The students of the School of Pharmacy and Nutrition María Barbería, María Pilar de la Torre and Alejandro Forcada have won result awards in the III Essay Contest for Pharmacy Students organized by the association Spanish Social Pharmacy, the Spanish Federation of Pharmacy Students and Correo Farmacéutico.

award The students have received a diploma accrediting their work at Farmaforum 2016, the annual congress of the association Salmantina de Estudiantes de Farmacia.

The theme of María Barbería's essay focuses on the identity of the 21st century pharmacist who, according to her essay, must return to the origin of the profession, which is none other than patient care. For this reason, she asks in her work "Who is always on the street? Who does she go to in order to avoid long waiting lists at the doctor's if she "only" has a cold? Who is there to listen to the patient's problems and concerns". For this reason, the student proposes "torecover our identity by constituting ourselves as a safe and firm collective, that knows what it wants, that has weapons to defend itself from the storms and that will always fight for the good of the patient".

Example from the United Kingdom, France or Portugal

María Pilar de la Torre advocates in her work to look at the example of the profession in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, where she assures that the care pharmacy is much more developed. "In countries such as Portugal and France, there is more co-payment for healthcare services and medicines, which makes it possible to improve the distribution of resources, access patients' medical records or maintain daily communication with their doctor," explains the student.

Lastly, Alejandro Forcada advocates that pharmacists "should be fully integrated into healthcare teams", for which communication between doctors and pharmacists should be improved. He also stressed in his work the relevance of "making themselves indispensable to society through pharmaceutical care", which could be evaluated annually with a "test level" to ensure that the professional has the right preparation and motivation to perform "optimal health work".

These awards are given by a heterogeneous jury composed of teachers, pharmacy professionals and journalists, as well as the winners of the previous edition.