In December, professor Fabrizio de Ponti from the University of Bologna (Italy) visited RECIPE to share educational experiences. He has joined some of the classes during the minor 'Clinical pharmacology and therapeutics' in the third study year of the medical curriculum.

A group of clinical pharmacologists (in training) visit the Dutch Chemical Biological Radiologically and Nuclear Centre (CBRN) in Vught. They learned about the effect of different chemical weapons and experienced a real training of the emergency services.

Michael Reumerman has won the Best Research Paper Award of the Netherlands Association for Medical Education Congress 2018. His presentation was about the long term effects of a pharmacovigilance course for oncology nurses. The presentation can be found here.

Michael Reumerman has won the Poster Award of the FIGON Dutch Medicine Days 2018 for his research in the category 'Regulatory challenges and teaching in (clinical) pharmacology'. His poster presentation was about a inter-professional student programme for teaching prescribing and can be found here.

On 2 October, an academic session was organised in honor of the retirement of professor Romain Lefebvre. He was a professor in pharmacology at Ghent University (Belgium) and chair of the Heymans Institute of Pharmacology. He has more than 200 scientific publications in the field of gastrointestinal pharmacology. For the session, David Brinkman was invited to give a presentation about his recent PhD thesis on prescribing education in Europe.

A group of clinical pharmacologists (in training) from RECIPE visited the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) and Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). They received information each institute and got a tour around the buildings.

From Friday 7th to Saturday 8th September, the EAPCT organised a Focus Meeting on Education in Birmingham. With more than 40 attendees the meeting was a great success! Of all attendees, 14 came from RECIPE Amsterdam. Oral presentations and workshops were held about teaching clinical pharmacology during the under- and postgraduate medical training. During the next EACPT congress in Stockholm 2019, a seperate session will be organised about teaching prescribing to future medical doctors. More information can be found here.

On June 22, Prof.dr. Michiel van Agtmael held his inaugural lecture on clinical pharmacology and pharmacotherapy education at the VU University in Amsterdam. His main conclusion was that prescribing is a complex process and that undergraduate education in prescribing during should be improved. To this end, he argues that innovative teaching methods should be developed and implemented in the medical curriculum. Watch a part of the lecture here (in Dutch). On the same day, a symposium entitled 'Teaching and learning out of a box' was organised. Teams had to compete with each other to design the most innovative teaching method for learning prescribing. One team won the prize with their idea of a game 'Escape Room for prescribing'.

RECIPE has received a ZonMw Grant together the Radboudumc for developing a national medication safety assessment. Students have to pass this assessment at the end of the medical curriculum. It is recognized that certain drug groups cause the majority of preventable serious adverse reactions. The assessment focuses on essential drugs. Medical students are expected to know its mechanism of action, side effects that may cause serious harm, associated risk factors, contributing comedication, and measures to prevent and to treat side effects. More information about this assessment can be found here.

The University of Birmingham will host a EACPT Focus Meeting on education from Friday 7th to Saturday 8th September 2018. The aim of the meeting will be to present innovations from across Europe as well as have updates on pedagogical theory and research. The conference will aim to be inclusive and of interest to all levels of clinical pharmacologist – whether new to teaching or experienced in the field. Register now.

On April 13, Jelle Tichelaar has won the Thesis Award of the the Dutch Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Biopharmacy (NVKF&B) for his PhD thesis entitled 'Making better prescribers during a context-based pharmactherapy learning programme'. Congratulations!

On March 28, Tim Schutte succesfully defended his PhD dissertation entitled 'Learning in a Student-Run Clinic: A new concept to improve medical education in pharmacotherapy'. His thesis consisted of 8 peer reviewed articles. He found that a Student-Run Clinic is an innovative and effective way of teaching rational prescribing to medical students during the undergraduate medical curriculum. It offers benefits to medical education as well as patient care. His entire thesis can be downloaded here.

On March 15, David Brinkman succesfully defended his PhD dissertation entitled 'Rational prescribing in Europe: Are future doctors well prepared? His thesis consisted of 9 peer reviewed articles. He argues that nearly graduated doctors in Europe currently lack essential competencies required for rational prescribing because of shortcomings in undergraduate clinical pharmacology and therapeutics education. Several Dutch news papers published an item about his research (see Paper 1, Paper 2, Paper 3). His entire thesis can be downloaded here.

The Student-Run Clinic at the VU University Medical Center has recently received a €100.000 VUmc Innovation Grant to start and analyze the benefits of a student-led adverse drug event managing team in VUmc. The junior-adverse drug event managers (J-ADEMs) will coordinate all aspects of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) by screening hospitalized patients, taking in-depth medication history, reporting adverse drug reactions and providing causality assessments and the pharmacological explanations to the ward physician and patients. This ultimate pharmacovigilance educational method will increase students and ward physician competences in adverse drug reaction (reporting) and has the opportunity to increase patient safety.

RECIPE would like to wish you a prosperous and healthy 2018! We are looking forward to collaborate and develop new research projects in order to improve rational prescribing in Europe and elswhere.