#EAPM: Successful summer school issues health care professionals report

EAPM’s co-chair and former European Commissioner for Health and Consumer affairs David Byrne said: “These summer schools are primarily about raising awareness and increasing knowledge of personalised medicine. Education in this area is paramount, if we are all to make the most of the incredible science that has emerged and is continuing to move forward with lightning speed.“The ensuing report is designed to add further to the debate about the need for on-going education in these fast-moving times,” Byrne added.

EAPM calls its schools by the acronym TEACH, which stands for Training and Education for Advanced Clinicians and HCPs. The goal is to bring young HCPs up-to-date with developments in this exciting new field.

As the title of the event was ‘New Horizons in Personalised Medicine’, among other aspects, the Summer School provided a highly interactive forum for sharing ideas for innovation, and practicing communication skills.

It allowed attendees to enhance their knowledge of personalised medicine and its potential, as well as offering feedback about the priorities we should be zooming in on down the line.

EAPM’s Executive Director Denis Horgan said: “Aside from producing a new batch of alumni from the Summer School, who were all very happy that they had attended, we managed to significantly up the numbers from 2016, by around 30%.”

Horgan added: “These summer schools certainly deepen the work of EAPM and we will bringing issues that the attendees highlighted – such as barriers and enablers – to the attention of policy makers, as ever. It is not only the alumni that learn a lot at these events, the Alliance and the faculty expand their knowledge too in a highly interactive two-way street.

“This is why we also publish a report, for broader viewing of personalised medicine stakeholders.”

One of many key points of recognition that emerged is the issue of HCP migration from smaller, less wealthy member states to the larger and wealthier ones.

Attendees agreed that the EU should do much more to remedy a situation that will become unsustainable down the line.

Among other lessons that the Alliance says it can take forward into next year’s summer school include additions to the curriculum to ensure that there will be more of the highly successful communication role-plays at next year’s event, there will be more multidisciplinary sessions, in order to see how different HCPs interpret various scenarios, and EAPM will introduce extended Q&A opportunities, alongside more breakout sessions during the course of the week.

Co-chair Byrne added: “The fact is that it has to be recognised that the patient is at the centre of his or her own treatment and health-related decisions, and relevant skills need to be developed accordingly.

“After two summer schools, EAPM and the faculty are now even-more convinced that an improvement in such skills among HCPs is vital to giving the right treatment to the right patient at the right time – our ultimate aim.”

Marius Geantă, president of the Center for Innovation in Medicine, said: “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.”

According to Horgan, three member states have already expressed an interest in holding the 2018 Summer School.