We are a group of about 30 people which has been organizing the world conference “Crossing Bridges – Being Human” / “The Human Being Is a Bridge” together with the Medical Section at the Goetheanum since 2017. We have already been practicing “building bridges” during the preparation:

•  Our young team is composed of people who are still completing their studies, people who have already gained work experience and others who are actually teaching in institutions.
•  We also combine the backgrounds of various professions: we are doctors, art and movement therapists, eurythmy therapists and biochemists – all of us are contributing our ideas and energy to make the conference happen.
•  We would like to build bridges over the oceans and to engage people from outside of Europe in our preparatory team. We are happy about anyone who wants to be involved in the preparation from other regions of the world!

How did the preparatory group for the world conference come together and develop?
n a sunny afternoon in June 2017, a motley group of young people met at the Goetheanum in Dornach. All of them had followed the invitation to come together to dream and so approximately twenty-five young people from the greatest variety of professional groups (medicine, nursing, obstetrics, special needs education/ social care, social therapy, pharmacy, art and music therapy, teaching) dreamt of something communal, something that would connect the world.
The impulse for this followed on from the international young medics conference "Enlightening the heart" which took place at the Goetheanum in 2013. Some of the people attending the meeting had been at that conference or, indeed, helped to organise it, some were completely new. Might a similar event not be held seven years later – that was the thought. The impulse of a joint conference was met with enthusiasm and led to a colourful wall covered with ideas and visions.

Rudolf Steiner's Bridge lectures and the motif of the bridge had also already been brought up.
Yet a good year was to pass in which the thematic foundation, commonalities and differences, goals and ideals were wrestled with until everyone finally came to the joint decision to use the Bridge lectures as the basis of our conference.

Many questions were considered during this time.
What connects the different professional groups, what differentiates them? How does a common spirit arise without well-founded professional differences being lost? What are the questions and needs of our time? How can a bridge be built between cultures, countries and continents? How between generations? What is the connecting element between people who have only just met and developed an interest in the anthroposophical movement and those who have engaged with it intensively for decades?

In the following three years the preparatory group met repeatedly in different constellations and places. In this process the second key motif to appear was the Staff of Mercury and we engaged more deeply with its content as a group. In this context we worked on the Michael and Raphael impulse in medicine and were grateful how these two streams found their way to one another. This was evident even in the smallest tasks, such as the graphic design of a flyer. We are, for example, very happy about the new logo for a hundred years of Anthroposophic Medicine which depicts the Staff of Mercury in a noble, clear and upright fashion.
The International Coordination of Anthroposophic Medicine (IKAM) and the Medical Section placed great trust in us and in the course of the intensive study of the Bridge lectures, which always accompanied our meetings, also in their content, we developed the vision of a festive world conference to celebrate the occasion of one hundred years of Anthroposophic Medicine.

This world conference is now no longer intended just for the young generation but for all people who feel a connection with Anthroposophic Medicine throughout the world. Following the arc of the Bridge lectures in its content, and thus building on the previous annual conferences of the Medical Section (Living Warmth, Living Light, Human Soul!), it wishes to prepare the ground for the future.

Iracema Benevides, Lisa Bögel, François Bonhôte, Miko Brockhaus, Moritz Christoph, Olaf Dickreiter, Moniek van Duin, Mirjam Fäth, Valentino Franzoi, Margarethe Gesell, Matthias Girke, Marlene Ibele, Jannik Jesse, Eva-Maria Kuhn, Karolina Königsberger, Evgenija Naumenko, Elma Pressel, Christian Richert, Rozemariken Scheffers, Julia Sieber, Georg Soldner, Christina Spitta, Johannes Weinzirl, Anna Sophia and Paul Werthmann, Sophia Wittchow