The Faculty of Pharmacy experiments with health service
Compulsory health service for health students came into effect at the start of the 2018 academic year. At the UM, this scheme to promote primary prevention* among priority audiences concerns students in medicine, pharmacy, maieutics and odontology. Here's an update on its implementation at the Faculty of Pharmacy.
"When a young person talks to a young person, it's easier to build trust and dialogue. The same should apply to health risk prevention", explains Laurence Vian, convinced of the educational value of health service. Since September, the Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Professor of Toxicology has been overseeing the implementation of this complex system within the component. "The health service came into force almost the day after its creation, with no associated resources. The faculty's teaching staff are committed to ensuring its successful implementation. Nevertheless, questions remain, such as how to compensate the students who will be traveling around the region to deliver a preventive message for 3 days in 2019, then for 3 weeks in subsequent years", she recently confided.
Primary prevention
To overcome inequalities in access to health information, the 90 students in their 5th year of pharmacy studies will be working with the most vulnerable sections of the population - particularly young people - who are far removed from university, to prevent health risks from occurring in the first place. "Faced tomorrow with the health problems their patients will expose at their counters, future dispensing pharmacists will have to pass on primary prevention messages. They will need to popularize their knowledge to ensure that their messages are understood by all audiences," explains Laurence Vian, who sees health service as an excellent methodological exercise.
Concrete actions
"Our 5th year students have the necessary background to run a simple addiction prevention program. Equipped with fun and educational kits, they were able to benefit from the pedagogical advice of teachers from the Faculty of Education, who trained them over a short period in the acquisition of an educational posture", explains the Dean of the Faculty. For the 1st year of the health service, students from the Faculty of Pharmacy will spend 2 or 3 days working with classes from CP to Terminale in schools in the Gard, Aude and Hérault regions. Mandatory, their visits will last 45 minutes, and will be carried out in pairs in duplicate classes of up to 12 pupils, in the presence of the school's health advisor. Optimal conditions for a major health challenge: to protect children, teenagers and young adults from the ravages of addiction, as they are still the main victims of addiction in the French population in 2019.
Students were provided with fun, educational kits on addiction (question-and-answer cards, board games) to help them carry out their primary prevention activities.
* Primary prevention covers actions designed to reduce the incidence of a disease, reduce the number of new cases or delay the onset of the first symptoms.
The health service as seen by...
Hélène Fenet, professor of public health, in charge of the administrative and educational organization of the health service.
"The health service is a great opportunity for pharmacy students to develop their skills in health education for more appropriate primary prevention. This project was developed in consultation with the Agence régionale de santé and the rectorat, which identified the themes to be developed in schools. Our students have carried out actions in line with their university training, in areas such as addictions (tobacco, alcohol, hard drugs, screens and cyberaddiction, etc.) and nutrition.
Hajar Hadjseyd, 5th year pharmacy student
"Assigned to the Lycée Gaston Darboux in Nîmes to carry out my health service, I'll be speaking to students in the 2nd, 1st and 12th grades about the risks of screen addiction. I'll start by asking them what addiction means to them, so that I can go on to pass on essential educational information about the real and little-known risks of regular and prolonged use of various screens."
The faculty in figures
- 2,971 students
- 356 master's students
- 110 undergraduate students
- 756 students in PACES
- 100 hearing aid students
- 72 oenology students
Flu vaccination training
To improve vaccination coverage and reduce the number of annual deaths due to seasonal flu, the Occitanie region has been chosen in 2018 as a pilot region for the experimentation of flu vaccination by dispensing pharmacists. The Faculty of Pharmacy set up a "flu vaccination" continuing education course at the end of the summer, on the initiative of Professors Jacqueline Azay-Milhau, Agnès Muller and Gilberte Marti-Mestres.
The one-day course, aimed at dispensing pharmacists and assistant pharmacists, was run by faculty members in partnership with doctors and nurses from theInstitut Bouisson-Bertrand. Students in their 5th year of pharmacy studies also benefit from this training as part of their curriculum, with the support of the Agence régionale de santé and the Ordre des Pharmaciens. The success of this experiment should lead to the extension of flu vaccination in pharmacies to the rest of France in the coming months.