would like to hear your recommendations in order to further improve the program”, said Keti Khutsishvili, the OSGF Executive Director.
Salzburg Medical Seminars is the initiative of the American Austrian Foundation. The program is run in 109 countries and regions of the world by the Open Medical Institute. The mission of the program to improve the health care sector in developing countries, create global alliance of physicians and support in this way continuing education and professional growth of medical personnel.
The Salzburg educational program has been run since 1993. Every year up to 30 physicians from Georgia take part in the seminars. The participation in the program is free of charge. It represents a three-stage educational cycle: transferring knowledge (seminars) – exchange of experience (internship) – distance learning (open medical clubs, the e-library and materials, satellite symposia).
The seminars cover almost all fields of medicine: dermatology, otolaryngology, cardiac surgery, anesthesiology, psychiatry, obstetrician-gynecology/reproductive medicine, pediatric orthopedics and many more.
Participation in the workshops has proved to be an interesting experience for Georgian physicians. They have been introduced to the directions of medicine that are still new for Georgia, established contacts with their peers, became aware of using modern protocols and modern approaches in different fields of medicine.
“Palliative medicine in Georgia is in the development process, therefore we obtained not only theoretical but practical experience from the seminars. We were divided into groups and considered specific cases in detail, calculated doses of pain relievers on the spot. Defining doses for opioids is an important part of care at the final stage of one’s life”, said Pati Dzotsenidze, a fellow of the International Pain Policy Fellowship Program and a 
member of the National Association of Medicine
Seminar organizers hand out to the participants handbooks and video materials as well.
Natia Skhvitiridze, an assistant of the Public Health School, who attended a seminar on ‘Maternal and Child Health’ in Salzburg said that there was great demand for the handbooks from her colleagues, which means that seminar materials may be reached by those physicians as well who could not take part in the seminar.
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