Dr. Igor Švab
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Dr. Igor Švab is professor, founding member and head of the department of Family Medicine. He is current dean of Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana.
He was president of the European society of family medicine (Wonca Europe) from 2004 until 2010. He has coordinated several international projects of family medicine development, mainly in Southeast Europe. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Slovenian Journal of Public Health and former editor of the European Journal of General Practice.
Among his awards the most prominent ones are the honorary membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners (UK) and the Wonca world fellow award.
Session 3: ETHICS AND EDUCATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE ERA OF PRECISION MEDICINE
DAY 2: September 12, 2019 | Keynote Speaker | 3:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Ethics, Education and Organization of Health Services in the Era of Big Data
Igor Švab MD, Department of Family Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
The era of big data is posing serious challenges to the medical profession. These challenges also address the areas of ethics, education and organization of health services.
Since more and more personal genomes are becoming accessible, one faces the dilemmas how to address the problem when the genome reveals additional information beyond the diagnosis being investigated. Data security is going to become increasingly important and measures will need to be developed to ensure that this information will not be accessed by unauthorized people.
The era of big data challenges the educationalists to adapt curricula at different levels. What is the core knowledge of every future physician? What is the knowledge needed by future clinicians in different fields and what is the knowledge that will be reserved for specialists in these area?
Even if genomics in medicine is already often part of the routine clinical investigation, the practicalities of this implementation in health services is often lagging behind. For instance, the investigation of the genome is not often regulated as a paid service. The increasing information will also give rise to need for genetic counselors and the need for them will increase in the future. The need to adequately manage all this data will change the composition of teams in hospitals and primary care.
It is necessary that specialist experts in the field and all medical professionals work together in order to use this potential for better patient care in the future.