Armonización Curricular Farmacéutica en Iberoamérica. Documento de trabajo de la Conferencia Iberoamericana de Facultades de Farmacia (COIFFA)

Abstract

The Ibero-American Conference of Faculties of Pharmacy (COIFFA) has been developing a wide-ranging task in the field of pharmaceutical training and education since its foundation as Hispanic-American Conference (COHIFFA) in 1992, at the Universidad de los Andes (Mérida, Venezuela). This work has been materialized into successive statements from the one made in Santiago (Chile) to the most recent one in Xochimilco (Mexico). The degree of progress that the sciences and pharmaceutical practice have experienced in recent decades has been spectacular. This is reflected in documents from national and international organizations and forums. To this is added the facilities that, in the field of international mobility, universities get through their bilateral agreements, as well as with national and international organizations in Latin America and the European Union, through the relevant projects and calls. All this makes advisable the elaboration on the part of COIFFA of a framework document of consensus, where the problematic that the transcendental subject of the harmonization of the pharmacy studies entails be covered. The efforts that COIFFA has been carrying out have resulted in the elaboration of a working document at the Biregional European Union-Latin America Symposium held in June 2018 in Xochimilco (Mexico). Three coordinated working groups were there devoted to: I) the analysis and definition of the graduate profile, as well as the common minimum topics to be included in the “pensum”; II) the analysis of the terms to be used in the denomination of academic programs, university degrees and various related activities; III) the analysis and proposals for cooperation mechanisms and properly ways of University-Government-Company co-financing. The review and updating of some of the topics approached in the aforementioned document have been carried out by COIFFA within the First World Congress of Faculties of Pharmacy (IPAP 18), held in Salamanca (September, 2018). This document is provisional and subject to the elements of improvement that will be gradually introduced in future COIFFA meetings