Joaquín Callabed, president of the Spanish Social Paediatrics Club and elected academician of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED), has donated to the Library of the Academy the book “Fórmulas magistrales en pediatría” (Compounding in paediatrics) (Acofarma). He is the editor and author of most of its chapters, although the book also features the participation of leading medical specialists such as the corresponding academician of the RAED María Asunción Peiré, a great expert on current pharmacology.
With the endorsement of his more than two decades of experience and that of the various physicians who also participate, the work addresses a medical-pharmaceutical debate on the most common treatments on different pathologies common in paediatrics. “In the field of paediatrics and pharmacological research, there is an important therapeutic gap to develop, since the study of medicines aimed at children was not legislated until 2006 -says Callabed in the book’s prologue-. Paediatric medicines are made from medicines that aren’t authorized for children, and most are notified in the prospectus of its contraindication for children under X years, largely due to lack of studies to support its use. Here there is a way to go. A child is more than the proportion of an adult’s weight and height”.
For Callabed, the paediatrician should maintain not only a close relationship with the patient and their parents or guardians, but with the pharmacist who formulates the specific treatments. In a global world with formal and industrialized processes, the specialist proposes the creation of multidisciplinary forums and new protocols that allow this interaction in an effective way. “From my point of view, it’s absolutely necessary to provide a framework for the compounding, and my personal experience as a prescriber for more than 20 years has reinforced this conviction”, he says.
