You might ask whether 40 years in existence, means being a young or an old association.

EAHP is young and old. It is like in life: the passing time gives you experience but life means looking into the future. Keeping the curiosity of a child while being an old man with long experience is what we call wisdom.

Looking backwards to the first years of EAHP lets us understand how difficult it was for the grounders to create a European understanding. Even language was at that time - where a global world was not a reality and the iron curtain was splitting Europe – a burden. Our colleagues had to learn to communicate. They had to focus on the organization of the new association, which meant focusing on internal matters necessary to create what EAHP is today. EAHP began growing, starting with the congress being an educational and scientific event but still focusing on Hospital Pharmacy as profession.

My predecessors were the heroes who created the strong association we are today. EAHP is now a mature adult.

Since the very beginning, hospital pharmacists and EAHP were engaged in helping patients but this was not well communicated. We must now rethink our profession from the perspective of patients. What makes our profession an added value? What makes our profession unique for the best clinical outcome? Why do hospital pharmacists make the difference in medication use?

The change of the EAHP logo in 2010 was the start of this new understanding of Hospital Pharmacy as a profession dedicated to patients and this is symbolized by the cross.

A strong tree has strong roots and the root of our profession is the production of the best medicines for patients. Being at the patient’s bed as part of the healing team must be linked to the production of individualized medicines at the highest level in the hospital pharmacy.

A society flourishes if the old people plant trees under their shadows where they will never be able to rest, an ancient Greek wisdom says. The grounders of 1972 seeded the now 40 year old tree of EAHP, but the oldest of them are no longer with us to see what they created. We are now the old people who have to plant the future trees which we will see only as a shoot.

We are the pharmacists who have to change our education and profession to be more and more patient oriented.

The understanding of history is the means for creating the future.