EPSA Newsletter Volume 27 Edition 3

EPSA

Newsletter

Bringing pharmacy knowledge and students together!

Volume 27 I Edition 3 I May 2020 www.epsa-online.org I @EPSA_Online

IMP Days

COVID-19 We are all in this together

Map of Europe

Are You Handling

Hazardous Drugs?

Exposure to antineoplastic drug contamination can occur at all stages from compounding to reconstitution through inhalation, skin contact, unintentional handto-mouth ingestion or needle stick and sharps injury. Routine handling of hazardous drugs in pharmacy has been shown to lead to higher risks of chromosomal aberrations1.

The acute effects of exposure to hazardous drugs can include skin rashes and nausea, while chronic effects extend to infertility, miscarriages, birth defects, leukemia and other cancers2.

Numerous studies show that classic syringe and needle techniques almost universally result in contamination, including droplets, leakage from vial stoppers and aerosol generation3. For pharmacists working with hazardous drugs, this contamination can be a significant health risk.

1.

2.

3.

Mutat Res. 1994 Sep 1;309(2):193-9 NIOSH Publication Number 2004-165 JOPP, 2007; 13 (Supplement): 1-81pp

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Table of Contents

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Internal Affairs 3rd EPSA Team Meeting - From organisation to realisation...................................................... 6 4th EPSA Team Meeting........................................................................................................... 8 Take a moment to look back - EPSA through time.................................................................. 9 Did you know?........................................................................................................................ 11 Who are EPSA Alumni? - Meet Rúben and Eva....................................................................... 12

Education Methodology Booklet - The Past, The Present, The Future.................................................... 14 EPSA Students’ Science Publication...................................................................................... 16 EPSA Purple Week .............................................................................................................. 18 Meds Disposal …….............................................................................................................. 19 Meet the Trainers’ Board ...................................................................................................... 20 Train the Trainers ……........................................................................................................... 22 COVID-19 - We are all in this together................................................................................... 24

External Relations Career Page........................................................................................................................ 27 Career Week - Drug development from zero to hero............................................................ 28 IMP Days............................................................................................................................ 30 European Dental Students’ Association................................................................................ 33 EPSA Annual Reception 2020............................................................................................. 34 External Representations..................................................................................................... 35

Map of Europe.................................................................................................................... 36 Executive Contacts............................................................................................................. 38 EPSA Platforms.................................................................................................................... 39

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European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

Editor’s words Dear reader, I am delighted to present you with the last edition of the EPSA Newsletter for the 2019/2020 mandate Undoubtedly, this mandate was transformational for EPSA and we have grown substantially as an organisation over the past year. The whole association has made a number of developments and changes to support European youth, Faculties of Pharmacy and National Authorities, especially in this time of public health crisis with the outbreak of coronavirus-19 (COVID-19). Therefore, I have dedicated the EPSA Newsletter Volume 27 Edition 3 to all the work and efforts we have done to maintain the high level of education and to highlight the essential work national healthcare systems across Europe are carrying out in this global pandemic.

The EPSA network keeps growing every single day. We are constantly and tirelessly working to achieve our vision to reach and engage with every single pharmacy student across Europe to collaborate on the development of the future of pharmacy and healthcare together.

This edition of the Newsletter brings you the latest news about EPSA projects, activities and achievements. I would recommend reading the Map of Europe - a section that showcases developments made on a national level, as well as articles dedicated to the EPSA initiatives during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the following pages of this brand new edition of the Newsletter, you will read about 43 years of EPSA history and have the opportunity to learn interesting facts about the association. Following on from our various Public Health Campaigns (PHCs) throughout the year and our interest in public health and education, this edition of the Newsletters covers the two major EPSA Public Health Campaigns - Purple Week and MedsDisposal. Furthermore we will look at the past, present and future of the Methodology booklet, a project we developed in order to establish continuous reviewal and development of the educational systems/activities of EPSA. The special part of this Newsletter’s edition belongs to the European Dental Students’ Association (EDSA), so do not miss this article and the opportunity to read about all the great initiatives our dental colleagues are implementing.

For further interest on our latest achievements, do not miss the articles about the EPSA Annual Reception (AR) and the Training New Trainers event. Finally, If you have ever wondered what life after EPSA looks like and what it means to be an EPSA Alumni, take a look at the article on page 12.

I would like to thank all the collaborating authors of this Newsletter edition, the Editorial Board, as well as the Public Relations (PR) Department for all their help and support in developing this publication. I sincerely hope that you agree that this showcases the achievements of EPSA over the past year and is a testament to the hard work and commitment of the EPSA team in bringing pharmaceutical students’ from across Europe and knowledge together.

If you would like to know more about EPSA and our work, I warmly welcome you to visit the EPSA website and to take a look at the EPSA Activity Booklet 2019 and discover what we have been up to in the past year.

Should you have any additional questions, do not hesitate to contact us via our social media channels or email.

I invite you to turn the page and get inspired!

Yours in EPSA, Sanja Aleksić Vice President of Public Relations 2019/2020

www.epsa-online.org | @EPSA_Online

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Presidential words Dear reader, We have made it to the 3rd EPSA Newsletter Edition for the mandate 2019/2020. The work of this Team is not yet done though! This edition will take you through our recent work and accomplishments, but also through the work done by our Member Associations. I am sure everyone will find something interesting for them! If you are interested in EPSA and the activities described by this Newsletter, visit the EPSA website and contact the EPSA Team, we are very happy to see enthusiasm from our members or potential partners.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my EPSA Team, the Team 2019/2020, for the work they have been doing for the past months. It has not always been easy but through teamwork, we have accomplished a lot. Nevertheless, our work is not done yet, so follow us and soon, our successors, in the next period!

To the EPSA members, meaning all European pharmaceutical youth, get engaged in EPSA and similar associations! The experience and knowledge you will gain are irreplaceable. You can get engaged on many levels, from participating in activities, to actively shaping the future of European healthcare through your associations, Sub-committees and EPSA. To the representatives of the EPSA Member Associations, thank you for diligently following our work and representing our members’ opinion to us.

Last but not least, to our partners, thank you for working with us and enabling new opportunities for our members! I speak on behalf of the whole Team when I say that we are looking forward to even more fruitful collaborations with all of our existing and potential future sponsors.

The EPSA members are the essence of EPSA, so keep engaging with us and pushing this wonderful Association further. I am looking forward to meeting many of you at EPSA activities in the future. We are all only at the start of our career, so let’s explore what the world can offer us and work together!

Yours in EPSA, Mihai Nițoiu President 2019/2020

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Internal Affairs

European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

3rd EPSA Team Meeting - From organisation to realisation This year as the President of PPSA Warsaw I promised myself to finally bring EPSA spirit to Poland after a couple of years. For this reason I decided to motivate my local board to prepare a bid for the 3rd EPSA Team Meeting. I can still recall our reaction when we were informed about being chosen to host the EPSA Team. We were very excited, but at the same time we knew things got serious and now we must make every effort to prove it was a good choice.

The next step was meeting with Bernardo – EPSA Vice-President of Internal Affairs and Kamber – EPSA Treasurer to discuss all the details.

Since then we took care of all the logistics, which means accommodation, food, transportation, team meeting’s venues and social programme for the evenings. We have also created a guide to Warsaw for the Team Members.

The Team Meeting took place from 13th to 15th of December 2019. However most of the Team Members came to Warsaw the day before. I can totally assure you it

was a good decision! On this day our local association – PPSA Warsaw – organized a Christmas Party for its members. The Team had an opportunity to try traditional Christmas food, meet other polish pharmacy students and as always at the parties – have fun! It was an unforgettable night, when Warsaw learned how to dance Muevelo.

The following days we spent our evenings trying polish national dish – pierogi and visiting The Old Town, where with all the lights we could truly feel the Christmas spirit. We also couldn’t do without enjoying the nightlife of Warsaw.

After all we were just a bit tired, but glad at the same time. We did our best to make the Team feel like home. It was a pleasure to host such a squad! Seeing how they work and spend time together was a truly motivating experience. It gave me a nice insight how different departments and positions work with each other and how crucial it is for the whole organization.

I can truly recommend organizing a Team

Meeting in your own country! It is a good chance to test yourself at organizing events and check your crisis management skills. It is also a unique opportunity to meet all the Team and make new friends Piotr Nawrocki President of PPSA Warsaw

www.epsa-online.org | @EPSA_Online

Internal Affairs

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Being able to take part in the 3rd Team Meeting was a great opportunity. While listening to the reports I got to see how much work the Coordinators and Executive do. It was inspiring to see how they help each other with the work of their and other departments. It also allowed me to meet the team better and become even closer friends with them. The whole weekend was a lot of fun and great motivation to keep developing myself.

Karolina Wolnik LS for PPSA Poland Being a part of the Team Meeting organizing group gave me quite a lot. From one side, it connected me more with EPSA, the Team, showed me how close and important to each other they are, how hard they work can be and let me make new friendships or strengthen the existing ones. And from the other side, it showed me how many skills we can gain or develop during arranging even a small event. Like not only the teamwork or crisis management, which is usually a part of such things – but also the leadership skills or even time management.

To summarize these few days? They were both challenging and full of good vibes, with a huge dose of fun and joyful atmosphere.

Kinga Warmińska Vice President of International Affairs of PPSA Warsaw

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Internal Affairs

European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

4th EPSA Team Meeting The 4th EPSA Team Meeting (TM) took place in Brussels, Belgium where EPSA has its headquarters. The EPSA House hosted 20 EPSA Team Members from the 29th of February until the 2nd of March. We had the chance to bond and introduce the city where the EPSA interns live to all other Team Members.

This TM preceded the EPSA Annual Reception (AR) which happened on the 3rd of March, this made it easier for our members to send representatives and LSs to attend both of them. Having the members present at TMs is very positive and appreciated as they can lend their voice and provide their opinion on all that is being discussed.

In the evenings, we also had some fun activities and got together to talk, play games and enjoy each other’s company as this is also part of EPSA’s vision, gettin

Bernardo Marinheiro Vice President of Internal Affairs 2019/2020

This 4th Team Meeting of 2019/2020 mandate of the EPSA Team was very special for me, after 3 years in the Team this was going to be my last one! Due to faculty obligations, I was only able to join for the weekend but nonetheless I have spent an amazing 2 days in Brussels with the wonderful Team. We discussed everything EPSA has done and will continue doing to bring pharmacy, students and knowledge together.

As Alumni Coordinator my job is rather obvious, coordinate the best group in EPSA, Alumni - and I have decided to put something together for everyone who joined us in Brussels for the Annual Reception. We enjoyed a very relaxed and informative session about the history of gin, as true Alumni sampling of the beverage was done as well. I could not have wished for a better closing to my one last EPSA Team Meeting - thank you, Team, and thank you, Alumni, it was a blast.

Nejc Klopčič Alumni Coordinator 2019/2020

Every Team Meeting is always great fun, but unlike the 3rd one, in case of 4th TM it’s not due to the social programme, but because of many additional activities, as it is happening next to the Annual Reception. The whole Team could catch up, sum up the last period of time, map out upcoming tasks and spend some more time together in the EPSA House. During the day we were focusing on meetings and some arrangements. During the evening there was also time to hang out with LSs, NIMPs and all awesome students attending the AR. On Monday, the last day of TM, we also had a chance to organize some nice workshops for students with the Head of HR from one of the pharmaceutical companies about interviewing and presentation skills. Of course, Team Meeting in Brussels would not be complete without traditional Belgian Fries, fun games, and rearranging the purpose of some of the EPSA House rooms.

Paulina Kruk Vice President of External Relations 2019/2020

www.epsa-online.org | @EPSA_Online

Internal Affairs

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Take a moment to look back - EPSA through time In 1978, students from 6 countries gathered at the ANEPF France congress to discuss the upcoming European Community (EC) directives on the mutual recognition of Pharmacy diplomas and to compare studies in different countries. It soon became obvious that the work needed to be done was extensive and the students proposed an establishment of a European Sub-Committee (ESC) of the International Pharmaceutical Students’ Federation (IPSF). In 1982, the ESC became an independent organisation and in 1993, the name was officially changed to EPSA. Today, EPSA represents over 100.000 pharmaceutical students from 36 countries!

Initially, the main focus of the association was the development of European pharmacy education. Soon, more projects continued to be added as the European pharmaceutical students continued to express interest in various areas. From the very beginning, EPSA aimed for successful collaboration with both student and professional partners, and the EPSA Newsletter has been published since 1979.

ESC began with one Board member, the Chairperson but as the workload grew, more positions were added. First, in 1980, the Reception Committee and the Secretary in 1981. Today, the EPSA Team consists of 30 Team Members, 9 of which comprise the Executive. The 2000/2001 mandate saw the establishment of the sub-committees to take care of specific work areas and these were replaced by the Working Committees during the 2003/2004 mandate. The Working Committees consisted of one representative from each Member Association and an elected Director. The Working Committees were abolished during the 2009/2010 mandate and Officers took over specific tasks and projects until they were renamed to Coordinators in 2012. The EPSA Team structure still continues to change but the structure of an Executive and Coordinators remains.

An association’s biggest projects are usually their annual events and the same is true for EPSA. The EPSA Congresses have been gathering the European pharmaceutical students from the very start in 1978. In 1999, the Summer University was organised for the first time and when the need for a second annual General Assembly became apparent, the Autumn Assembly was established in 2004. The EPSA event of excellence, the Annual Reception, was organised for the first time in 2010.

This is just a very concise history of EPSA. EPSA is a dynamic association that continuously changes based on its members’ preferences and the European pharmacy situation. In 2012, in order to keep track of EPSA’s history in an easily accessible and understandable way, the EPSA Compendium was created and you can go check it out for even more information on EPSA history! The most important decisions for EPSA are also being gathered in the Important Decisions Document.

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Internal Affairs

European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

EPSA members are pharmaceutical students which means that the Associations’ membership pool changes continuously. The same is true for the EPSA Team and the representatives of the EPSA Member Associations, the LSs. While this ensures constant development, it also has its drawbacks, one of them being the difficult knowledge transfer between different generations. In 2004, the first steps towards the EPSA Alumni Project were made and the Alumni continue to be a great source of background information and advice to this day. Nevertheless, the need to have a better overview of the history and development of specific EPSA projects and issues encountered with them arose as it is hard to investigate a specific project if you do not know it ever existed. The idea to create Compendium annexes was thus born – the Compendium and the Important Decisions Document would not be unnecessarily extended and made difficult to read while at the same time, documents explaining the development, unsuccessful ideas and the reasoning behind everything will exist for the incoming Team and LSs to study during their handover. Hopefully, this leads to better knowledge transfer and to learning from past mistakes to not continue to repeat the same investigations. Work on this started in the summer of 2019 and in November 2019 a Working Group was created for this purpose. Today, it consists of 28 members which are EPSA Alumni, current EPSA Team Members, LSs and EPSA members.

In addition to writing the history of EPSA events, activities, membership, accomplishment and issues, the Working Group is updating the EPSA Archives and will prepare some advice for future EPSA generations. For more information on what work in the group is like and the history of EPSA itself, visit the EPSA Blog follow the EPSA Social Media, subscribe to the Monthly Dose and as soon as possible again, come meet the other EPSA members and Alumni at EPSA Events! We are counting on you to continue to make EPSA grow in the future as EPSA is its members and always has been, so what are you waiting for?

Just some example of EPSA projects’ development through the years:

www.epsa-online.org | @EPSA_Online

Internal Affairs

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Did you know?

1. The alternative name to EPSA was EPSO, the European Pharmaceutical Students’ Organisation!

2. EPSA represents pharmaceutical and not only pharmacy students!

3. Before the Support Fund, EPSA had the East European Fund to help countries from Eastern Europe integrate in the Association!

4. Do you know ŠSSFD Slovenia’s green snake Edi? Go to the EPSA website and you will see it under the EPSA history tab! Its name Edi comes from the EPSA Editorial Board and how it got into Slovenian hands is a long story, disputed by many!

5. The first Summer University was a joint EPSA and EDSA event!

6. EPSA is one of the founding members of WorldMaPs, the predecessor to the current WHSS, and EHSAS, the European Healthcare Students’ Associations Summit!

7. Croatians used to organise the EPSA Sailing Cup which while never an official EPSA event, was supported by EPSA! 8. EPSA used to have its own project based on the couch surfing concept – the EPSA Voyage!

9. The first EPSA Newsletter was only 2 pages long!

10. EPSA Events have been organised in 26 different countries so far with the most of them, six Annual Congresses, being organised in France. Hot on their heels are Croatia, Portugal, Slovenia and the Netherlands, each with 5 different EPSA Events! The most Annual Congresses have obviously been organised in France, the most Autumn Assemblies in Czechia and the most Summer Universities in Macedonia.

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Internal Affairs

European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

Who are EPSA Alumni? - Meet Rúben and Eva Dear reader, If you have already attended an EPSA event then you know at least one EPSA Alumni, if you are still to experience that I am completely sure you will join that club. It is a great pleasure to be the person coordinating them and make sure they stay up to date with EPSA’s work and being connected through various platforms and Alumni Weekends. They are an incredible group of people who used to be a part of EPSA, may be as part of the EPSA Team, Trainers, Liaison Secretaries or National IMP Coordinators.

I am proud to say I have worked alongside both Alumni you are going to meet in this edition of the Newsletter for many years - and will soon join them in the EPSA Alumni World. Let’s see what they did in the past years and how EPSA has helped them to be where they are today!

Nejc Klopčič Alumni Coordinator 2019/2020

Dear all, my name is Rúben Viegas and my first contact with EPSA was through a tough (and the best ever) decision to go alone to Toulouse in 2015 and join the Annual Congress. From this mind blowing event I got interested in soft skills so my next step was to become a soft skills trainer and join the EPSA Trainers Board.

As this was a very nice experience I took a chance and ran for the EPSA Team as Public Health and Social Services Coordinator and then as Alumni Coordinator. In my last year I also had the chance to be in Brussels as an EPSA intern for AESGP.

My experiences allowed me to improve a lot of different things in my life: I can now manage better different projects due to the campaigns and sessions I delivered and I was able to improve my management of people as a learning experience from managing different groups such as the EPSA Alumni. I also find it surprisingly easier to talk to different people, even among professionals. This helped me get contacts for different job and research opportunities in Portugal and around Europe. I am currently working in a community pharmacy near Barcelona and I embraced the challenge of moving to a country with a different language and move out of my comfort zone.

We should not forget that there are many friends around Europe waiting for a chance to meet and have a drink together. They are a nice way to see how things are happening in different countries and a nice spearhead in different working fields if you have any questions.

My take home message is: don’t be afraid to engage in the best experiences of your student (and recent graduate) years. It is worth everything you invest!

Rúben Viegas EPSA Alumni

www.epsa-online.org | @EPSA_Online

Internal Affairs

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My EPSA journey started in my 3rd year of studies. I had been aware of the EPSA Events and most other activities prior to that already but I had been focused on my studies. One of my friends convinced me to run for the LS position.

Since attending my first EPSA Event, the 10th Autumn Assembly in 2013, I have not missed any EPSA Congress. There was just something that pulled me into the atmosphere, the sharing of knowledge, the ability to develop and practice different skills, the travelling and, ultimately, the people who I am still able to call my close friends.

As LS, I was very quiet and engaged way less than I should have but I still saw the potential in EPSA and continued my path which lead me to become the Science Coordinator 2015/2016, Secretary General 2016/2017, Vice President of Education 2017/2018, President 2018/2019 and Immediate Past President 2019/2020, and at the moment I am leading the Knowledge Transfer Working Group which is organising the EPSA Archives and exploring the EPSA history.

Through EPSA I gained more than I could possibly put into words, knowledge and skills but also self-awareness and confidence in my abilities as well as being able to accept and work on my limitations. EPSA is a life changing experience if you let it become one. It can be hard (but by no means impossible) to combine the EPSA work with studies but ultimately, it will be undeniably worth it!

I am looking forward to helping guide the EPSA members in the future, through the Mentoring Project or the many other EPSA activities. Together, we can do so much more, not just for the European pharmaceutical students but for pharmacy and healthcare in general!

Eva Shannon Schiffrer EPSA Alumni

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Education

European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

Methodology Booklet - The Past, The Present, The Future Being Educational Affairs Coordinator means being an advocate for lifelong learning and professional development, by providing European pharmaceutical students with the opportunity to expand their knowledge through a series of webinars, public health campaigns and articles dedicated to innovation in pharmacy. However, I would really like you, the reader, to focus and reflect on your own perception and understanding of the word - pharmacy. I did the same thing with myself. As I was reminiscing on my student days, up until the point of acquiring my MPharm degree, I realised how my understanding of the word pharmacy evolved, mostly because pharmacy as a discipline is continuously developing and is often called the profession of lifelong learning.

On Wikipedia, pharmacy is defined as the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, and reviewing drugs, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of drugs. It is a miscellaneous science as it links health sciences with pharmaceutical sciences and natural sciences. While showcasing versatility and juggling between health sciences, natural sciences and, in my understanding, social sciences - it has taken, historically, a lot of time to obtain the essence of pharmacy, as a profession.

Why is this important?

Well, what I want to point out in the aforementioned is that without numerous scientific experiments, trials and errors, technological advancements, our society would not have the opportunity to use antibiotics, apply topical treatments nor to find out the benefits of cell and gene therapy, and to make things more exciting - it is still unknown what the future might hold from novel APIs, drug delivery systems or pharmaceutical formulations. Therefore, as pharmacists of tomorrow, it is fundamental for us to be updated with the current and ongoing trends within the pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences.

Recognising the importance of this matter, EPSA initiated a project to assist Higher Education and Policy Makers in evolving and improving the European pharmaceutical education, while addressing the ever-growing development of the life science sector Methodology Booklet.

The Methodology Booklet has the objective of collecting pharmaceutical students’ and recent graduates’ opinion on teaching methodologies across Europe. Since education is continuously developing, we, as EPSA, wish for high-quality knowledge, because we are eager to become competent healthcare professionals. Aiming for equality of our curricula in Europe would result in a balanced education and identical competences among all European pharmacists. We believe it is important to strive to achieve this through a collaborative approach to the continuous development of education with educators. However, this initiative of EPSA is supported

by EAFP - European Association for Faculties of Pharmacy, which in the words of EAFP’s President Lilian M. Azzopardi serves as a starting point for a reflective process by academics who are leading processes of updating an effective and sustainable pharmacy education process.

Being released in October 2018, based on the opinions of 1478 European pharmaceutical students and recent graduates in 31 European countries, this advocacy tool has provided significant outcomes on which EPSA intends to further investigate through Methodology Booklet Annexes. In the upcoming 5-year-period, EPSA will release a total of four Annexes on the following topics: • 1st Methodology Booklet Annexe 1: Soft Skills • 1st Methodology Booklet Annexe 2: Teaching Methodologies Techniques • 1st Methodology Booklet Annexe 3: Unification of Curricula in Europe • 1st Methodology Booklet Annexe 4: Mandatory Internships Our current mission is to release our first Annexe, dedicated to the inclusion of Soft Skills in the pharmaceutical curricula, in June 2020. From a pharmaceutical perspective, every patient requires a different approach, and learning how to approach different people is crucial during studies. Through soft skills, students have the chance to develop practical competencies and different kinds of skills that would ease the communication with patients, raise self-awareness and boost self-confidence. Students do not learn how to get motivated, or to talk to a large number of people, or to deal with certain situations. In short, they do not learn how to use their knowledge and potential optimally.

It is the mission of EPSA is to bring pharmacy, knowledge and students together, and with the Methodology Booklet to - Do something today that your future generations will thank you for!

Stefan Grgić Educational Affairs Coordinator 2019/2020

www.epsa-online.org | @EPSA_Online

Education

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Education

European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

EPSA Students’ Science Publication EPSA is constantly working on showing students the vast options they have when deciding about their future professional path with different projects and activities. And one of such projects is EPSA Students’ Scientific Publication, a part of the EPSA educational portfolio and is focused on raising the knowledge and competence of European pharmaceutical students in writing research abstracts for scientific projects done by them.

You see a well-written abstract of the scientific article is crucial for its reception among the scientists as it is usually the first thing they read when they are deciding if they should invest time in reading it further. And every aspiring scientist should know how to write a good abstract as it is part of the basic skill set.

Each submitted abstract for ESSP is evaluated by professionals from the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the students are provided with feedback on how to make their abstracts better. This is an invaluable lesson for any student who is interested in pursuing a scientific career. On top of that, the best abstracts are published in ESSP where all the EPSA Members can see them.

If you are interested in ESSP, read testimonials of two students whose abstracts were published in the first and second edition of ESSP Volume 7.

Josef Kunrt Science Coordinator 2019/2020

My literature based research focuses on the formulation of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), investigating the effects of different excipients. The findings were used to account for the safety and efficacy of Tocilizumab, a mAb commonly used in Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Since my first year in university, I have tremendously enjoyed my lectures on pharmaceutics. I enjoy reading articles on different aspects such as manufacturing, industrial practices and clinical trials. As such, working on a topic relevant to pharmaceutics for my dissertation felt natural. Most of the challenges that I faced took place in the initial stages of the project where I had to start building my knowledge of biopharmaceuticals. I had a limited introduction to it, which made me realise that I had to do extensive pre-reading. With little prior understanding, I found it a little challenging to grasp the main concepts and was initially more confused with each study I endeavoured to read.

I then approached my supervisor, who helped me break down the daunting concepts into ideas that I could comprehend and work on. Even though my dissertation was literature-based, with the help and guidance of my supervisor, over the past few months, I have been able to expand the scope by incorporating experimental data into my project. This has made it more holistic by having both literature findings, and data that contribute to the existing knowledge pool.

Subsequently, my work was selected for presentation at 2 different exhibitions, which are now potentially postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak. By participating in ESSP, I have gained a wealth of knowledge and have learnt many things that I was unfamiliar with before, such as constructing an abstract for publication. ESSP has definitely been a great stepping stone for me in my research journey. It has given me a much-needed confidence boost and has made me understand that with the right tools and support, research is much more approachable.

To all future ESSP participants, my advice would be to just go for it. Yes, it will seem daunting and impossible initially and many times, you will question your capabilities. This is how I felt when I started as well. Also, acknowledge any obstacles you face in the early stages and tackle them head-on. Be willing to ask for help. It is better to eliminate any doubts as soon as they arise as otherwise, they can progress into larger hurdles. The opportunity to be able to contribute to existing knowledge is indeed satisfying and worthwhile. Always give your 100% and go for it and who knows, you might end up surprising yourself, just like I did!

Yamunna Narayanan The Sunderland Pharmacy School, University of Sunderland, United Kingdom

www.epsa-online.org | @EPSA_Online

Education

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My name is Manca and I am currently a first-year student of laboratory biomedicine masters degree program at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Pharmacy.

Late last year I decided to submit an abstract, of the research work I did for my bachelor’s thesis, to ESSP (EPSA Students’ Science Publication). In the words of my mentor, “All students should aim, at least once during their study period, to try writing an article containing their work.” So, joining ESSP seemed like an excellent practice for writing scientific articles as it is an international platform where you can show your work, get technical corrections and possibly some peer recognition.

The aim of my bachelor’s thesis study was to evaluate the influence of several parameters, such as the performance of emulsifiers and the influence of their HLB values, on the stability of produced emulsions. We also monitored the size of the droplets in various fractions of oil and water phase and various concentrations of emulsifiers, as well as the influence of viscosity of prepared emulsions on their stability.

This research work is important to me, as we have in the preparation for our original experiment encountered the obstacle of actually preparing the exact emulsion we wanted. Initially, none of the prepared emulsions was stable for more than a few hours, but nowhere in the literature have we found the exact recipes for the preparation of the emulsion that we wanted to prepare ourselves. Therefore, we began to monitor the potential effects on stability so that we could easily determine the parameters that have the most impact and how best to prepare the desired emulsion.

The biggest challenge of the initial research process was that certain theoretical knowledge I had, did not fully match the conclusions of our experiment. That is why we decided to monitor a larger number of parameters since some did not have as strong an effect on stability as expected.

So, during my research, I also learned that, in addition to theoretical knowledge, the practical use of this knowledge and research is also important. In addition, my advice to other students embarking on a journey of research is not to give up when things don’t go as planned, but follow them as you can come to new unexpected, possibly even better conclusions.

Manca Černila Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

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Education

European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

EPSA Purple Week Purple week or Cancer Awareness week happened between the 10th and 17th of February. Various topics were discussed which included external factors and cancer, revolutionary therapies, an educational chronicle for the topic, roles of pharmacists in cancer, colon cancer and pictures of members with fruits and vegetables.

The reason we chose to involve members in taking pictures with fruits and vegetables was to promote prevention of cancer. Both vegetables and fruits contain antioxidants which help your cells in battling harmful substances.

Also, via this way, we promote a healthy lifestyle. Healthy lifestyle plays a role in preventing cancer. Also, other external factors come to play such as the environment, pathogens, disease and radiation.

Role of pharmacists in cancer treatment was a way to familiarize the students with possibilities on how pharmacists can help patients diagnosed with cancer.

It was mapped that this is possible in providing treatment, research or helping medicines reach the market in a safe way. It was shown that pharmacists can play a vital role for cancer patients.

We hoped that we could familiarize our students with the topic of cancer.

We hope that we could spread a message such as #PreventAvoidCure or #AVeggieEachDayKeepstheOncologistAway.

Michael Vranken Public Health and Social Services Coordinator 2019/2020

www.epsa-online.org | @EPSA_Online

Education

Meds Disposal During the Annual Reception, the topic of Pharmaceuticals in the Environment (PiE) was discussed. As a joint Public Health and Social Service, students were familiarized with the topic by being asked to bring expired medicines and also with some messages.

The participants were asked to bring expired medicines in order to promote proper disposal of medicines. Pharmaceuticals can end up in the environment in various ways and proper disposal of medicines can prevent this. In Brussels, you can bring your expired medicines to the pharmacy where they will be collected and destroyed. Thus, participants were doing what they can to prevent pharmaceuticals from entering the environment in this way and thus doing #TheirSliceofthePiE. After the collection, the Public Health and Social Services Coordinator went to the pharmacy to dispose of the medicines.

Messages on Pharmaceuticals in the Environment were also introduced to participants and the LS’s to familiarize them with the topic.

Michael Vranken Public Health and Social Services Coordinator 2019/2020

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European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

Meet the Trainers’ Board The Trainers’ Board is part of the Training Project and manages the pool of EPSA Trainers. Three members of the Board focus on Communication and Mentoring, Training events and Capacity building. Their roles differ one from another but the main goal is to help the Training Coordinator with the Training Project. This year’s Trainers’ Board consisted of Piotr Skiba as the Events Member, Ebru Kuruldak as the Communications and Mentoring Member and Adam Majcher as the Internal Capacity Building Member.

Hello, I am Ebru Kuruldak, a part of the Cmoon Generation of EPSA Trainers. I have become a trainer in 13th TNT Lisbon, in December 2018. For the 19-20 mandate, I am the Communications and Mentoring Member of the Trainers’ Board. Before applying to this position, my motivation was being a supporter of people who beautifully changed my whole life. Also, my reason for choosing this position especially that I believe communication in the pool is essential for continuity. My position is taking care of three main tasks for this mandate; Mentoring Project within EPSA Training Project, the Library of EPSA Training Project, minuting of EPSA Trainers’ Board meetings. Through these tasks, I have gained experience in lots of things within a more professional organization than my local association. As a trainer and also a pharmacist working in a pharmaceutical company, I have already known what it meant to teamwork’s basics. But in the Trainers’ Board, you have the chance to go deep in discussions and share your opinions and shape something together. You see how something can change and also change takes time. So, you learn how to be patient enough. One of the biggest learning outcomes until this time in my mandate that working for something bigger than you creates a kind of steady motivation. Also, we are working like an “always home office” business. Thus, you are learning a different way of working. But the most beautiful thing about being a member of the Trainers’ Board; you can find a new thing to learn each day, it is like an open book.

If you need to learn more or have any questions, please do not hesitate to poke me: tb.communications@epsaonline.org.

Ebru Kuruldak Communications and Mentoring Member

www.epsa-online.org | @EPSA_Online

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Being in the EPSA Trainers’ Board is a wonderful opportunity to be a bigger part of the EPSA Training Project. It not only allows them to contribute even more to the EPSA Trainers community but also engage with all the EPSA Members on a deeper level. As the Training Events Member, I am responsible for helping the Training Coordinator with projects such as the EPSA Training Week - which happened recently at the beginning of March and aims to bring the EPSA Training Project closer to everyone around. Also, the EPSA Trainers on Tour, which normally takes place between April and May. It is a project during which Trainers travel to EPSA Member Associations’ countries, and deliver training sessions wherever needed. One of the main tasks is also helping with planning and maintaining the Soft Skills Training part of the Educational Programme during EPSA events - Autumn Assembly, Annual Congress and Summer University. As the EPSA Trainers’ Board member, so far I have had the pleasure of working on such occasions closely with the EPSA Vice President of Education and EPSA Training Coordinator during the EPSA Autumn Assembly in Porec, Croatia. The Trainers’ Board is constantly coming up with new ideas for developing the Training Project and making it more and more impactful for the EPSA Members. It is a challenging, yet very exciting thing to do.

Piotr Skiba Events Member

Adam Majcher Trainers Board’s Internal Capacity Member

I am an EPSA Trainer Striving to gain as much experience and knowledge as possible. My trainer path started in July 2017 in Reims, France where I graduated as the 11th generation of EPSA trainers. From the very beginning of my career, I was very passionate about all that EPSA Training project has to offer.

Therefore, from the very beginning, I have been engaging in almost every opportunity of training delivery provided by EPSA TP. Opportunities like ToT, AC, AA, TW, Local events and so on...

However, after some time I felt the urge to give back something to the EPSA TP. The project that enabled me to learn so much and find myself in the area of soft skills. Therefore, I have decided to go for the EPSA Trainers board.

So far, I have served a mandate as Events Member 2018/2019, where I had the opportunity to help in creating trainings as part of the educational programs of EPSA AA and AC. Subsequently, we achieved to organise two amazing ToT events! TB also started engaging more in educational activities and social media for our trainers.

Currently, I hold a mandate of Internal Capacity member 2019/2020 putting my focus more on building an internal educational environment for the trainers of EPSA TP. Being a part of the EPSA Trainers Board is an exceptional opportunity to bring something back and help the EPSA Training Project grow. I would like to encourage everyone considering it to take courage and apply for next year.

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European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

Train the Trainers 2020 This year’s Train the Trainers was happened in collaboration with BEST (Board of European Students of Technology). The event is meant for trainers to further develop their skills and share knowledge with each other. The event was held in Brussels the weekend from the 6th to the 8th of March and this year we had all together 23 Trainers there. And here are some of their experiences of the event.

Train the Trainers was an unforgettable event that gave us the chance to develop our skills and to connect with other trainers from EPSA and BEST. And that was for sure what I wanted to experience. This was my first EPSA TtT and what I expected was to get a ton of inspiration. And I wasn’t disappointed, I came back motivated and filled with positive energy. The focus of the event was put on adult learning and advance skills that trainers need to pass the knowledge. We had an opportunity to practice for example an innovative approach to design, learn about empowering learners or discuss why trainers train and learners learn.

I also had a chance to deliver a session about advance training design, which was a unique and challenging experience, considering the advanced audience.

But it was not only about learning. Except for the skills that I gained from trainings it was also a great opportunity to share opinions and experience with trainers from different generations and organizations. I believe that the collaboration and bond that we created will remain for long and allow us to learn from each other in the future.

Marianna Gajda EPSA Trainer First EPSA Train the Trainers I have ever experienced took place back in March 2020. That is right, my first try was the TtT in collaboration with BEST. Hopeful for a huge portion of knowledge I traveled to Brussels to meet with my best EPSA buddies and new buddies from BEST. Unluckily some people couldn’t join eventually but the event was from my point of view a big success nevertheless. With the focus on adult learning, we prepared for a weekend of mutual growth. This TtT was a big challenge for me also because of a training delivery with one of my dear friends - Katja Olenik. The topic of “Innovative approaches to training” was quite demanding to deliver for participants, who saw way more than we have.

I’m taking home refined motivation to keep on improving and keep on learning, as well as a handful of inspiration from the crew that made this wonderful weekend possible. Hoping to see more cooperation between EPSA and BEST To all non-trainers out there: ”Go for Training New Trainers, it’s going to change your life!” and to my fellow trainers: “Go for TtT, it’s an amazing experience!”

David Brychta EPSA Trainer

www.epsa-online.org | @EPSA_Online

Education

My name is Beatriz Nobre and I’ve been a trainer for a year and half. I wanted to attend the TtT to acquire new knowledge and ways to innovate my future training sessions. What I didn’t expect was to find myself in a place with so many different people with so much experiences and knowledge to share! It was a mind-opener and a game-changer to my abilities as a trainer and made me realize sometimes what you are looking for, as a trainer, has been under your nose the whole time and in other trainers’ experience. Another pleasant surprise was to meet another family of trainers from BEST. It was absolutely rewarding to have bonded, and so far kept in touch, with so many people that share the same values as you and are always available to share their experience and provide help in any situation! As it was my first TtT experience, I couldn’t have asked for better.

Events that include external partners such as TtT carry a great opportunity to our Trainer community. This year our TtT partner was BEST(Board of European Students of Technology). The most magnificent part was seeing that we have a fundamental, main goal in our Training Projects. Because we, as pharmacy students/pharmacists, have very different job descriptions from them. We have seen very clearly that even though these occupational differences, we need some essential, social skills; soft skills. This encouraged me very much to spread what I have learned in the EPSA Training Project much more. Also, during the TtT, we tried to understand each other’s Training Projects and general structures. I believe that we have inspired each other, both on organizational and personal levels. We have learned from our experiences, shared our thoughts, ideas, feelings with each other and talked about possible future collaborations.

Overall, TtT’20 was a very fruitful event for our Trainers pool.

Ebru Kuruldak EPSA Trainer

Beatriz Nobre EPSA Trainer

There are several stages to conquer on one’s trainer’s path.

There’s delivering for a general audience, for a target group, for advanced participants … and then there’s delivering for trainers :D And, though the intellectual demands might be much bigger with the latter, so is the space for creativity, innovation, and play.

This year’s Train the Trainer allowed us to create an engaging space for experimentation and exchange of knowledge and skills. Our friends from BEST opened our eyes to different perspectives on non formal education and new approaches to training and we, from EPSA, happily reciprocated.

We left, what was for most of us our first and last spring training event, with strengthened networks and newly found interest that we’re now putting into good use in this corona canceled spring.

Katja Olenik EPSA Trainer

The journey of an EPSA Trainer includes attending many inspiring events. Aside from being a part of the main EPSA projects like the Autumn Assembly, Annual Congress, Summer University and Annual Reception, there are also training events. One of them is the EPSA Train the Trainers. This year it was organised in collaboration with the Board of European Students of Technology (BEST), so it could be called EPSA-BEST Train the Trainers. It was indeed one of the BEST experiences a trainer could have. We spent a lovely 3 days in Brussels, Belgium. On each one of them, we had countless opportunities to exchange our training knowledge and all the differences, and similarities between our Training Projects. The second day was full of unique training sessions delivered by trainers from both associations. All the participants had a chance to broaden their perspectives on soft skills and later discuss all the learning outcomes with others. This year’s Train the Trainers, just like the previous editions, was one of the most important points in the development of a soft skills trainer. Lessons learned there will remain with us for a long time. Also, because it was organised with an external association, it opened up many possible ways of future collaboration.

Piotr Skiba EPSA Trainer

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European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

COVID-19 - We are all in this together Employing science to combat the COVID-19 pandemics When the previously unknown coronavirus was first identified in December 2019 in the Chinese city of Wuhan politicians and public health professionals, as well as public, hoped that the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, as the virus was later named, will be contained inside the country of origin especially given the measures the Chinese government have employed and the rest of the world will experience only handful of isolated cases. But the scientists from around the world immediately started to study the virus to understand its properties, behaviour in the human body and to determine if it is dangerous. The genome was sequenced for the first time during December 2019, which was the much-needed starting point for many subsequent science publications. The response of scientists around the world was remarkable.

When the outbreak spilt over to other parts of the world and mainly Europe we could see a boom in the number of articles and other publications focused on understanding COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2. The determination of scientists intensified as the threat of the world pandemics seemed inevitable. We could see studies being published as pre-prints (articles that have not passed the peerreview process), short correspondence articles and opinion statements from researchers from many institutions. On top of that, a lot of tabloid-like articles appeared along with conspiracy theories and fake news articles. It started to be harder and harder to keep up with all news and sieve through myriads of articles to find verified and reliable sources especially for the lay public.

That is the reason why as a part of COVID-19 campaign done by EPSA, we have decided to start an information hub with the latest news covering the outbreak. The main aim of this project was to establish a way to provide students with the latest articles from sources that can be trusted. The choice of the platform where such a hub should be published was obvious. The EPSA Science Blog was the perfect place to put such an initiative because it was already established as a platform which covered scientific topics within the EPSA Educational Portfolio and was easily accessible by the European pharmacy students.

We have focused on bringing the most important news from reliable sources such as the European Medicine Agency and World Health Organization, as well as established scientific journals including Nature, The Lancet and Scientific American. We worked tirelessly especially at the beginning of the outbreak in Europe updatĂ­ng the Science Blog as often as possible to be sure that pharmacy students will have the latest news. We believe that being informed is extremely important in such uncertain times as we are living currently in. With bringing the knowledge to students we hoped that we will give them enough arguments backed up by science to combat the spreading wave of misinformation that could be seen on social media as well as some online news websites. The work on the information hub is not yet done. The site is regularly updated with the latest scientific findings on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2.

We sincerely hope that you appreciate the work done so far and use the information hub to keep yourself informed and follow the fresh news.

Stay safe, stay home and help us to spread the knowledge among your relatives and your community. As you probably know, knowledge is an important tool to combat uncertainty and possible misinformation.

Josef Kunrt Science Coordinator 2019/2020

www.epsa-online.org | @EPSA_Online

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Public Health Initiatives To respond to the COVID-19 outbreak and raise awareness of importance to respect protective measures, EPSA launched the Public Health Campaign on COVID-19. For one month, EPSA prepared and shared its own infographics and informational materials on COVID-19 as well as re-posted infographics made by other professional organisations like WHO and OECD. The national associations of EPSA contributed to this campaign as well.

ANEPF reported that in France, students were producing hydroalcoholic solutions to tackle shortages of these materials with the help of professors and faculty staff. French students were also involved in volunteering. ANEPF furthermore did a large communication campaign and communicated measures from officials to the students.

NAPSer Serbia did an online public health campaign on COVID-19 to spread the right information together with their local associations. They shared suggestions for movies, TV shows, books, webinars, etc. to help students cope with the quarantaine life and reduce anxiety. They also shared a volunteer campaign PharmAkt COVID-19 where students volunteered to help elderly people with their medication and everyday lives.

APEF Portugal did an online Public Health campaign on COVID-19 with the national Directorate-general of health on promoting relevant information by spreading images. They also dedicated World Health Day to share testimonials on how healthcare professionals are handling the COVID-19 pandemic. ŠSSDD Slovenia looked for opportunities to support community pharmacies in spreading the right information. They shared reallife stories from a patient infected with SARS-COV-2 and a community pharmacist to promote the measures. ŠSSFD established Farmakrog, a volunteering platform for community pharmacies where students can help out. Furthermore, they did an online campaign which they called interACTION to tackle the spread of misinformation.

AFÖP Austria promoted local aid organizations and who to contact if anyone has symptoms of COVID-19, and supported a volunteering project “Pharmacy students help pharmacies all across Austria” where students can help out in pharmacies.

HuPSA Hungary promoted webinars organized by FIP and shared materials of WHO. They stimulated students to stay at home and use their time usefully. They organised a webinar about maintaining motivation amidst the pandemic and they plan to do more webinars. They also promoted a volunteering program together with the Hungarian Chamber of Pharmacists to help community pharmacies FASFR Romania started the infographic series “We fight panic with accurate information and prevention!” which contains health advice for the general public: symptoms, spread, ways on how to protect each other from infection. FASFR worked together on this project with Medical and Dental students organizations as well as other students associations to create a bigger impact.

SPSA Slovakia started “Pharmacy Students Help Pharmacies” in cooperation with the Association of Pharmacy Students in Kosice and the Slovak chamber of Pharmacists to help pharmacists out with the preparation of individually prepared medicines, dispensation or takeover of goods. They also created an interactive map of pharmacies and students engaged in the initiative.

CPSA Croatia organized three online Public Health Campaigns. They organized a quiz on different aspects of COVID-19. CPSA promoted a healthy lifestyle via an Instagram promotion where they stimulated people to take care of their body during quarantine time by sharing workouts. Furthermore, CPSA did also a quiz on Instagram to promote general knowledge of CPSA as a students organization.

Michael Vranken Public Health and Social Services Coordinator 2019/2020

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European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

Online EPSA Soft Skills Trainings To respond to the COVID-19 outbreak and raise awareness of importance to respect protective measures, EPSA launched the Public With the COVID-19 outbreak and the emergency efforts locking us into our homes, many of the events got cancelled, including this year’s EPSA Trainers Week.

With the general lockdown starting only a few days before, the current situation caused a lot of trainings to be cancelled and meant that many students didn’t get to participate in these opportunities. Considering most students are staying at home, we wanted to provide an alternative to the usual way we spend our evenings. With the additional time we suddenly had in our hands, we didn’t want to let an opportunity like this go to waste. We brainstormed and strongly focused on one of EPSA Training Project’s prime missions: to bring soft skills training closer to our students.

With that in mind, EPSA Online Training Weeks were born! To make the event more interesting and of added value for both Trainers and participants, we invited BEST Trainers to co-deliver with EPSA Trainers, in continuation of the dynamic created at this year’s TtT (Train the Trainers event).

During three weeks, we witnessed how EPSA Trainers and BEST Trainers prepared and delivered online training sessions that all students could attend directly from their homes. Starting on the 13th of April and seeing the last one on the 1st of May, 17 different trainings took place, being delivered by 23 Trainers. The topics ranged from time management, procrastination, online team building, critical thinking, creativity, positivity, personal branding and many more.

With more than 500 received applications, the event sparked a very big interest amongst our students and from all the emails we received it was greatly appreciated.

We sincerely hope this opportunity gave students a way to work on themselves, further develop their interpersonal skills and bring soft skills closer to their heart and interest. And ultimately, to have at least for a bit their minds put off the quarantine.

Ana Ivanuša Training Coordinator 2019\2020

Check this new opportunity

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External Relations

European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

Career Week - Drug development from zero to hero The EPSA Career Week (CW) aims at educating students about career possibilities that they are able to pursue after completing a pharmacy degree. Through a whole week, with an approach focused on the easiest accessible channel of communication - social media - we organize various career-focused workshops and release interesting publications, in order to familiarize our members with the procedures that they may face once applying for a job and give them guidance to present themselves in the best way possible.

This year, Career Week aimed to bring closer to the students the topic of Drug Development. Therefore, we took each stage of drug development one by one and had a closer look to the actual impact pharmacists can have working in different roles. Of course, showcasing such a big variety of fields required a very vast collaboration with our partners and alumni, who once again amazed us with their passion and dedication when it comes to playing an active role at students’ level and bringing knowledge and career guidance closer to students, through various channels such as articles, online activities, infographic content or interviews.

Drug Design is the first stage of Drug Development and plays a pivotal role in deciding, based on multiple digital software analyses, how a certain molecule may bind to different receptors, thus showcasing its potential in vitro and in vivo activity. Hence, our students had the chance to read, on Science Blog, an article which focuses on multiple aspects of in silico studies which a future healthcare professional may want to know in order to better understand today’s Drug Design technology and the role a pharmacist can have in the digital projection of potential high activity molecules.

For the second stage of Drug Development, we decided to emphasize on Drug Formulation. For this matter, we interviewed EPSA Alumnus, Clement Haek, who showed unlimited passion for his profession and for the process of educating students and agreed to share with us some insights of his career, which revolves heavily around Drug Formulation. The interview can be found on the EPSA Blog.

Clinical Trials indicated the third stage of Drug Development and were tackled in a more creative way. On Friday, we prepared a couple of interactive infographics which our students were invited to read in order to familiarize with clinical trials and assess their potential willingness to follow a career in this area.

For the Post Marketing Studies, the fourth stage of Drug Development, we decided to go big and release a new section on our Career Page, a platform whose goal is to provide students with valuable information about different career paths they can follow after graduation. Based on this, the Pharmacovigilance section was released, in order to familiarise the students with the core tasks and skills which a healthcare professional working in this field is recommended to have, alongside with many other valuable pieces of information.

www.epsa-online.org | @EPSA_Online

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The last day of Career Week was dedicated to the topic of Pharmaceuticals in the Environment, which was also the main focal point of the EPSA Annual Reception. Our goal for Sunday was to analyze the sustainability of today’s Drug Development Process and decide how environmentally friendly it is and what we can do to change that. For this particular occasion, we decided to collaborate with SUDDEN (Sustainable Drug Discovery and Development with End-of-Life Yield), a research project that aims at reducing the environmental hazards related to the life cycle of pharmaceuticals. A couple of questions on this matter were addressed to SUDDEN and the answers were published, under the form of an interview, on EPSA Blog.

On a different note, I believe the cherry on top of this whole week must have been the 2 complementary online activities organised on Tuesday and Thursday.

On Tuesday, we decided to deviate a little from the topic of Drug Development and take a closer look at the very broad field of Quality.

Assurance, our students were able to attend a Chat with Professionals, where a very dedicated alumnus working as a Responsible Person Deputy had a very interesting and insightful talk about Quality Assurance in the Pharmaceutical Industry and showed positive spirit and desire to help our students by offering to stay for 2 hours to answer to all the questions.

On Thursday, we had the chance to listen to Madalina Gulerez, EPSA Alumnus, who is working as a consultant recruiter and who entertained the idea of guiding our students towards acquiring the proper skills needed to build a strong job application and manage to sell themselves to the maximum of their capabilities in front of their future employer.

All in all, we hope you managed to catch up with all our activities and this project successfully managed to provide you with some tools which will, in the end, help you increase your chances of getting access to a competitive pharmaceutical job market.

Ciprian Alexandru Chiriță Professional Affairs Coordinator 2019/2020

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European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

IMP Days For the very first time, the IMP Coordination Board and the EPSA Public Relations department organised IMP days from the 6th-10th of April.

The aim was to promote IMP among our members and to make them aware of the many opportunities EPSA’s flagship project has to offer.

We engaged with our members (and partners) in many different ways ~ through 6 articles on the EPSA blog, testimonials from NIMPs, a previous IMP intern, and our partner at PrimeVigilance, IMP quiz and what was the highlight of the event: IMP webinar with Boštjan Čeh, EPSA HLM since 2009 and IMP founder, Elena Popa, former EPSA Team Member and IMP intern at DIA, Switzerland and lastly our Central IMP Coordinator, Era Gruda.

Through the webinar, our members got to know about the history of IMP, what it’s like being an IMP intern and how you can work your way up from there, what current changes have been made through this mandate as well as they received many tips on CVs and job searching.

The webinar was a huge success and it reached the limit on Adobe Connect with a total of 100 attendees.

We hope to have started a new tradition that will only evolve and become better with each year.

Era Gruda CIMP 2019/2020

Testimonial from the Social Media and Promotion Strategies Action Group My name is Yao Wei, I am a Drug Science Master student at the University of Basel. My local association is the Swiss Pharmacy Students Association (asep). I have been a NIMP coordinator since March of 2019. I would like to extend cordial thanks to IMP for my great work experience. Especially the CIMP divided the members into three different Action Groups, where we can focus on our specific field to promote the IMP work.

At Social Media (SoMe) and Promotion Strategies Action Group of IMP, our responsibility is the promotion of IMP placements and the promotion of IMP through different Social Media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. Since last November when we started the work, we have promoted the placements from Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies and Veeva Systems. Now we are happy to see more and more pharmaceutical students apply for their internship via IMP, more and more pharmaceutical companies show their interests for the project.

Social media is a powerful and effortless way to enhance our social connectivity. Regardless of who you are, where you are.

You can just click away on your phone or computer keyboard for a variety of information you need. It has become easier and easier for us to connect with families, friends and colleagues. We can also interact with people of authority who might help us in our careers.

During our work, we extensively searched for information, think about how to make Social Media posts of IMP placements more influential. We also communicate often within the group, every group member expresses their own ideas and discusses how to solve the existing problems, then we try to find a better way to let more and more people know about IMP via Social Media. IMP days were a great way for us to fulfil that purpose and we enjoyed immensely the organisation process but also the execution of IMP days.

While being part of the first AG, we also learn to think independently, be creative, do team-work well and push ourselves out of our comfort zone. We have gained a sense of accomplishment through our own efforts to make IMP better. The Social Media Action Group helps each of us reach our higher potential, let us be a better version of ourselves!

Yao Wei asep Switzerland

www.epsa-online.org | @EPSA_Online

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Testimonial from Professional Development of the NIMPs Action Group My name is Natnael and I am the NIMP of NoPSA, Norway. This is my second mandate in this position and my first execution of the IMP Days. I belong to the Professional Development of the NIMPs, Action Group (AG).

This AG consists of 6 NIMPs from different places in Europe. We have NIMPs all the way from Turkey to the UK. As the name suggests, we are responsible for the development of NIMPs in a professional way. This includes digital and/or live activities such as hangouts, webinars, workshops, and trainings.

There is no hiding behind that one might view pharmaceutical companies to be difficult to communicate with. Even more so with the lack of “soft skills”. Our responsibility is to pick out relevant topics and provide them to our fellow NIMPs through organized training sessions. I have specifically chosen this AG as I wish to supply other NIMPs and myself, the necessary tools for closing a deal for an IMP placement.

As far as how the IMP Days went, I am extremely pleased with the embodiment. As an attendee to the webinar, I was being presented with different aspects of IMP that I was not aware of. It was interesting to get a perspective from the applier’s point of view and the experiences that the person gained through the path of choosing IMP. To say the least, there was no lack of fantastic presenters!

The IMP Days made me believe more in the project that we are participating in and motivates me to apply for a placement once I am finished with my studies here in Norway. It was also a good way to showcase the NIMP position we have at our national association for future appliers. Thus, making more people attracted to EPSA and granting a chance to start their career with engaging in student-driven organizations - where only the sky’s the limit.

Natnael Tesema NoPSA Norway

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European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

Testimonial from IMP Acquisition Action Group Different Action Groups (AG) were established for the Individual Mobility Project (IMP) this year with the first IMP Days taking place in the second week of April 2020.

The Acquisition Action Group (AG3) is mainly focused on the promotion of the project both to students and potential partners.

Therefore, our missions are : • to produce separates template presentations, one aimed at students and another one aimed to professionals ; • to update leaflets for students and companies ; • to create reference documents for National IMP Coordinators (NIMPs) with recommendations on how to approach potential partners depending on their size, their field of work, etc. This include : • •

Short guidelines on how to prepare before events ; A document with examples of useful principles such as Golden Circle, Elevator Pitch…

We are working in close collaboration with the Central IMP Coordinator, Era, especially in regards to the IMP Days. Members of the AG3 got involved in this wide communication plan through their contribution to the different Social Media and EPSA Blog posts, we were also following its organization and, finally, we were in charge of spreading the information to students in our country.

This format is, in my opinion, a great opportunity to reach students that may not be especially involved in students’ associations.

Organising IMP Days are a great way to turn the spotlights on the project in addition to regular communication. I especially liked the fact that we were sharing different content during the IMP Days (Webinar, articles, infographics, feedback from students…).

It is also always really nice to work along with Era and other NIMPs on the project!

I think IMP deserved this kind of promotion as we can see from students’ feedback that it is a unique experience and I am convinced that it will keep getting better and diverse in the upcoming years.

Johan CHARLES ANEPF France.

www.epsa-online.org | @EPSA_Online

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European Dental Students’ Association The European Dental Students’ Association (EDSA) is the representative body for dental students across the European Region; we represent more than 70,000 students in 33 different countries, from Russia in the East to Portugal in the West.

Much like EPSA, we run General Meetings every year – last year we were in Kazan, Russia in April and in Berlin, Germany in August.

We also run visiting programmes (which we call EVPs) where students can experience life as a dental student abroad. Both of these are opportunities for students to see their dental studies through a different lens. Not as an individual trying to pass exams and qualify, but as part of a community that meets regularly, discusses shared challenges and enjoys a quiet drink before an early night.

Now we know that the thought of 70,000 students slowly learning how to drill and take out teeth is horrifying to some, but dentistry and oral health play a big role in national health systems. Oral diseases are some of the most common in Europe, with huge personal and economic consequences. Oral health is essential to general health and contrary to common public misconception, consists of much more than having healthy teeth. There is increasingly clear evidence on the bidirectional link between oral and general health, with poor oral health being associated with poorer outcomes for patients with diabetes, cardiovascular disease and dementia. The Lancet Series on Oral Health points out that oral health has been neglected globally and despite the mostly preventable impact of oral conditions on almost four billion people in the world, we are still facing deficiencies in oral health care and preventative services in all countries.

As such dentistry matters to health policy, and health policy matters to dentistry. That’s why in Kazan, the EDSA General Assembly voted to introduce a new position, Policy Officer, to our Executive Committee. EDSA has previously written a few policy papers, and we have contributed to the policy papers of the European Healthcare Student Associations Summit (EHSAS), a joint collaboration of EDSA, EPSA, EMSA (European Medical Students’ Association) and EFPSA (European Federation of Psychology Students Associations), but it was decided that as an organisation looking to represent students on a political level, we needed to have a dedicated role to this area.

EDSA believes that there are many pressing matters in oral healthcare that need to be addressed and students are a key factor in driving the change. At the moment, we have decided to focus our policy work on two subjects of pivotal interest in dentistry – sustainability and clinical education. These will be addressed in our detailed and comprehensive policy papers. We hope that the keymessages deriving from the publication will contribute to the improvement of students’ education and European citizens’ oral health.

Moreover, we will focus our policy work on responding to the EU health and global health agendas. At the European level there is a big focus on cancer care across the continent, which has obvious relevance for oral health, while environmental health and sustainability are also big areas of focus, therefore our work on sustainability comes at a pertinent time.

We believe that European healthcare students’ associations, by their policy work, are taking a step forward towards achieving the European community’s fullest health potential. Evidence shows that health is a complex policy area crossing social, economic and environmental sectors, which all should be considered. Hence, EU institutions, Member States, dentists, doctors, pharmacists, public health experts, educators, patient groups and students together with other relevant stakeholders should create a multi-sectorial framework to work together to deliver high-quality and equitable care in a sustainable way.

James Coughlan, EDSA Policy Officer Daniela Timuș, EDSA General Secretary

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External Relations

European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

EPSA Annual Reception 2020 EPSA Annual Reception 2020 “Pharmaceuticals in the environment – The role of pharmacists and other healthcare professionals” On the 3rd of March, the European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association (EPSA) organised EPSA Annual Reception 2020 “Pharmaceuticals in the Environment – The role of pharmacists and other healthcare professionals’’ in the Hotel Renaissance in Brussels, Belgium. The event was hosted by MEP Irena Joveva (Renew Europe, SI) and MEP Jutta Paulus (Greens/EFA, DE). In the first panel session, Cornelia Rudolph (Policy Officer for Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals, European Commission, DG Environment), Marilena-Silvia Lungu (Legal Officer for European Commission, DG Sante) and Bastiaan Venhuis (Senior Scientific Officer, Duch National Institute for Health and Environment (RIVM)) addressed EU policy actions on pharmaceuticals in the environment while in the second panel session, prof. dr. pharm. Kristien De Paepe (The European Association of Faculties of Pharmacy (EAFP)), adjunct prof.

Tiina Sikanen (Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki), Fredrik Bostrom (Chief Pharmacist, the Swedish Association of Pharmacies) and Luis Rhodes Baião (The Association of European Self-Care Industry, Inter-association Initiative Task Force on Pharmaceuticals in the Environment (IAI PIE TF)) shared their perspectives on the incorporation of environmental concerns in pharmaceutical curricula and presented current best practices.

MEP Irena Joveva mentioned that the aforementioned EPSA event is a possibility to address the obstacles students and professionals in various fields of health care face, as well as a great opportunity to share best practices among professionals which is enabled by the unique collaboration we have on our continent. She added that the path of a professional includes lifelong learning and continuous professional development, which is especially true for scientific fields with the new discoveries and developments on a daily basis, including on Pharmaceuticals in the Environment where more needs tobe done.

MEP Jutta Paulus addressed that according to her information communication skills, but also other soft skills that are needed to operate and deliver the scientific messages to the patient and public, are still lacking in the pharmaceutical curricula. There should be more training and education included in the studies of health care professionals, but also later in their professional path. Additionally, the topic of Pharmaceuticals in the Environment is also widely overlooked in the curricula, therefore, she encouraged pharmaceutical faculties around Europe to address this issue and offer education and training on it to students. She added that commitment and pledge of pharmaceutical students in Europe are visible and that where there is a will, there is also a way.

Over 110 European pharmaceutical students, healthcare professionals, stakeholders, and policy makers recognised that the integration of pharmaceuticals in the environment in education of not only pharmaceutical students, but all future healthcare professionals, is fundamental for providing new solutions and building strategic approaches for tackling multifaceted challenges that the release of pharmaceuticals poses to the environment. They agreed on the importance of supporting joint initiatives at the national level to further educate healthcare professionals and students on communication skills as well as other soft skills. Moreover, it was remarked that any obstacles can be overcome only if we all as policymakers, stakeholders, professionals, and students work together on this matter.

The event was carried out despite the closure of the European Parliament for the external events the night before the event. EPSA would like to thank everyone for the trust shown to European pharmaceutical students and on showing the commitment to address pharmaceuticals in the environment.

EPSA will continue to be active on the topic by publishing Educational Outcomes from the EPSA Annual Reception 2020, releasing EPSA Position Paper, and by organising Online Discussions Forum as well as Public Health Campaign.

Sanja Aleksić Vice President of Public Relations

www.epsa-online.org | @EPSA_Online

External Relations

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External Representations POLITICO’s EU Studies and Career Fair, 21-22 February 2020 During the EU Studies and Career Fair, EPSA had a chance to connect with the international students community and young professionals as well as exhibitors from various institutions. The two days event consisted of many interactive sessions including seminars about Erasmus, career development workshops and activities dedicated to empowering tomorrow’s European leaders. We had a chance to talk with our colleagues from AIESEC, get to know more about Erasmus+ and hear first hand testimonials from Trainees working in the European institutions.

It’s an amazing opportunity for EPSA to be based in Brussels where all those initiatives are started so we can also engage and bring ideas further to EPSA members!

ESN EPSA Position Paper launch, Wednesday, 26 February, 2020 Student Mobility barriers for regulated professionals are not as well-known and identified yet as they should be.

Degrees for regulated professions face a wide range of difficulties in regards to learning mobility, with an emphasis on the recognition of studies abroad. The survey Obstacles in Student Mobility developed by the EPSA and ESN showcased how pharmaceutical students struggle when trying to access Erasmus+. During the day of the launch of the document EPSA presented survey data to representatives of the European Commission and various University Networks.

Besides, during the launch event, EPSA representatives talked about the experiences European pharmaceutical students faced on a personal level to bring more understanding to the stakeholders and decision makers.

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European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association

Map of Europe XIX APEF Educational Forum - The 19th edition of the APEF Educational Forum focused on the “Evidence in Health for the Community ”. In the plenary sessions, different perspectives were addressed by great names of the various pharmacy fields. After, our students were divided by discussion groups to debate and share their opinions. It was a fruitful event with an amazing exchange of knowledge between professionals and students.

APEF, Portugal

During our semester break AFÖP organized a campaign with 300 high schoolers, aged 14 to 16. Together with our professor and a juvenile judge, we warned them about the danger of drugs, not only illegal ones but also alcohol and nicotine. Since it was well received, we are already planning to do it again.

AFÖP, Austria

To face the health crisis we are going through, ANEPF, France in collaboration with the National Council of the Order of Pharmacists, has set in place the Pharm’Help website (http://pharmhelp.anepf.org/). This website connects pharmacies in need with volunteer pharmacy students throughout the country.

The site works very well, it’s a success! By mid-April, more than 160 offers had been published and many students were mobilized to respond to calls from pharmacies.

ANEPF, France

As being CIUPSA,on 3rd March we organized a conference which intends creating awareness and informing about COVID-19. Our faculty’s professors prepared a detailed presentation on Corona Virus and ‘’how to struggle with this outbreak’’. Students from all faculties and other faculty’s professors in our university have attended the event.

CIUPSA, Cyprus

During these challenging months, CzPSA had to tackle planned projects differently. Our main projects were cancelled, but we managed to reorganise our Career Fair into online sessions, which will happen mid-May. To stay in close touch with our members we organise online sessions, to help each other mentally and to stay motivated for the upcoming examination period. We try to focus more on policy and strengthening the position of pharmacists, at this time when pharmacists are heard more. Along with the Academic Student Senate CzPSA helps community pharmacies with higher demands and lack of staff through pharmacy internships and volunteering from our students.

CzPSA, Czech Republic

In these challenging times, asep is doing everything to support pharmacies in need. In collaboration with young pharmacists’ organisations, we’ve established an online platform (pharmadelivery.ch) where students, who are willing to volunteer, can register. Volunteers help deliver medication to vulnerable patients, support in manufacturing or patient counseling. asep, Switzerland

HuPSA aims to help its members stay motivated and active during this trying time. We launched a webinar related to this topic: it was a huge success, we plan to continue with webinars in various topics. In coordination with the Hungarian Chamber of Pharmacists we established a volunteer program so our members can help out in overwhelmed pharmacies.

HUPSA, Hungary

The BPSA has been working hard to represent our members during this chaotic time. We’ve taken pre-reg feedback to our regulatory body’s stakeholder meeting to ensure they are supported in their workplace and issued a statement for our university students regarding the need for a no-detriment policy, in the current situation. Although our flagship event was cancelled, we’re taking this time to share happy memories of past conferences online and offer live Executive video evenings to check in with our members and reminisce.

BPSA, The United Kingdom

Between the 6th-12th of April, FASFR organised one of its signature public health campaigns - TOBACCOntrol.

Consisting of several online activities spread throughout the week, our campaign was a real success, with reaches of over 20k per post! EPSA, ENSP and 2035 Initiative were the big supporters behind TOBACCOntrol, helping us extend it beyond Romanian borders. The campaign’s highlight was our Webinar on Tobacco use and regulations - risk factor for COVID-19, which recorded more than 80 attendees.

FASFR, Romania

During the past months GPSF organised “How in are you in LinkedIn?” workshop with an accomplished LinkedIn trainer, held a training about Body Language and carried out numerous health campaigns, most notably one for HPV awareness. Under the pandemic circumstances, we organized a webinar about the therapeutic approach of COVID-19 and created a video for the Autism World Day. GPSF, Greece

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www.epsa-online.org | @EPSA_Online

In the beginning of March we were inspired by the NAPSer Motivation Weekend, which brang all Local Associations together. In addition to the General Assembly, the program was rich in educational and social activities. We are sure that this will motivate participants to contribute to this family of ours called NAPSer. In response to the recent pandemic situation, NAPSer, together with the Pharmaceutical Chamber of Serbia, has organized a campaign called PharmAkt to call up pharmacy students who wish to volunteer at pharmacies in need of assistance.

NAPSer, Serbia

At the beginning of March PPSA had its annual PPSA Week. It was filled with workshops, trainings, integration and general promotion of the Association. Also throughout the month PPSA visited primary schools, high schools and Universities of the Third Age to spread awareness of vaccines.

PPSA, Poland

During this March, SPSA has started with an initiative: “Pharmacy Students Help Pharmacies” in cooperation with APSK and Slovak Chamber of Pharmacists. Our main goal is to help pharmacies and our future colleagues during this challenging period. Students are voluntarily helping with the preparation of individually prepared medicines, dispensation or takeover of goods. We have also created an interactive map of pharmacies and students engaged in the initiative.

SPSA is ready to help and we are going to continue with this initiative as long as necessary.

SPSA, Slovakia

SNAPS is currently trying to attract more local student unions to become members of SNAPS. To succeed with this SNAPS have reached out to the student unions with information regarding SNAPS and the possibilities that the membership includes. Also national representation has been made with the aim to broaden the communication between the universities in Sweden. SNAPS is also currently focusing on prioritization of internships depending on location and commitments regarding student organizations. Due to Covid-19, informative information regarding the virus, social distancing and how to prevent the spread have been shared through social media.

In the beginning of March, VFSO organised its 2-yearly congress about child healthcare. Discovering alternative business models for the pharmaceutical industry, the role of pharmacists in the vaccination process, combined with practical workshops made this edition a blast!

Due to the covid-19 crisis, VFSO organised an online livestream with top experts in virology for an interesting debate. Not only pharmacy students but also healthcare professionals such as nurses, doctors and just curious people were eager to listen. The livestream was even mentioned in the news. We can only be proud of our eventcoordinators and team to pull this off!

VFSO, Belgium

At the beginning of March, ŠSSFD organized its first interprofessional congress together with the students of Medicine and Microbiology on the topic of Antimicrobial Resistance. We also issued our first two position papers first being on the topic of AMR and the second on the role of pharmacists in Mental Health. During those challenging times, we shared some real-life stories of people impacted by COVID-19 on our Facebook page, started a project Farmakrog (Farmacircle) where we help pharmacies with delivering medicine to the cars, apartments and at the moment one of the main projects is InterACTION #CoronaEdition which focuses on sharing verified information and knowledge about COVID-19 to the general public. ŠSSFD. Slovenia

We at NoPSA have focused on creating our registry and promoting it.

The registry is founded so that it will become easier and faster to contact pharmacy students under the epidemic, that will lead to pharmacies becoming less overloaded. In addition, we have also founded a collective labor contract for all pharmacy students that will be called inn from the registry. The reason for the labor contract is so that it will be equally distributed among students. It can be a big difference between work labor amongst the pharmaceutical chains. We wish that this won’t occur because of the contract. We have also stated to us politically about how students get treated by the government in regards to layoffs and we also had a congress of our pharmacy students in february. Last but not least, we have become a new board!.

NopSA, Norway

SNAPS, Sweden

As MUPSA, we held KariyerX event this term. We informed our friends with our various speakers about the working areas of pharmacists.

To increase motivation during the quarantine process, we asked our members to share photos of past MUPSA events with the hashtag #goodoldMUPSAdays. Finally, we carried the “Internship Diaries” activity, which we have done before, to the online and realized it on Instagram.

MUPSA, Turkey

In these troubled times, when all the activity is moving online, SSFB is grateful to our collaborators, Leaders Foundation, for supporting us to continue our project started in the first semester - Learning Journey.

The self-development journey continues with new Trainers for a wider audience. We can only be happy that, before our activity was suspended due to the pandemic takeover, we had the chance to host a great EPSA initiative - Twinnet - 5 exciting days of exchange with students from Lyon, France. Moreover, another great achievement we are proud of is managing to organize, for the first time in our Faculty, a blood donation campaign that gathered 60 donors and 30 blood units to save 90 lives, in only 4 hours.

SSFB, Romania

EPSA Executive Contacts

Mihai Nițoiu

Bernardo Marinheiro

EPSA President

EPSA Vice President of Internal Affairs

president@epsa-online.org

vp.ia@epsa-online.org

Mina Grguri

Kamber Çelik

EPSA Secretary-General secgen@epsa-online.org

EPSA Treasurer treasurer@epsa-online.org

Marko Ocokoljić

Sanja Aleksić

EPSA Vice President of Education

EPSA Vice President of Public Relations

vp.education@epsa-online.org

vp.pr@epsa-online.org

Paulina Kruk EPSA Vice President of External Relations vp.er@epsa-online.org

EPSA Office Rue du Luxembourg 19, bte.6 B - 1000 Brussels, Belgium www.epsa-online.com

Tilen Kozole EPSA Vice President of European Affairs vp.ea@epsa-online.org

CHECK EPSA BLOG EPSA SCIENCE BLOG

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WHO, UNICEF, World Bank. State of the World’s Vaccines and Immunization, 3rd ed. Geneva, World Health Organization; 2009. http://who.int/immunization/sowvi/en/ last accessed November 2016 WHO Europe http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/272808/EIW-2015_whyImmunize.pdf?ua=1