Abstract
Purpose
In order to explore clinical pharmacology and therapeutics (CPT) teaching and practices across continental Europe, the European Association of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (EACPT) made a survey in 2022 amongst its 27 affiliated societies.
Methods
The survey was made available online to EACPT representatives, and 47 filled-in questionnaires were received from 25 countries (one to five per country), representing all geographic areas of Europe.
Results
Clinical pharmacologists (CPs) spend 25%, 30%, 15%, and 25% of their time in teaching, hospital activities, committees, and research, respectively, with large variations across and within countries. CPT courses are given at Schools of Medicine in all the countries except one, mostly organized and taught by medical doctors (MDs). In Central, Western, and Southern Europe, the teachers may have medicine or pharmacy training. Therapeutic drug monitoring and pharmacovigilance were the hospital activities most frequently reported, and clinical/forensic toxicology, rounds of visits, and pharmacogenetics the least. Two-thirds of the panel think CPs should be MDs. However, the transversal nature of CPT was underlined, with patients/diseases and drugs as gravity centres, thus calling for the complementary skills of MDs and PharmDs. Besides, most respondents reported that clinical pharmacists in their country are involved in rounds of visits, pharmacovigilance, TDM, and/or pharmacogenetic testing and that collaborations with them would be beneficial.
Conclusion
CPT comes with a plurality of backgrounds and activities, all required to embrace the different pathologies and the whole lifecycle of medicinal products, but all of them being rarely performed in any given country. The willingness to use common CPT teaching material and prescribing exams at the European level is a good sign of increasing harmonisation of our discipline Europewide.
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Data availability
No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Antoine Humeau, biostatistician, for his valuable help in analysing the data and Karen Poole for editing the survey and this manuscript.
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PM designed the study, supervised the contents and analysis of the survey, and participated in manuscript writing. EJ and JSP contributed to the contents and analysis of the survey and participated in manuscript writing. ASL contributed to the contents of the survey, contacted the subjects, participated in the analysis, and revised the manuscript.
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All the participants in this survey consented to have their answers published in aggregated forms. The authors committed in writing not to disclose their identity.
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The authors declare no competing interests.
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For the 2021-2023 period, PM was Chair of the EACPT, ASL co-opted Secretary General, JSP Member of the Executive Committee, and EJ co-Chair of the EACPT “Early Carrier Pharmacologists” committee.
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Marquet, P., Jouanjus, E., Sáez-Peñataro, J. et al. Activities of clinical pharmacologists across Europe: A survey by the European association of clinical pharmacology and therapeutics. Eur J Clin Pharmacol 80, 919–929 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00228-024-03657-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00228-024-03657-x