National News

Germany

New legal groundwork for the pharmacy state examination

At the beginning of January, the Federal Ministry of Health held a hearing on “The right to examination of the health professions”. Julian Held, Health Policy Officer, represented the pharmacy students on behalf of the BPhD Three points were central to the training of pharmacists: Firstly, the number of examiners for oral state examinations in the second and third sections of the Pharmaceutical Examination is now fixed uniformly across all of Germany. This should create equal opportunities for candidates from all the universities, as the number of examiners is known in advance. Secondly, the possibility of online teaching formats should finally be anchored in the licensing regulations. This provides legal certainty for teachers and students that these formats can be used to add value and flexibility to the studies. Thirdly, it is to be stipulated that the chairperson of the examination board cannot ask questions in an oral examination that are not in his or her field of examination The BPhD welcomes this decision for the fairness of the examination, but at the same time sees the danger of an examiner shortage, especially in the subject of clinical pharmacy. The subject of clinical pharmacy has been established in german pharmacy studies for a couple of years, yet there is often a lack of professors at a local level. Since clinical pharmacy is a core competency for all pharmacists, BPhD advocates for an urgent change. From the BPhD's point of view, this situation is unsustainable and requires urgent change, especially since clinical pharmacy is one of the pharmacist's core competencies.

Julian Held, Officer for health politics in BPhD epsa@bphd.de