Inside Tomorrow's Pharmacist (2001)

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E-mails from Eastern Europe

E-mails from Eastern Europe by Lindsay McClure (IPSF president) and Germano Ferreira (IPSF vice-president)
The 1st IPSF Eastern European membership promotion tour

Dear ... We've been in St Petersburg for three days now and are having a great time! Being a pharmacy student in Russia is a little different from the rest of Europe, for a start they have classes six days a week! The students' association organises a lot of events for the students and yesterday they took us to visit the biggest brewery in Russia, Baltika Beer! The pharmacy technology students often visit the brewery to learn about the processes and they can do their internships there.

This morning we went sightseeing before our presentation — Nevsky Prospekt, the Peter and Paul Fortress — and even though it's still winter, the scenery is amazing! St Petersburg has one of the best underground systems in the world, but is definitely not recommended with rucksacks during rush hour! Well, better go, we're going to McDonalds for dinner before catching the overnight train to Tartu, Estonia — complete with Germano's new Russian hat and St Petersburg's application for IPSF membership!

We'll e-mail again soon but until then ... "Na zdorovye!"

Dear ... Russian trains are definitely an experience (the snoring coming from the compartment next to ours was louder than the actual train noise) and with five different security checks around the Russian border we really didn't have a chance to sleep!

We made it to Tallin, the capital city of Estonia at around 5.30am. The faculty of Pharmacy in Estonia is based in Tartu, around three hours from Tallin so we caught a local train and were met by Maia from the Tartu university pharmacy students association (TUPSA). This evening the TUPSA executive committee took us out to sample the local beer!

The beer here traditionally comes in different sizes — men (1L) , women (0.5L) and juniors (0.3L)! Well, better go, got to catch an early train to Latvia tomorrow; there are only two trains a day that pass through Tartu so we'd better not miss it!

Dear ... Well, we managed to get the train from Tartu to Valga (on the Latvian border) only to discover that there was no connecting train from the border to Riga (the Latvian capital). After consulting a friendly local we discovered that there was a bus that went to Riga but we had to get a taxi to the bus station, so we set off in search of a taxi, but unfortunately no-one spoke English. After attempting, without success, to use words like bus and bus station to the taxi driver, we tried using the word 'Latvia.'

"Ahhhh" said the taxi driver and set off at high speed arriving 10 minutes later at the Latvian border post. He then left. It wasn't too surprising to discover that we were miles from the bus station! Luckily a friendly customs official figured out where we wanted to go and gave us a lift in his car to find the nearest bus.

Three hours and 100km later we made it to Riga — only an hour late — and met representatives from the Latvian pharmacy students association. After a tour of the city we boarded the overnight train from Riga to Kaunas, Lithuania.

Did you know that the building housing the pharmacy school in Lithuania shares a wall with the town's main jail? It was also interesting to discover that because of the country's history, all education is in the national Lithuanian language but for further reading, the students use either Russian or English books. The main languages spoken in the country are changing so the students don't all speak Russian any more and not everyone speaks English.

Dear ... Sorry we haven't e-mailed for a while — we're now in Cluj Napoca, Romania. It's been a crazy seven days! Poland's national pharmacy student association collapsed a few years ago so students from the various universities are working hard to reform the organisation.

Two Polish students, Stefan (from Poznan) and Andrej (from Gdansk) joined us for the whole visit. They organised a tour to four of the main faculties in Poland — Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw and Poznan and then a final meeting at the Polish Pharmaceutical Society headquarters for students from all of the faculties in Poland.

Our first night's accommodation in Poland was the guestrooms in the faculty in Krakow — beside the labs and beneath the lecture rooms. We might have joked about staying all night in the faculty before but have never actually done it so it was definitely an experience!

In Poznan, a large homoeopathic pharmacy exhibition was taking place at the same time as we were there, with Poland's health minister and the Polish national television present. In Warsaw, over 150 students turned up for the IPSF presentation so we even managed an IPSF lecture room wave! The final meeting at the Polish Pharmaceutical Society headquarters went well and we hope to welcome Poland back into IPSF once again.

The train journey to Cluj was one of the longest parts of the journey so far. As well as passport and customs checks, there were 'seat checks' along the Romanian border where someone pulls back all of the seats to check for smuggled goods or illegal immigrants. The customs official was also very keen to find out if we had any guns on us. Luckily they trusted that our rucksacks really were only filled with dirty washing!

The student association in Cluj is one of the most active in IPSF so it was great to finally meet them all in person. We only wish we could spend more time here, but tomorrow we've got to catch an early train back to Budapest; we'll check our mail when we can.

Dear ... We made it to Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic, and if all goes to plan, we'll be home tomorrow! Over the past few days we've been promoting IPSF in Hungary, Slovakia and Austria.

We met with a few of the reception committee members for the 2002 IPSF congress, which will be held in Hungary. Even in the rain, Budapest is a beautiful city — only 15 months until the congress!

Most of our time in Bratislava, Slovakia, was spent at the university, meeting with the students' association executive and talking to students. We only spent a short time in Austria as most of the students had unfortunately gone home for the Easter holiday.

Our final day on tour has been spent meeting with the Czech students here in Hradec Kralove. Their faculty includes a pharmacy art gallery, and as well as an office, the students' association has its own TV room! Well, better go, after completing our final presentation. Next stop? Home!

Happy ending

We finally made it back to the IPSF office in The Netherlands at around 11 o'clock — tired, definitely in need of a shower, but very happy! We've had a really great few weeks, made a lot of friends along the way and hopefully spread some of that special IPSF spirit!

As a pharmacy student, the opportunities are there to get involved in international pharmacy. All you need to do is take them. So, don't sit and think about it! Get involved.