The Mentorship That Outlasted the Congress
Author: Ana Viegas
Affiliation: Co-chair, EuGMS Early-Career Geriatricians Initiative (ECGI)
The 1st UEMS Congress (Leuven, Belgium, 27-30 May 2026), the inaugural edition of the event organised by the European Union of Medical Specialists, drew colleagues from across specialties. Its programme reached well beyond science and practice into training, working conditions, and what early-career specialists need to build careers across borders.
I attended as a mentee under the new UEMS Mentorship Initiative, paired with Dr Roman Romero-Ortuño, EuGMS Director of Education and Training and Professor of Ageing Medicine and Frailty at Trinity College Dublin. The premise is simple: pair senior figures with colleagues earlier in their careers, encourage exchange before, during, and after the Congress, and leave space for joint contributions.
Our in-person meeting on Saturday centred on the "Geriatric Medicine training in an ageing Europe" session. Maria Cristina Polidori opened with the bigger picture: where European training is keeping up, or not, with a fast-ageing continent. Jūratė Macijauskienė presented on the European Geriatric Medicine Specialty Exam (EGeMSE) and the work of building a shared assessment standard across national systems. Marianne van Iersel and Roman Romero-Ortuño closed on undergraduate teaching, where thinking about older patients takes shape long before specialty selection.
Roman also presented "Exploring Educational Needs on Frailty Outside Geriatrics: A UEMS Geriatric Medicine Survey" and "Mapping the Representation of Older Adult Care in European Training Requirements Outside Geriatric Medicine".
After the session, Roman, his colleagues, and I continued the conversation. We discussed where the EuGMS ECGI can build on the work the speakers had laid out. The collaboration continues at the EGeMSE preparation workshop in Lille on 17 September, where senior geriatricians will support candidates preparing for the exam.
What I take from Leuven is how quickly a structured pairing between a senior mentor and an early-career colleague changes what a professional conversation can carry. Substance arrives almost from the start, and what begins as an introduction has, by the time we leave the room, already taken the shape of a working relationship that will continue long after the Congress.
My thanks to Roman, whose engagement gave this mentorship substance the structure alone could not have produced, to the Geriatric Medicine training symposium speakers, and to the UEMS organisers for an initiative I would begin again tomorrow.
References:
1. European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS). 1st UEMS Congress: Learning, Networking, Impacting. Leuven, Belgium; 27-30 May 2026. Available from: https://www.uemscongress.eu/
2. European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS). UEMS Congress Mentorship Initiative. Available from: https://www.uems.eu/mentorship-initiative
3. European Geriatric Medicine Society (EuGMS). Early-Career Geriatricians Initiative (ECGI). Available from: https://www.eugms.org/special-interest-groups/ecgi-early-career-geriatricians-initiative
4. Romero-Ortuño R. Exploring Educational Needs on Frailty Outside Geriatrics: A UEMS Geriatric Medicine Survey. In: 1st UEMS Congress Abstract Programme. Leuven, Belgium; 28 May 2026.
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