WFME was founded on the 30 September 1972 in
Copenhagen. The founding organisations included the
World Health Organization (WHO) and
World Medical Association (WMA). In 1988 the Edinburgh declaration was approved at the World Conference on Medical Education, calling for greater co-operation between the health system and the education system, reflecting national needs in medical education and continuing lifelong education of medical staff to achieve quality in practice. The Declaration was adopted by the
World Health Assembly in 1989. The aspect of medical education responding to the national needs was also stressed at the World Summit on Medical Education 1993. WFME participated in the Global Consensus Project for Social Accountability of Medical Schools initiated in 2010, which further focused on the co-operation and link between medical education and the society, highlighting the necessity to meet the health care needs of patients and societies. In the years 2008-2014 WFME maintained the
Avicenna directory, a public database of worldwide
medical schools,
schools of pharmacy, schools of
public health and educational institutions of other academic health professions, which was later merged with
IMED to create the
World Directory of Medical Schools. WFME previously had offices in Bethesda,
Maryland (USA) and
Edinburgh (UK), and most recently in
Copenhagen (Denmark) and Ferney-Voltaire (France). The organisation is currently registered in the UK and France. == Mission ==