Health Call sponsors Specialty Practi-Med Mental Health conference

The two-day workshop gathered together primary care physicians, pediatricians, psychiatrists, psychologists, and other medical care professionals from the UAE and beyond.

Specialty Practi-Med: Mental Health is an innovative continuing medical education program designed to review state-of-the-art information on the diagnosis and management of mental health disorders with a focus on anxiety and depression.

Through didactic lectures given by esteemed mental care specialists from Dubai, the UK, the USA, Canada, case discussions and interactive sessions, participants had availed themselves of the opportunity to learn from distinguished faculty and have personal interaction with leaders in mental health.

The workshop gave over 200 medical specialists in charge of health of residents and visitors to Dubai the chance to share unique expertise and experience, as well as to discuss the current issues facing the health industry in the UAE.

"One distinct feature of Dubai and the UAE healthcare market as whole is that people do not go to see a general practitioner when they get sick. They go directly to a specialist," says Ayub Kalaff, Managing Director at Health Call, Dubai, UAE.

"Therefore, we often have a situation when a person complaining that her eyes are sore goes to see an optician, whereas in fact the pain was originating in the head and was a result of a severe migraine. But the patient had diagnosed herself and made her own choice of a specialist. As a result, since she was forced to be examined by a general practitioner in the end, she had to pay double fees and had wasted a lot of precious time. All of this could have been avoided by just seeing a primary care doctor in the first place."

As Dr. Danny Deschuttere, Medical Director of Health Call points out, "Primary care should be the first point of call for everybody, for all problems, whether acute or chronic. In the USA, for example, the primary care doctor, usually the family doctor, will be the one to orchestrate the patient's condition. She will examine the patient, assess the overall condition, locate the cause and refer the patient to a certain specialist. As primary care physicians, we are trying to get this vital concept of 'Primary Care Comes First' rooted in Dubai."

The Mental Care Conference witnessed an announcement of the launch of CenterPointe, the first dedicated mental health outpatient facility at Dubai Healthcare City. CenterPointe Hospital is a private psychiatric hospital serving the behavioral needs of children, adolescents and adults in the states of Missouri and Illinois, USA.

In addition to the main hospital in St. Charles county, CenterPointe has outpatient and assessment locations in Washington, Missouri, and in South St. Louis county, providing quality mental care in a safe and secure environment assuring high confidentiality. Conditions treated in CenterPointe range from mental health issues, family counseling, women's problems to chemical dependency and substance abuse. CenterPointe outpatient clinic is expected to open its doors to at Dubai Healthcare City in March 2008.

After his lecture on "Assessment and Management of Suicidality" at the conference, Dr. Azfar Malik, M.D., CEO at CenterPointe, confessed that he was impressed with the level of professionalism in Dubai Healthcare City and the importance that healthcare is given in the UAE.

"We did not expect this workshop to be of such interest to the medical community over here. Now that we know how fast the demand for specialist psychiatric services is growing, we are even more excited to be part of the Dubai healthcare providers."