IPCRG 2nd World Conference Respiratory Disease in Primary Care - the way forward	Program Highlights - Day 1 Thursday February 19, 2004 Melbourne, Australia

Official Conference Opening

Dr Ron Tomlins Chairman of the National Asthma Council and Chairman of the IPCRG Conference Organising Committee It is my great pleasure to welcome so many colleagues in primary care respiratory medicine from so many countries to the IPCRG 2nd World Conference 2004. It is a reflection of the wide membership of the IPCRG that so many of you have travelled so far to be here. We thank you for your tremendous support and your commitment to making the IPCRG work as a worldwide network. As the Chairman of the National Asthma Council, host of this conference on behalf of Australia and New Zealand, I would like to welcome you formally to ‘the Land Downunder’! As many of you will recall, we made our bid for the 2004 conference back in Amsterdam in 2002. It seems only a few weeks ago! That inaugural IPCRG world conference gave us a high standard to aim for, both in terms of the quality of the scientific program and the joie de vive of the social activities, and of course the warmth and friendliness of the hosts. I would especially like to welcome our 14 Dutch colleagues, who set the standard, and our 38 colleagues from Norway, who will host the 3rd IPCRG conference in Oslo in 2006. The conference organising and scientific program committees have worked tirelessly for two years to deliver a conference that we hope will inspire and inform you and I would particularly like to thank Professor Justin Beilby, Chairman of the Scientific Program Committee and his team, for their work on the conference program. We hope it will fire your enthusiasm for collaboration and give us opportunities to broaden our networks of international colleagues. We also hope that this conference will lead to better outcomes for the estimated 300 million people in the world with asthma and COPD. It is one of our great strengths that, in Australia and New Zealand, we have among our advisors and committee members both top specialists and the experts in primary care respiratory medicine. We have striven to make the conference program relevant to primary care, which is the IPCRG’s reason for being. We hope you will find the conference useful, whether you are a physician, a pharmacist, an asthma educator, a respiratory nurse, or an allied health professional working in the community.
	Ms Kristine Whorlow, Chief Executive Officer of the National Asthma Council Australia, welcomed delegates to the IPCRG 2nd World Conference and introduced Dr Ron Tomlins.
	Dr Ron Tomlins, Chairman of the National Asthma Council Australia

Special Welcome Ceremony Mr Ian Hunter, elder of the Wurundjeri people, the indigenous people of Melbourne, honoured the conference delegates as he and his dancers welcomed them all to their land in a traditional ceremony.

Keynote 1

Welcome and Setting the Scene

Dr H. John Fardy
Co-President IPCRG
Chair of the National Asthma Council's GP Asthma Group, Australia
 

There are a number of challenges facing those of us working in Primary Care in the management of respiratory disease:

• Pressures within the various health care systems
   

• workforce issues
   

• infectious diseases in the community (including SARS)
   

• information relevant for Primary Care
   

• lifestyle diseases and lifestyle modification

Challenges facing IPCRG:

• our diversity of systems and people
   

• communication
   

• structure of our health care systems with available people and other resources
   

• our aspirations

The role of this conference in addressing these challenges is

• to learn
   

• to share
   

• to experience
   

• to enjoy.

©IPCRG Melbourne 2004