Former Winners
2021 Fons Sips Award: Marina Jotić Ivanović
Marina Jotić Ivanović is a 35 year-old family specialist who has been awarded the Fons Sips Outstanding Achievement Award in 2021. The Vasco da Gama Movement is honoured to present Marina as our WONCA World Rising Star Award nominee. Involvement in activities that are linked to primary care on the local ground: Strengthening local services- lobbying for a mobile mammography service.
Coordinating work during the pandemic- she was appointed as the Coordinator of COVD-19 activities in her health care centre which brought great responsibility of organising work of the health system in the wake of a sudden health care crisis.
She was a technical secretary and a member of the scientific board at the Symposium for medicaldoctors with international participation named “Future of Family Medicine” organized by the
Primary Health Care Center in Doboj.
She is an active VdGM council member who is engaged in ongoing activities, suggests new actions and voices opinions during debates. She’s also part of the Lifestyle and family violence SIGs
Besides her achievements, Marina is known for her openness and kind nature.
“She is very knowledgeable, talented and she is always open to share her knowledge with others. She is open to discussion and open-minded when she receives new information. She has the skills to manage a group and organize things. She is active both at local, national, European, and also global levels. She is able to transfer her skills to her colleagues around the world in different projects. Hence, she is very good at empowering.”
“Marina is a very engaged family doctor, and focuses on the community she serves, whether in Doboj or in VdGM. She empowers those around her, and lifts up the voices of her colleagues.”
2019 Laureate of the Fons Sips Award: Elena Klusova
Elena Klusova was announced as the winner of the 2nd edition of the Fons Sips Award during the closing ceremony of the WONCA Europe Conference 2019 in Bratislava. Born in Moscow, she ended up settling in Spain where her life first became entangled with VdGM as a host for a conference exchange in Madrid in 2014. Throughout the years, Elena has been a passionate contributor to VdGM and WONCA: from her active engagement in the Family Violence and Emergency Special Interest Groups of VdGM, and as the Spanish National Exchange Coordinator, to her dedicated service as the Events Officer on the VdGM Executive and as a member of the WONCA Europe Conference Committee. Apart from VdGM/WONCA, she works in Ibiza Spain as a Specialist in Family and Community Medicine, Consultant GP with sub-specialization in EM. Read Elena’s interview here.
Elena was nominated by her colleague, fellow young Spanish Family Doctor Dr. Rocío García-Gutiérrez Gómez who says “Elena is this kind of person who gives everything without asking anything in return. That year after year, and generation after generation, teaches the new arrivals, cares that everyone is well, motivates us with experiences, exchanges, conferences, workshops and thousands of activities with the sole purpose of being a united team and that we can grow and learn together. For Elena everything is WE instead of ME.”
2017 Laureate of the Fons Sips Award: Fons Sips
The inaugural award was awarded to Fons Sips in memoriam at the WONCA Europe Conference in Prague 2017. In 2004, on the occasion of the WONCA Europe Conference in Amsterdam, he used his great inspirational force to gather European young doctors and inspire them to form a group and find themselves a name… it is legendary that he started sketching a ship… and the rest is history. Read more about him in his memorial.