Clinical pharmacology and therapeutics in undergraduate medical education in the UK: the future.

Abstract

1 Changes in undergraduate medical education will involve the development of a core curriculum of material of essential knowledge and of the skills for self directed learning both as a student and a postgraduate. A survey of departments or individuals teaching clinical pharmacology and therapeutics was conducted to consider what a core curriculum in these subjects might contain and how changes in the school curriculum would affect teaching in the future. 2 A questionnaire was developed based on an American consensus statement on the core curriculum in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics. Freetext answers were encouraged. Twenty-seven medical schools were surveyed; 21 (78%) replied. 3 Items of core knowledge (as defined by the American statement) were generally rated important or very important. The most important were considered to be (in order): prescribing for the elderly, management of overdose and adverse drug reactions. All of these were widely taught (85-100%). The least important items were the efficacy and toxicity of nonprescription drugs (taught by 35%) and the process of drug development and approval (taught nevertheless by 95%). 4 Core skills were generally rated less important, and less often taught. It was felt by many respondents that these skills, as defined, were excessively detailed for British undergraduates and more appropriate for postgraduate education. 5 Core attitudes were rated as being of intermediate importance, but not widely taught as it was felt that these could best be inculcated by example rather than formal teaching. Again, many felt that these attitudes were inappropriate for a UK core curriculum. 6 Respondents were asked for their comments on how they foresaw teaching in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics changing in response to the development of core curricula. Many considered that teaching would be further threatened by reduced time and resources. Some clearly felt threatened by the changes and powerless to influence them. Others were very proactive and enthusiastically supported change. Opinions were divided on whether there was a role for the establishment of a national core curriculum or guidelines in the UK, and on who should draw up such a curriculum.

Medical student’s perception on teaching-learning methods of pharmacology in a medical college

“…11 For this reason, many medical schools have integrated pharmacology during clinical years. 12 In the current study, 98 students ( Figure 3) agreed that recent advances need to be included in the curriculum which is similar to findings by Jai Krishna et al 7 There is a stigma attached among medicos regarding the study of pharmacology as per walley T and the students' interests were more inclined towards clinical career with earning far better than pharmacological career as reported by Zgheib et al 13,14 Limitation of present study: This study was done among only 2 nd year medical students in a single tertiary care centre. More multicentre studies need to be carried out among the medical students to draw accurate conclusions.…”

An evaluation of pharmacology curricula in Australian science and health-related degree programs

“…While defining core knowledge in pharmacology has received considerable attention [8-10,14,15], levels of knowledge and competencies may be better defined by criteria expressed as learning outcomes [20]. Evaluation of the data from our survey suggests that broad, knowledge-based learning outcomes could be developed for key principles of pharmacology that outline a minimum or threshold standard of knowledge and competency for each degree program.…”

Attitude and perceptions of fifth term medical students of Gulbarga Institute of Medical Sciences, Kalaburagi, regarding teaching methods and their learning in pharmacology

“…Several reports have pointed out that this may in part be due to students' apathy about the enormous challenge of learning about the majority of drugs. It appears that there is a stigma attached to the study of pharmacology [21] and the students' interests appear more biased toward clinical careers with prospective earnings far better than pharmacology careers. [22] They wanted all the practical exercises to be more clinical oriented and if possible replace the animal experiments with the computer simulation techniques.…”