HERMES: good reasons for harmonising education and training in respiratory medicine

HERMES (Harmonised Education in Respiratory Medicine for European Specialists) was launched in 2005 by the European Respiratory Society (ERS), with the aim of harmonising education and training in respiratory medicine. The first deliverable component, a core syllabus representing the content of required knowledge in our specialty 1, will be released at the 2006 ERS Annual Congress in Munich. It is hoped that this document will be used at the national level for the development of training programmes for both trainees and young respiratory specialists, as a first step towards harmonisation in Europe. Medicine was one of the first professions regulated at the European Union (EU) level. Rules for mutual recognition of diplomas were first set in 1975 in directive 75/362/EEC. This directive concerned the mutual recognition of diplomas, certificates and other evidence of formal qualifications in medicine. Since then, it has been amended several times and lately replaced by a new directive 2005/36/EC, which sets the rules for a whole range of regulated professions. This directive guarantees automatic recognition of diplomas and certificates in all EU countries, thus granting free access to the European job market to all European specialists in respiratory medicine. Regarding respiratory medicine, in 1994, a working group of the European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS) Pneumology section issued a document that was the basis for the UEMS charter on training 2, 3. It recommended the following structure …