COUNCIL FOR EDUCATION IN PHARMACEUTICAL MEDICINE
Every medical specialty needs its own organisation of education in this specialty, as well as a proper follow-up in the form of a programme of continued medical education (CME) and continued professional development (CPD). The first Postgraduate Course in Pharmaceutical Medicine was established at the University of Cardiff in 1976. Since then, many European and non-European Universities started similar post-graduate programmes in this discipline.
The Council for Education in Pharmaceutical Medicine (CEPM) was created in 2001 under the auspices of IFAPP, with the following objectives:
1) to harmonise the content of the programmes of education in PM and to accredit those Postgraduate Courses in Pharmaceutical Medicine (PgCPMs) which comply with the syllabus established by IFAPP;
2) to assist Universities to establish additional PgCPMs;
3) to assist national Member Associations (nMAs) in establishing programmes of continued medical education and continued professional development (CME/CPD)
4) to promote the mutual recognition of Diplomas in Pharmaceutical Medicine awarded by the PgCPMs accredited by IFAPP;
5) to obtain the recognition of the title of Physician Specialist in Pharmaceutical Medicine internationally.
The Council counts 30 members who are those members of the nMAs interested in education and training. Most of them are participating in one or more of the 7 Working Groups (WG) of the Council.
Objective 1: Harmonisation and accreditation of PgCPMs
Its main objective was to undertake the task to harmonise the programmes of the existing Postgraduate Courses in Pharmaceutical Medicine. Most of the existing postgraduate courses were established in cooperation between local Universities and the local national Associations of pharmaceutical physicians. However, at the time of their creation there was neither consultation with a central advising organisation, nor a universally agreed Syllabus. Now such a document exists and is recognised both by IFAPP and the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine (London). The time is therefore well chosen for the initiation of a harmonisation process which aims at ensuring that the programmes of the existing Postgraduate Courses in Pharmaceutical Medicine, as well as those which will be established in the future, contain all the topics covered by the agreed Syllabus.
The harmonisation process was initiated in 2003 with the visit by members of the CEPM to four Universities in Europe. Up to today, the CEPM has evaluated and accredited ten postgraduate courses in pharmaceutical medicine at the Universities in Barcelona, Basel, Belgrade, Brussels, Cardiff, Dublin, Madrid, Mexico, Stockholm, Surrey (London) and Duisberg-Essen. This process will proceed while new similar courses are created at other European Universities and the harmonisation effort has now extended to other parts of the world with the accreditation of the courses in pharmaceutical medicine at the Universities of Mexico and Sao Paulo (Brazil). It is hoped that this major effort and time consuming activities will result, not only in the mutual recognition of the Diplomas in Pharmaceutical Medicine awarded by the various Universities, but also to the worldwide recognition of pharmaceutical medicine as a global new medical specialty.
Between 2002 and 2008 the Council has organised the visit and accreditation of 12 PgCPMs. All are located at European Universities (Barcelona, Basel, Belgrade, Brussels, Cardiff, Dublin, Duisburg-Essen, London-Surrey, Madrid and Stockholm) except two (University of Mexico, Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil). This programme is ongoing and further accreditations are expected in 2009 - 2010 in Buenos Aires, Lyons, Milan, Rome, San Francisco and Sydney).
Working Group I : The IFAPP syllabus for courses in PM is the benchmark on which the accreditation of PgCPMs is based. It is an essential tool in the process. WG I have the task to revise the syllabus when needed and to issue new up-to-date versions. The most current version is available on the IFAPP web site in the section "Education".
Objective 2: Assist in establishing additional PgCPMs
Since its foundation the Council has assisted in the establishment of several postgraduate courses in pharmaceutical medicine. Additional courses are being established or are currently in their first year such as at the Universities of Budapest, Milan, Rome, California, Sydney, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Singapore, Djakarta, Teijin.
Working Group II: This WG was specifically created in order to assist in the establishment of the PgCPM at the University of Budapest. The idea is to create a course for the Central European Area in cooperation with other Central European Universities such as Vienna, Prague and Belgrade.
Working Group III: The objective of WG III is to produce an international computerised interactive training course for clinical investigators. This course was set up in cooperation with the University of Brussels and is now available under the name of "E-Clin". The WG III remains responsible for the updating of the course on a yearly basis.
Objective 3: Assist in establishing national CME/CPD programmes
Establishing CME/CPD programmes for PPs is obviously a local responsibility and nMAs should give due diligence to this problem. The CEPM is prepared to assist wherever help is needed. In order to give some guidelines to the nMAs the CEPM set up WG IV.
Working Group IV: This WG wrote the "Guidance Notes for the establishment of Continued Medical Education/Continued Professional Development programmes in Pharmaceutical Medicine". These notes were circulated to all nMAs and are available on the IFAPP web site. Updated versions will be produced when appropriate.
Objective 4: Promote mutual recognition of Diplomas in PM
The objective is to obtain that the Universities whose PgCPM was accredited by IFAPP mutually recognise the equivalence of the Diplomas in Pharmaceutical Medicine they award to the students who passed successfully the examinations and/or assessments. This can only be obtained by bringing together the Directors of the PgCPMs. As most of the accredited PgCPMs are located in Europe, the CEPM decided to organise and sponsor a meeting of the Directors of the 13 PgCPMs currently running in Europe. The meeting took place on 7 June 2007 in Brussels and led to the foundation of the "European Federation of Courses in Pharmaceutical Medicine (EFCPM)" on 13 June 2008.
Objective 5: Promote the recognition of PM as a new medical specialty
Considering that Europe is losing in competitiveness versus the USA in terms of research and discovery of innovative medicines, the European Commission in cooperation with the EFPIA is setting up an "Innovative Medicines Initiative" (IMI) and a "Strategic Research Agenda" (SRA). The objective is to improve the predictivity of efficacy and safety of new compounds, to improve knowledge management and to improve the training and education of the professionals involved in pharmaceutical R&D, regulatory affairs, pharmacovigilance, etc. The latter objective is of great interest to PPs as it specifically mentions the need to recognise pharmaceutical medicine as a new medical specialty. The project involves the creation of a European Medicines Research Academy (EMRA) bringing together "centres of excellence" of each scientific discipline involved in R&D of new medicines. The objective of the CEPM is to cooperate in the frame of the Call no. 16 of the IMI project with the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine and the recently founded European Federation of Courses in PM (EFCPM) to improve and extend training and education in PM and to obtain the recognition of PM as a new medical specialty.
The Council counts three more WGs:
Working Group V: is in charge of producing a multilingual glossary English versus several Eastern European languages of medical terms used in pharmaceutical medicine.
Working Group VI: is in charge of communicating on the activities of the CEPM to the IFAPP Executive Committee, to the nMAs, to IFAPP World, the IFAPP newsletter. This WG is also responsible for updating the section "Education" on the IFAPP web site at regular intervals and to provide pertinent information on the CEPM activities for inclusion in that section.
Working Group VII: is in charge of enquiring about and keeping records of the number of certified pharmaceutical physicians issuing from the various PgCPMs in order to establish reliable statistics concerning the use of the PgCPMs by physicians and scientists working in or for the pharmaceutical and bio-pharmaceutical industry.
For personalised advice please write to the IFAPP Secretariat with the mention "To the attention of the Chairman of the CEPM".
