Lake Geneva, Switzerland
Sandeep Lyall, Adenike Oyefeso and Zekiya Berhe’s final-year project was selected by the Drug Information Association in its student poster competition. Here, they describe their experience of travelling to Geneva, Switzerland, to attend the Drug Information Association 23rd Annual EuroMeeting conference and presenting their project
We were working on our final-year MPharm project on the comparison of prescription-only orlistat and pharmacy orlistat when our supervisor suggested that we enter the student poster presentation competition hosted by the Drug Information Association (DIA).
We were careful not to get our hopes up about being shortlisted because only 20 posters would be chosen internationally. To our delight, we were selected, which made all the extra hours of working on the abstract and poster for the competition worth it.
On the first day of the conference, we attended a student tutorial and an informal reception meeting of the participating students, and directors, presidents and vice-presidents of various drug companies and the DIA. This was great because it gave us the opportunity to introduce ourselves and to represent our school of pharmacy.
We especially enjoyed the opportunity to mingle with other students from around the world because we had the opportunity to hear from them about what it was like studying pharmacy in countries such as Spain, France, Portugal, Denmark and India.
The second day of the conference was focused on seminars and workshops. A morning session about how to write a good CV and what companies look for in a CV was conducted by a recruitment manager responsible for scouting talent globally for the regulatory, medical and pharmaceutical industry.
Another session was on how to “present with confidence”. This session was presented by a speaker with over 25 years’ experience in communication skills training. We started the seminar thinking we were well versed in presenting and realised by the end of it that we had so much to learn.
In the afternoon, we participated in a pharmaceutical industry “speed-dating” session. There were six professionals from the European Medicines Agency, European Commission, Novo Nordisk and the AIDS Prevention Network. Each professional spent six minutes with a student to answer questions before moving to the next student.
During this session, we got to appreciate the significance of regulatory affairs in the pharmaceutical industry and learn about the different recruitment methods for the EMA and EC, non-intervention studies, and how different cultures impacted on the way non-intervention studies were conducted.
The day ended with a large reception for more than 3,000 delegates. It was a brilliant opportunity to network with different pharmaceutical industry professionals. We met PhD students, young professionals, and the presidents and vice-presidents of different pharmaceutical companies.
On the third and final day, there were sessions on clinical trials, pharmacovigilance, immunisations and regulatory affairs. We also had the opportunity to present our project and poster to representatives from the pharmaceutical industry and delegates.
Later that day, we spoke to people from all over Europe who work for recruitment agencies, pharmaceutical equipment developers and for companies that organise clinical trials. We knew we were lucky to have had the opportunity to discuss future job prospects with so many different companies under one roof. This gave us an insight into how diverse the pharmacy profession is.
We were also invited to future events organised by European student bodies in collaboration with the DIA.
To round things off, we got to squeeze in a bit of sightseeing in Geneva and of course this meant lots of Swiss chocolate!
To find out more about the DIA, visit www.diahome.org/DIAHome/Home.aspx
Acknowledgement Our supervisor Andrea Manfrin for his guidance, Ruth Rodgers for her helpful suggestions on the poster and article and the Medway School of Pharmacy for giving us this opportunity and supporting us every step of the way
The Drug Information Association (DIA) 23rd Annual EuroMeeting was held on 28-30 March 2011 in Geneva, Switzerland
Sandeep Lyall, Adenike Oyefeso and Zekiya Berhe are fourth-year MPharm students at Medway School of Pharmacy, Universities of Greenwich and Kent
