We Don’t Need No Education?

More education is rarely a bad thing – especially in the ever-changing world of medical cannabis. Now, Sapphire Medical – the UK’s first Care Quality Commission registered medical cannabis clinic – is stepping up to the plate with a new course: “An Overview of Medical Cannabis for Healthcare Professionals.”

Three key points:
i) it is free,
ii) it has received CPD certification,
iii) it is (unfortunately) only available to UK-based healthcare professionals.

To access the course, UK-based healthcare professionals should visit: https://sapphirecannabiseducation.co.uk/register/

We caught up with Mikael Sodergren, Managing Director and Academic Lead at Sapphire Medical, to find out more. 

What inspired the launch of a CPD accredited program for medical cannabis? And why now?​

There is an urgent need for education for healthcare professionals regarding cannabis-based medicinal products to enable safe access to a greater proportion of patients. CPD certified courses provide assurances that are recognized by healthcare employers and peers and therefore provide a level of credibility relating to their content, format, and structure.

To whom would you recommend the course?

Any healthcare professional – including nurses, GPs, specialist consultants, pharmacists, physiotherapists. We are aware that all these professionals have patients increasingly asking about medical cannabis.

What will healthcare professionals learn from the course? 

Those who access the course will gain an in-depth understanding of the basics and the potential therapeutic benefits of medical cannabis, how it interacts with the body, and contraindications of use. Each condition-focused module (for example, pain management, neurological disorders, palliative care, paediatric neurology) contains a review of the clinical evidence for those conditions.

More practically, content within the Sapphire Institute also provides guidance on side effects and administration.

What are your views on the availability and standard of medical cannabis education for healthcare professionals in the UK and the rest of the world?

The Sapphire Institute for Medical Cannabis Education was built to set the standard of education in the UK, and we are committed to ensuring that this is freely available to healthcare professionals to drive the sector forward and increase accessibility for patients. We work in partnership with an international organization called the Society of Cannabis Clinicians, forming their UK chapter. As such, we are also involved in widening education across the globe and share our experiences from the UK. We are dedicated to the global development of medical cannabis.