Aims of the APPI

The Association of Pharmaceutical Physicians of Ireland was formed to promote the development of Pharmaceutical Medicine in Ireland.  Pharmaceutical medicine is the medical scientific discipline concerned with the discovery, development, evaluation, registration, monitoring and medical aspects of marketing of medicines for the benefit of patients and the health of the community.

The Association intends to assist its members in keeping fully informed of advances in Pharmaceutical Medicine and related areas. In addition the Association hopes to improve communication between pharmaceutical physicians, the medical profession as a whole and others involved in this exciting discipline. The education subcommittee of the APPI was responsible for liaising with the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland regarding specialty recognition and now continues to generate appropriate standards for higher specialty training.

The aims and objectives of the Association are pursued primarily by holding regular meetings for members and in some cases guests, where topics relevant to the practice of Pharmaceutical Medicine are discussed and debated.

The membership of the Association is drawn from medical practitioners who have an interest in drug development and use whether their primary involvement stems from an industry, regulatory, academic or clinical background. 

CPD

Meetings held by the APPI in association with the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland (RAMI) are accredited for external continuing professional development (CPD) points. CPD is a requirement for all doctors currently registered in the general and specialist division of the Irish Medical Register.

Affiliation

Since 1993 the APPI has been affiliated to the International Federation of Associations of Pharmaceutical Physiciams (IFAPP). The mission of IFAPP is to promote Pharmaceutical Medicine by enhancing the knowledge, expertise and skills of pharmaceutical physicians world-wide, thus leading to the availability and appropriate use of medicines for the benefit of patients and society. For further information see www.ifapp.org

Under the auspices of IFAPP, APPI as represented by Anthony Chan (vice chair since 1999) has been involved in several initiatives:

  1. IFAPP code of ethical conduct: this was put together by a large working group from across the world, and Anthony Chan was asked to provide feedback to draft documents. This was eventually approved by the IFAPP executive committee in 2003.
  2. IFAPP’s CEPM (council for education in Pharmaceutical Medicine) was inaugurated in 2006, and Anthony Chan represented this group for APPI.  He led the taskforce for specialty training for 4 years. Over this timeframe, many of the world’s pharmaceutical medicine post-graduate courses were accredited by CEPM, including the course at Trinity College Dublin and that at Hibernia College Dublin.

In 2009, the IMI (Innovative Medicines Initiative) formed between the EFPIA companies and the European Commission. Under the initiative, PharmaTrain was formed to develop shared standards across all public partners, on development of a common curriculum for a post-graduate course in Pharmaceutical Medicine. Anthony Chan joined the initiative, firstly as a member of the IFAPP, and later moved to the EFPIA partner role, representing Pfizer, and took on the role of co-work package lead for development of e-learning products for the consortium. Mary Teeling joined the initiative as member of a course provider in 2010, and provided significant expertise when defining the learning outcomes of such a unified curriculum.

In 2011, Hibernia College Dublin was recognised as a centre of excellence within the PharmaTrain group of course providers, and that accolade was also achieved by TCD’s Pharmaceutical Medicine course a short time later in the same year.