Report on the 2019 EPA Congress in Warsaw

EPA congress 2019 was a joyful event, there was a lot of friendly faces and a lot of opportunities to connect with psychiatrists from everywhere: Europe and beyond! Plenty of great sessions as well. Warsaw is a worth-visiting city, with both an interesting concrete communist architecture heritage and a lovely picturesque old town, which I did not enjoy as much as I would like to due to the short time I stayed.

I was really pleased to see that EFPT was massively present: many delegates, former delegates, observers, followers, working groups, former board members, board members were there. All the “community” managed to successfully run the booth we had, facilitating the visibility of the organization. The public was widely interested in our missions. Networking events were a good way to cool down from the sessions and to meet new friends.

Thanks to Mariana Pinto Da Costa, EPA early career psychiatrist committee chair, EFPT has been given the opportunity to showcase its activity in the ECP symposium on digital mental health hot topics. Pavel Trančík, the EFPT president, and I had the pleasure to showcase our federation through a presentation called EFPT: Online and Offline Opportunities for Psychiatric Trainees.

What we were trying to show was that our presence online is growing. David de Freitas brought a new face to the EFPT and the website. Social media are successfully managed by Bárbara Moura and our newsletters are efficiently assembled by Nikola Žaja. The website is regularly updated with new features (and not so new features, check the resources!) and the calendar allows the visitor to be aware of the upcoming international events.

New initiatives like Journal Club has been a very exciting way to break frontiers and distances and we have been able to debate online on various psychiatric topic with people from different countries in the world in the presence of outstanding professors.

But on the other part, we reminded that the physical meetings are the core of the EFPT. There is no substitute for the emotion of being together and experiencing other cultures at the forum and observing different practices through the exchange programme.

It was an inspiring experience and I can positively say that the EPA congress was a great place to learn, share and meet… before the Forum that is coming.

See you at the Forum then!

Charles SO

IT secretary