Dr. Wolfgang Spiegel

Dr. Wolfgang Spiegel is a general practitioner and a research fellow of general practice/family medicine at the Centre of Public Health, Medical University of Vienna, Austria. Spiegel has founded his own teaching practice in a Viennese suburban district in January 1996 and has been taking care of his patients there under the Austrian social insurance scheme until July 2016 (www.allgemeinmedizin.at). Since than he just runs a small private practice in Vienna and concentrates on academic work. Spiegel is also co-founder and president of Austrian Physicians for Rural Medical care in Africa and past-president of the Viennese Society of General Practice and Family Medicine. Spiegel's main fields of research are primary health care, mental health (in primary care), policy-related research and medical education. A recent research issues deals primary health care delivery in sub-Saharan African countries. From 2004-2010 Spiegel was the elected country representative of Austria to the European Academy of Teachers in General Practice (EURACT). Besides patient care and research Spiegel has been teaching extensively on the basic and graduate medical education level. For many years he has been teaching GP-trainees in his own medical office and has been organizing and delivering continuing medical education interventions to licensed doctors. He also worked as a trained emergency physician for a couple of years.

In the nineties Spiegel has been in charge of a large, Austria-based humanitarian add project for a children's leukemia clinic in Russia. He has traveled extensively to low- and middle-income countries both privately and in various professional roles. Currently, together with colleagues from Rural MedCare and its partner organizations, Spiegel tries to realize a primary health care development project in a rural region of the Republic of South Sudan which focuses on implementing a "community outreach team" of non-physician health workers.