Dr. Cecilio Venegas
Cecilio Venegas, a corresponding academician of the Royal European Academy of Doctors (READ), has been appointed the new president of the Ilustre Colegio Oficial de Farmacéuticos de Badajoz for the next four years. He will be joined on the Governing Board by María Concepción García Domínguez as Secretary, Cristina Gervasini as Treasurer, Javier Gridilla as Comptroller, and Ángel Augusto Aparicio as First Board Member and Vice President, along with the remaining full and sectional board members included in the slate. The solemn inauguration ceremony will take place during the month of February.
The appointment of the new Governing Board followed the celebration on December 10 of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, patron saint of pharmacists, marked by a Mass at the Catedral de Badajoz officiated by the Archbishop of the Diócesis de Mérida-Badajoz, and a lecture delivered at the College’s headquarters by Ara Sánchez Vera, Director General for Equality and Work–Life Balance of the Junta de Extremadura. The event was attended by representatives of Extremadura’s healthcare professional associations and included recognition of members who participated in the Rural Mental Health Schools.
Founded in 1899, the College of Pharmacists of Badajoz has, since its inception, taken on the challenge of coordinating and leading professional practice in Spain’s largest province by area. It has pursued a policy of coordination with the relevant public administration, enabling the uniform implementation of health rights and the universal extension of healthcare, overcoming the challenges posed by the province’s size, economic conditions, and dispersed population.
Among its founding principles, the College regulates and develops the profession, ensuring the provision of pharmaceutical services throughout the province while acting as an open and interactive organization with its stakeholders. It is committed to and respectful of social demands, as well as to responsible, efficient, and transparent environmental management of its assets and resources, and excellence in service delivery. The College also has its own Code of Ethics to guarantee the responsible practice of the profession, which complements the Code of Ethics of the Pharmaceutical Profession.
Venegas is a member of several research groups at the Universidad de Sevilla and the Universidad de Extremadura. He belongs to seven academies of Pharmacy, Medicine, and Health Sciences at national and international levels, is the author of numerous specialized publications in pharmacology, and is a widely recognized science communicator in the field. He has been appointed an international expert by UNESCO for the Memory of the World (MoW) Programme on the Preservation and Conservation of Historical Heritage in Central America and the Caribbean, and has received numerous awards in recognition of his professional career. He was inducted as a corresponding academician of the READ last December at the headquarters of the Real Academia Nacional de Farmacia in Madrid, delivering the address «Two Monastic Pharmacies of the Kings of Spain: Guadalupe and Yuste», in which he examined two landmark moments in the history of Spanish pharmacology.
