First face-to-face meeting for EUPATI ‘students’
Picture: EUPATI Expert Patient Course, Face-to-face meeting, March-April 2015, Barcelona, Spain © EPF
The first in-person training of the EUPATI Expert Patient Course took place in Barcelona from 29 March – 2 April 2015. This is the 15 month training programme for patient advocates on medicines’ research and development of the project 'European Patients Academy on Therapeutic Innovation' that we have been leading since 2012.
46 patient advocates from 21 countries, expert speakers, and EUPATI facilitators gathered together for 5 days of intense training. They focused on ethics in clinical trials, clinical trial methodology and statistics, the principles of evidence-based medicine, marketing authorisation processes, and the role of patients in European Regulatory Authorities.
“It has been great to meet every one there. The course has given me already such a great insight in the complexity of medicine's R&D! I now immediately understand articles in newspapers on the subjects we have been studying and I can analyse what information is missing”, observed Klaartje Spijkers, from The Netherlands
“EUPATI is giving us an additional objective with this course; this is to spread patients’ opinion and voice to those who are responsible for medicines research and development. After completing the first face to face training I know how important it is for all of us to fulfil that purpose” remarked Christina Georgiadou, Greece.
The second face-to-face training will take place in mid-September in Barcelona with a main focus on risk/benefit of medicines and Health Technology Assessment (HTA).
Second EUPATI Expert Patient Course
The application period for the second training course closed in March with 187 applications! In total 60 patient advocates will be selected to start the course in late September 2015. The large number of applications received for our second course reflects the strong need of the patient community for in-depth training on the medicines research and development (R&D) process.
The list of successful candidates will be communicated in July 2015.
More information: www.patientacademy.eu.
Contact: Walter Atzori, EPF Senior Programme Officer, walter.atzori@eu-patient.eu.