Pharmacy Practice and Education in Romania

The PHARMINE ("Pharmacy Education in Europe") project examined the organisation of pharmacy practice and education in the European Union (EU). An electronic survey was sent out to representatives of different sectors (community, hospital, industrial pharmacists, university staff, and students) in each individual EU member state. This paper presents the results of the PHARMINE survey on pharmacy practice and education in Romania. In the light of this data we examine to what extent harmonisation of practice and education with EU norms has occurred, whether this has promoted mobility of pharmacy professionals, academics and students, and what impact it has had on healthcare in Romania. The survey reveals the substantial changes in Romanian pharmacy practice and education since the 1989 change in government and Romania joining the EU in 2007. Romania remains, however, a poor country with expenditure on healthcare less than one-third of the EU average. This factor also impacts pharmacy practice. Although practice seems aligned with EU norms, this masks the substantial imbalance between the situation in the richer capital, Bucharest, and that of the poorer countryside. Harmonisation to EU norms in pharmacy education has not promoted student exchange and mobility but, rather, a brain drain in pharmaceutical graduates to other EU countries. Specialisation in industrial practice has been lost since 1989 with pharmacists being replaced by chemists. In hospitals the hospital pharmacist is being replaced by the clinical pharmacist.