professionals in the sector want to attract young people

The pharmacist, the industrialist, the hospital, the distributor and the medical biologist pose, head held high, in a suit or white coat. It looks like the trailer for the latest James Bond! », breathes Jérôme Parésys Barbier, president of the most important section of the national order of pharmacists, at the origin of this pastiche intended for young people on the online site “Les professions de la pharmacie”. “We wanted to take up the codes of middle school and high school students so that they realize that pharmacists are the heroes of everyday life”, details the one who has himself been a pharmacist in the South West for thirty-five years.

Backed by an Instagram account, “Pharmacy professions” aims to enlighten young people at the time of their orientation. “It’s a bit like in the army: there are hundreds of very different professions in the pharmacy, emphasizes Jérôme Parésys-Barbier. The problem is that young people don’t know it. »

Aging of the profession

The stakes are high, especially since the implementation of the health studies reform, which began at the start of the 2020 academic year. Last year, around 150 places were not filled to access the second year of pharmacy, to which students can apply after a PASS – for “specific health access course” – or an LAS, for “health access license”.

“The renewal of the profession will end up being threatened, inevitably, says Jérôme Parésys-Barbier. In France, there is no pharmaceutical desert: we must preserve this excellent territorial network. But we know that pharmacy owners are already having trouble finding replacements or even finding employees. » During 2020, nearly 200 pharmacies closed according to figures from the National Order of Pharmacists. And if only 10.5% of pharmacists were aged 60 or over in 2010, they were 18.4% in 2020 (according to the order of pharmacists). Hence a form of concern within the profession.

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“Because of its public notoriety, and even through TV series, it is always towards medicine that high school students project themselves first, observes Juliette Marat, vice-president of the National Association of Pharmacy Students of France and a fifth-year student at the University of Paris. The pharmacy should not remain only a plan B. Jérôme Parésys-Barbier displays the same regrets: “As much as the French love us – 4 million of them push the door of a pharmacy every day, we are a local refuge for the slightest ailment – ​​so young people imagine that it is just a business in which they will go around in circles. »

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