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External Relations
European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association
EPSA Annual Reception EPSA Annual Reception is EPSA’s event of excellence held annually in the European Parliament in Brussels. It is a presentation of EPSA’s activities and achievements from 2019 to external bodies such as European institutions, professional organisations, students’ organisations, other stakeholders and EPSA partners, followed by roundtable and panel discussion on a hot topic with questions and answers session. This year, EPSA Annual Reception (AR) is celebrating its 11th edition and happened on 3rd of March 2020. The topic of this year’s AR was “Pharmaceuticals in the Environment” focusing on the role of pharmacists and healthcare professionals. The event was attended by 100 European pharmaceutical students and a dozen of European stakeholders interested in the topic. The event was hosted by Slovene MEP Irena Joveva (Renew Europe) together with a colleague MEP Klemen Grošelj, while the panellists included different healthcare stakeholders with whom EPSA collaborates throughout the year. EPSA Executive decided to focus on this hot topic as it is very relevant and is currently being discussed within the European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) on further actions. EPSA also recognised the topic as our interest as it connects two main fields EPSA advocates in – education and healthcare. The educational and healthcare aspects are hereby intertwined as we see the inclusion of communication and other soft skills in the curricula and training of higher education, as well as assuring health literacy in the general public as the main parts of ensuring appropriate use of pharmaceuticals. Furthermore, EPSA Member Associations have been expressing the wish for EPSA to do more on topics related to the environment and sustainability. The topic is broad and addresses different obstacles: • • • • • •
How do we ensure appropriate use and disposal of pharmaceuticals? How to deal with unused medicines? How to deal with the wastewater filled with active pharmaceuticals and its modifications? What is the connection between pharmaceuticals in the environment and AMR? What role do the healthcare professionals have in addressing this issue? How can we assure appropriate communication skills are put in place to assure appropriate use? What can be done on educational and training level of future healthcare workforce?
European pharmaceutical students as the future cornerstones of healthcare systems are the possible target group for finding solutions that could bring an added value to the safety of the environment and better public health well-being for generations to come. With this Annual Reception, EPSA focused on advocacy work that will be done in the near future in regards to the environment and sustainability, as well as actions to be taken on local, national and European level to assure that the matter is dealt with properly. Additionally, EPSA foresees further work with its engagement in Public Health Campaigns on the topic and assuring the general public will be engaged in the topic. The outcomes of the discussions will be shared with the general public and followed by the discussion at EPSA Online Discussions Forum. Stay tuned! Tilen Kozole
Vice President of European Affairs 2019-2020
