Every summer, the Tour de France đźš´ brings together cycling enthusiasts around the same route, through plains, mountains and villages. What if, this year, you also did your own Tour de France? Not by bike, but through French pharmacies, to discover the diversity of pharmaceutical practices and enrich your professional experience.
Why a “Tour de France of pharmacies”?
While the pharmacist profession remains fundamentally the same everywhere, the richness of daily pharmacy life often comes from the people you work with. Each pharmacy has its own team, its atmosphere, its methods, its habits.
By doing a Tour de France of pharmacies, you have the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues with varied approaches, whether in patient counseling, counter organization or workflow management.
It’s also an excellent way to observe different ways of structuring a pharmacy: task distribution, space layout, inventory management, tools used… So many concrete elements that will allow you to enrich your own practice, with ideas you might not have encountered elsewhere.
An enriching experience for European pharmacists
Are you a pharmacist graduated in a European Union country? Good news: practicing in France is entirely possible!
The French healthcare system is based on a dense and quality pharmacy network, offering numerous opportunities to those who wish to invest in it.
By joining a pharmacy in France, you benefit from:
- a structured work environment,
- accessible continuing education,
- rich interprofessional relationships (doctors, nurses, physiotherapists…),
- an attractive living environment, according to your preferences (city, sea, mountains, countryside…).
The European mobility of healthcare professionals is facilitated by European agreements. We can accompany you in your procedures: registration with the Order, language upgrading, accommodation…
Enriching your career through geographical mobility
By completing your Tour de France of pharmacies, you will do much more than discover several regions of France: you will evolve your practice through encounters and experiences.
You will work alongside colleagues with diverse approaches, and each stage will become a concrete learning opportunity and personal development.
You will discover several pharmacy models: some independent, others affiliated to groups. Each one will reveal a different way of organizing, distributing tasks, or managing patient relationships.
By observing this diversity from the inside, you will consolidate your skills and refine your own way of practicing.
You will also immerse yourself in the realities of the French healthcare system. You will participate in prevention actions such as vaccination, pharmaceutical consultations, screening or home monitoring. Finally, you will also understand how CPTS (Territorial Professional Healthcare Communities) coordinate care locally.
In each pharmacy, you will learn to use new digital tools: LGPI, Winpharma, Smart Rx… This technical versatility will be a real asset if, one day, you open or take over your own pharmacy.
Finally, this journey will offer you an overall vision of the profession, essential for building the next phase of your career. Will you want to return to your country? Stay in France? And if so, in which region, in what type of pharmacy?
Thanks to this experience, you will make these choices with more perspective, clarity and confidence.
đźšµ This Tour de France will not be a simple professional step: it will mark a turning point in your career.
Concrete example: learning to conduct a VKA consultation
During your Tour de France, you will be able to participate in certain extended missions of pharmacists in France, such as pharmaceutical consultations for patients (or PTC: Patient Therapeutic Consultation) on VKA (Vitamin K Antagonists).
These consultations are aimed at chronic patients treated with medications such as warfarin (Coumadin®) or acenocoumarol (Sintrom®), often prescribed to prevent thromboembolic complications, particularly in cases of atrial fibrillation, phlebitis or mechanical heart valve.
In this context, you will therefore be required to conduct a therapeutic consultation in French, in order to assess the patient’s understanding of the treatment, address the risks of drug or food interactions, and remind them of the importance of biological monitoring (INR). The objective is to improve treatment adherence and prevent hemorrhagic accidents.
Initially accompanied by the owner or a reference pharmacist, you will learn to structure this exchange, adopt a clear and reassuring posture, and identify points of vigilance. It is a useful and formative exercise, which allows you to develop clinical, relational and educational skills while strengthening the pharmacist’s role in the care pathway.
How to participate in this “Tour de France”?
What we offer you is a structured one-year program, designed for European pharmacists wishing to discover France while developing their career.
Concretely, you will practice in three different pharmacies, partners of our program, for four months in each pharmacy. This will allow you to discover varied environments while benefiting from a structured and quality welcome.
Throughout this journey, you will benefit from personalized support: practical advice, professional integration, administrative procedures… We are here to facilitate each step, before and during your experience.
If you are motivated to live a unique human and professional experience, contact us now to begin your preparation.