Medicinski forum 2026 – State of Art, a multidisciplinary professional conference, once again brought together doctors of different specialties around a shared idea – treating the modern patient requires knowledge that goes beyond the boundaries of any single medical discipline.
The full-day programme on 4 September presented current findings in radiology, osteobiology, rheumatology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, obesity, psychiatry and psychosomatics, orthopaedics, cardiology, dermatology, infectious diseases and sports medicine. The aim was not only to present individual diseases but, above all, to show new diagnostic and therapeutic options and to connect different areas of medicine in everyday clinical practice.
Professor Kristina Potočki, PhD, one of Croatia's leading experts in musculoskeletal radiology, gave a lecture on radiology in differential diagnosis, and Dr Šime Mijić presented ‘Updates in diagnostic ultrasound’, devoted to the new possibilities of ultrasound diagnostics in physical medicine, rehabilitation and rheumatology. The breadth of the Forum was shown particularly by topics linking seemingly distant areas of medicine. Professor Darko Marčinko spoke about psychosomatics, while Dr Porin Makarić presented the pharmacotherapy of anxiety and a psychiatric view of fibromyalgia. This opened up the question of the relationship between chronic pain, physical symptoms and mental health, which doctors of different specialties encounter every day. An international dimension was added by Dr Višeslav Tonković Ćapin from the United States, whose lecture on the dermatological manifestations of systemic rheumatic diseases linked dermatology and rheumatology and highlighted the importance of recognising the skin signs of systemic diseases.
The programme also covered modern approaches to treating obesity, updates in osteobiology, the prevention and treatment of bone and joint infections, advances in arthroscopic surgery, the links between cardiology and rheumatology, and the new field of osteomicrobiology and the gut–bone axis. Dr Ivan Novak and Dr Andrija Jukić also presented updates in sports physiatry.
One of the distinctive features of the Medicinski forum is its emphasis on practical and manual clinical skills. Today in particular, when artificial intelligence is rapidly changing the way doctors obtain information and process medical data, direct examination of the patient, clinical judgement and the skill of performing diagnostic and therapeutic procedures become even more valuable. Artificial intelligence can help a doctor, but it cannot replace what happens in direct contact between doctor and patient. One of the Forum's messages, therefore, is that the doctor of the future needs to combine medical knowledge, technological literacy, clinical reasoning and practical skill – and the workshops and demonstrations of manual techniques turned exactly this idea from theory into practice.
The next Forum will additionally open up three major areas of modern medicine – updates in oncological diseases, the development and preservation of practical clinical skills, and updates in the diagnosis and treatment of bone and joint diseases.
