Challenges to Establishing Pharmaceutical Medicine as a Profession: Needs for Professional Identity and a Career Pathway: Role of Education and Training.
Honorio Silva, Varvara Baroutsou, Domenico Criscuolo, Soneil Guptha, Anna Jurczynska, Sandor Kerpel-Fronius, Heinrich Klech, Ingrid Klingmann
{"title":"Challenges to Establishing Pharmaceutical Medicine as a Profession: Needs for Professional Identity and a Career Pathway: Role of Education and Training.","authors":"Honorio Silva, Varvara Baroutsou, Domenico Criscuolo, Soneil Guptha, Anna Jurczynska, Sandor Kerpel-Fronius, Heinrich Klech, Ingrid Klingmann","doi":"10.1007/s40290-025-00559-w","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Pharmaceutical Medicine (PM) was defined by its founding pharmaceutical physicians as a \"medical/scientific discipline concerned with the discovery, development, evaluation, registration, monitoring, and medical aspects of the commercialization of medicines, for the benefit and the health of the community.\" Conceived as a medical specialty, the discipline encompassed several health-related professions and occupations, such as medicine, pharmacy, clinical pharmacology, drug safety and pharmacovigilance, pharmaceutical sciences, biology, health economics and others. Historically, non-medically qualified medicines development scientists from health-related disciplines have gradually grown into the medical roles within pharmaceutical organizations, regulatory agencies, and contract research organizations and today physicians and non-physicians lead drug development groups. Medicines Development Sciences (MDS) has been accepted as an alternative name. The practice of the disciplines involved in PM/MDS has evolved from an occupation to be accepted as a distinct profession, by meeting well established criteria. Despite thousands of health professionals participating today in medicines development, their awareness of the existence of this discipline, and its evolution from occupation to profession is low. The lack of professional identity and a clear career path have been identified as key factors limiting the advancement of this profession. This position paper aims to consolidate PM/MDS as an advanced profession in health sciences and propose a career path that is envisioned and championed by educational standards setting organizations like the International Federation of Association of Pharmaceutical Physicians and Pharmaceutical Medicine (IFAPP), PharmaTrain, and Global Medicines Development Professionals (GMDP) Academy with education and training as pillars for its achievement.</p>","PeriodicalId":19778,"journal":{"name":"Pharmaceutical Medicine","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1000,"publicationDate":"2025-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Pharmaceutical Medicine","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s40290-025-00559-w","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PHARMACOLOGY & PHARMACY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Pharmaceutical Medicine (PM) was defined by its founding pharmaceutical physicians as a "medical/scientific discipline concerned with the discovery, development, evaluation, registration, monitoring, and medical aspects of the commercialization of medicines, for the benefit and the health of the community." Conceived as a medical specialty, the discipline encompassed several health-related professions and occupations, such as medicine, pharmacy, clinical pharmacology, drug safety and pharmacovigilance, pharmaceutical sciences, biology, health economics and others. Historically, non-medically qualified medicines development scientists from health-related disciplines have gradually grown into the medical roles within pharmaceutical organizations, regulatory agencies, and contract research organizations and today physicians and non-physicians lead drug development groups. Medicines Development Sciences (MDS) has been accepted as an alternative name. The practice of the disciplines involved in PM/MDS has evolved from an occupation to be accepted as a distinct profession, by meeting well established criteria. Despite thousands of health professionals participating today in medicines development, their awareness of the existence of this discipline, and its evolution from occupation to profession is low. The lack of professional identity and a clear career path have been identified as key factors limiting the advancement of this profession. This position paper aims to consolidate PM/MDS as an advanced profession in health sciences and propose a career path that is envisioned and championed by educational standards setting organizations like the International Federation of Association of Pharmaceutical Physicians and Pharmaceutical Medicine (IFAPP), PharmaTrain, and Global Medicines Development Professionals (GMDP) Academy with education and training as pillars for its achievement.
期刊介绍:
Pharmaceutical Medicine is a specialist discipline concerned with medical aspects of the discovery, development, evaluation, registration, regulation, monitoring, marketing, distribution and pricing of medicines, drug-device and drug-diagnostic combinations. The Journal disseminates information to support the community of professionals working in these highly inter-related functions. Key areas include translational medicine, clinical trial design, pharmacovigilance, clinical toxicology, drug regulation, clinical pharmacology, biostatistics and pharmacoeconomics. The Journal includes:Overviews of contentious or emerging issues.Comprehensive narrative reviews that provide an authoritative source of information on topical issues.Systematic reviews that collate empirical evidence to answer a specific research question, using explicit, systematic methods as outlined by PRISMA statement.Original research articles reporting the results of well-designed studies with a strong link to wider areas of clinical research.Additional digital features (including animated abstracts, video abstracts, slide decks, audio slides, instructional videos, infographics, podcasts and animations) can be published with articles; these are designed to increase the visibility, readership and educational value of the journal’s content. In addition, articles published in Pharmaceutical Medicine may be accompanied by plain language summaries to assist readers who have some knowledge of, but not in-depth expertise in, the area to understand important medical advances.All manuscripts are subject to peer review by international experts. Letters to the Editor are welcomed and will be considered for publication.