EIP Identify: Peer-to-Peer Education Program on Rare Diseases 2016-18

Educating to Spot the Signs and Refer as Early as Possible

Live Lectures, Enduring Online Content & Community-Based Education for Frontline Pediatricians Across Europe

The Excellence in Pediatrics Rare Diseases Peer-to-Peer Education Program is tasked with actioning medical communities, to better detect the early signs of Rare Diseases and make appropriate referrals as early as possible.

Pediatricians and family doctors are likely to be the first healthcare professionals to observe symptoms of Rare Diseases, and it is important to help these front-line clinicians suspect, diagnose, and refer patients particularly when Rare Diseases that are treatable occur. Prompt treatment reduces mortality as well as morbidity including irreversible physical and cognitive damage. In addition treatments enhance the quality of daily life significantly. The Initiative is aiming to help front-line clinicians to suspect, diagnose, and refer patients when a Rare Disease that has the potential for treatment occurs.

However, it is also clear that many frontline pediatricians and child healthcare professionals (HCPs) are not sufficiently trained to suspect and diagnose Rare Diseases at the earliest stage possible in their everyday practice. Education on Rare Diseases is not part of Pediatricians / Child Health Care professionals undergraduate or specialty training meaning many early career pediatricians are missing signs of referral of disease at an early stage. In addition, frontline pediatricians are often misinterpreting Rare Diseases as rare to meet in the everyday practice and the perception is that that Rare Diseases are not treatable. 

Education and skills are needed for frontline child HCPs to be equipped in suspecting and providing an early diagnosis of Rare Diseases in their everyday practice. The Spot the Early Signs Peer-to-Peer Education Program is targeting to equip 6,000 frontline pediatricians across Europe with the skills and evidence-based techniques needed for them to detect and refer patients with a suspected Rare Diseases as early as possible.

Program Activities

• Series of Lectures organised in hospital facilities. Audiences will consist of the hospital staff, the local medical community and HCPs from across each country.

• Selected Lectures will be recorded and offered as webcasts to be attended online not only by HCPs across each country but also by HCPs from other countries who feel more comfortable in speaking the specific language. 

Stay tuned. Dates and locations of 2017 lectures on Rare Diseases will be published through the program's page

Get Involved

Members are invited to spread program content to their colleagues and organise educational activities in their medical communities and facilities. Would you like to become a Lecturer or Host a Lecture on Rare Diseases in your facility? Follow the links below to nominate yourself. 

Training Materials for Educators - Program Recourses  

As part of the program, EIP develops Educate-the-Educator training materials that will help frontline pediatricians to be trained and take the lead to organise Lectures in the facilities for their colleagues and the local medical communities. Materials are webcasts produced by recording sessions delivered by international experts on Rare Diseases. The training materials will cover all main Lysosomal Storage Disorders such as Gaucher, Fabry, Niemann-Pick and others. 

>  Click Here to access the program education materials and further information on each training 

>  Click Here to access additional Webcasts of Conference Sessions on Rare Diseases 

or go directly to each training video by clicking on each image below. Average user engagement approximately 1 hour per training.