#EAPM - Urgent action needed to train young professionals as health-care systems creak

The health-care sector in the EU is huge, providing employment for many citizens and playing a significant role in Europe’s economy.  With an ageing population and, with it, increasing demand, that is not going to change any time soon, writes European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) Executive Director Denis Horgan. 

But it is not just the general population that is ageing; so are health-care professionals (HCPs) and there is not enough young blood coming through, and those young people that do chose health care as a career are often faced with unsustainable work loads, low pay and, crucially, a lack of up-to-the-minute knowledge of breakthrough technologies, not least the astonishing leaps in genetics and personalised medicine.

Starting today (Tuesday 19 June) the Alliance’s third annual summer school for young health-care professionals is taking place in Warsaw, Poland, until 22 June, and is hosted in conjunction with the Polish Alliance for Personalized Medicine, and also in co-operation with the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Centre and Institute of Oncology in the Polish capital.

See link to the agenda.

Titled 'New Horizons in Personalised Medicine' it comes under EAPM’s TEACH banner (Training and Education for Advanced Clinicians and HCPs), first launched in Cascais, Portugal, in 2016, and followed up in Bucharest, Romania, last year.  It is an ongoing initiative that aims to educate young doctors in the latest developments of personalised medicine.

Marcin Czech, Undersecretary of State/Vice Minister at the Ministry of Health in Poland, said: “In the changing world of healthcare in the EU, which of course includes the exciting new developments in personalised medicine, the ongoing education of health-care professionals has, so far, been under-emphasized. This needs to change.”

As Beata Jagielska, the president of the Polish Alliance, has put it: “The concept of personalised medicine has been recently rising in usage around the world. The belief that the number of personalised therapy recipients should increase is also growing in line with the principle of equal access to quality healthcare for all citizens.”  She added: “The summer school is aimed at doctors aged 28-40. Its most important goal is to bring the young specialists up-to-date with the latest news and discoveries, which in the future will help them to better understand their patients and thus select optimal therapies.”

Across the four days, HCPs will attend lectures and workshops devoted to radiology, oncology, surgical oncology, haematology, molecular biology, plus personalised medicine in combination with immunotherapy, colorectal cancer therapy and molecular diagnostics.   The last two editions provided a highly interactive forum for sharing ideas for innovation, and practicing communication skills.

Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center and Institute General Director Jan Walewski said: “The feedback from the HCPs is vital, this is far from a one-way street. Europe needs to know what their needs are and how to meet them.”

Secretary of State for Croatia Dr. Željko Plazonić said: “Essentially, health services across the EU are creaking under the strain of not only having more patients with more chronic diseases but also tight fiscal controls.

“The true potential of all of this fantastic new science, built around genetic profiling and individual DNA, will never be fully realised unless front-line clinicians have the knowledge and understanding to exploit it,” he added.

“Member state health-care systems need to find innovative solutions, learn how to use re-sources in a ‘smart’ way, co-operate more, and ensure that any new workforce has the right skills for these changing times,” said EAPM Executive Director Denis Horgan.

Horgan added that on HCP education generally, EAPM has already called for action at EU level, saying that the European Union should support the development of a Europe-wide education and training curriculum for the personalised medicine era.

Health care work is one of the largest sectors in the EU, around 17 mil-lion jobs accounting for 8% of all jobs. The number of jobs in the sector increased by 21% be-tween 2000-2010 creating 4 million new ones, a lot of them necessarily in the younger population.

It is known that the demand for healthcare will increase dramatically across Europe's with the number of citizens aged 65 and over predicted to almost double over the next 40-plus years, from 87 million in 2010 to more than 150 million by 2060. The Alliance also believes that the EU should subsequently facilitate the development of an Education and Training Strategy for HCPs in personalised medicine.

EAPM and all connected with the organisation are working hard to promote dialogues, en-courage the required platform and, as stated, calling for swift EU action. Meanwhile, the Alliance and stakeholders are playing their part, as are all attendees and faculty, with the annual summer school.

We all know that ‘health means wealth’ and, as the European Commission has noted, a mod-ern and innovative health-care sector is a driver for economic growth. The health-care sector is also important when driving research and development.

Not surprisingly therefore, the EU has seen a growing interest in the development of integrated health workforce planning and forecasting which takes into account the age, gender, number, specializations and distribution of health workers, skills and competence mix, and work-ing practices.

This in order to develop policy and the best ways to invest in the education of young HCPs, not least because the EU faces competition from other countries as many HCPs migrate to non-EU countries. This could have a serious impact and has already led to many member states recruiting from outside.

On the need for ongoing education, the EAPM is making inroads into the training of young HCPs in order to change how health care will be delivered in the future.

These HCPs being brought up-to-speed is crucial to bringing much-needed innovation into the EU’s healthcare systems. But these summer schools are only the tip of the iceberg. It is time to make the education of HCPs a priority in these challenging times.

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