Researcher from AU receives general practice scholarship
Mogens Vestergaard from Aarhus University is this year’s recipient of the Magda and Svend Aage Friederich's Commemorative Scholarship. He receives the scholarship for his contribution to research in the field of general practice.
For many years, Mogens Vestergaard’s research has focused on general practice and the healthcare sector. More specifically, he has focused on how to improve the general practitioner's diagnostics and the treatment of patients with both mental and physical disorders.
Mogens Vestergaard from Aarhus University is now being honoured for his research. On Friday 24 June 2016, the researcher will receive a major Danish award in the form of Magda and Svend Aage Friederich's Commemorative Scholarship. The scholarship includes a check for DKK 100,000.
Mogens Vestergaard is medical specialist in general practice, PhD and research director at MEPRICA (Mental Health in Primary Care). He believes that multimorbidity is one of the biggest challenges facing the Danish healthcare system.
"Hospitals are becoming more and more specialised and fragmented, and we see that some of the most complex and vulnerable patients receive treatment that is not as good as we could wish, because they do not fit into this system. We know that this group of patients are often misdiagnosed and that they have a poor quality of life and high mortality rates," explains Mogens Vestergaard.
General practice plays a central role
General practice plays an important role for the patients in this context.
“We believe that the general practitioner plays an absolutely crucial and decisive role in ensuring the optimal treatment of patients with multimorbidity, among other things because we are the only specialist medical practitioners who are trained to treat both physical and mental disorders, and because we provide continuous and person-focused treatment,” he says.
According to Mogens Vestergaard, the Danish healthcare system needs to improve its diagnosis and treatment of patients with mental and physical disorders. He is therefore also pleased with the scholarship, as it will help to raise the level of attention for this field of research and underline also the good and important work being done in Aarhus.
"Of course, this is an honour and a valuable recognition of me personally as a researcher in the field of general practice. What is most important, however, is the great recognition of the work that we have done over many years in MEPRICA," explains Mogens Vestergaard.
Further information
Mogens Vestergaard
Aarhus University, Department of Public Health
Mobil: (+45) 2343 9990
mv@ph.au.dk