#EAPM: Summer school for health-care professionals hailed as ‘great success’

Last week saw the European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) host its second summer school for young health-care professionals, or HCPs, entitled ‘New Horizons in Personalised Medicine’, writes EAPM Executive Director Denis Horgan.

The concept moved East to Bucharest, Romania, this year with the school taking place from 27-30 June. It followed on from last year’s successful inaugural school held in Cascais, Portugal.  Once again, the school took the name ‘TEACH’, which stands for Training and Education for Advanced Clinicians and HCPs, and the goal was to bring young, front-line professionals up-to-speed with fast-moving developments in the field.

The event saw ‘great interactivity’ between all stakeholders and, as was also the case last year, the role-play sessions with ‘doctor-patient’ communication as a topic were excellent, with different scenarios covering the way that clinicians should ideally communicate with the patient.

Aimed at age-range 24-40, TEACH holds to the thesis that, if personalised medicine is to be in line with the EU and member state principle of universal and equal access to high-quality health care, then clearly it must be made available to many more citizens than is currently the case.  No-less than 20 EU Member States were represented from across a range of disciplines. HCPs took part in a series of 40 minutes lectures put together to highlight innovations currently under way in medicine and to discuss how to introduce such innovations into healthcare systems in Europe.

EAPM’s co-chair David Byrne, former European commissioner for health and consumer affairs, said: “The event was a great success, with attendance up 30% from last year, and was the ideal forum for sharing ideas for innovation, and allowing HCPs to practice communication skills, which is a vital component in personalised medicine going forward.”

Byrne added: “One of the key results here is that we are now getting a very good idea of what HCPs need down the line.”  “I was delighted to be a part of it, to see the enthusiasm from all participants, and I look forward to next year’s third edition with great hope for the future of personalised medicine and its practitioners,” he said.

On 1 July, Estonia takes over the European Union rotating presidency and will feature the Alliance’s Belfast Congress in November as a keynote health event under its auspices.  The Alliance’s Executive Director Denis Horgan said: “In the changing world of health care in Europe, which of course includes the exciting new developments in personalised medicine which we will obviously discuss in Belfast, the ongoing education of healthcare professionals has, so far, been under-emphasized.”

Horgan added: “I am delighted to say that 90 HCPs joined us here in the capital of Romania this week, and that’s an increase of around one-third on the first event last year. We heard all about students wanting to have a better understanding of diagnoses in targeted therapies, biomarkers, genetics and other new developments. They were enthusiastic and engaged, so the future looks good.”

The event featured plenty of direct dialogue between the expert faculty and the HCPs, and also zoomed in on improving communication between young professionals and their patients.  With the burden on health-care systems rising all the time, it is more important than ever to bring Europe together in a way that improves the already significant skills that HCPs possess to enable co-decision making which will effectively empower the patient.

Clearly the health-care professional is trained to be an expert in diagnosing conditions and suggesting treatments. And yet the patient also knows more about his or her own lifestyle, work environment and how much he can rely on family-care resources, for example, so co-decision is a growing part of modern-day medicine.

Health literacy on both sides of the fence is therefore key, and EAPM has said on many occasions that the European Commission, as well as individual member states, needs to promote this in a planned, ongoing, harmonized and effective manner. Therefore, this is clearly also a political and policy issue, given that Europe’s 500 million citizens are ageing and healthcare systems everywhere are under increasing strain.

All of these aspects were raised during the four-day school.  Center for Innovation in Medicine President Marius Geantă said ahead of the event: “Medicine is changing every second and HCPs have to keep on the right track in order to deliver the best care for patients.”  Geantă added: “The TEACH Summer School for personalised medicine is the first, and remains the only, comprehensive educational programme for HCPs and we were honoured to host the 2017 edition in Bucharest.

“It allowed young HCPs to enhance their knowledge of personalised medicine and its potential, as well as to offer feedback about the priorities they felt we should be zooming in on down the line.”

The location of the 2018 summer school will be announced in September, with three Alliance member organizations expressing interest in hosting it.

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