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. 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.