Pharmacogenomics in the Curricula of Colleges and Schools of Pharmacy in the United States

Abstract

Objectives. To assess the breadth, depth, and perceived importance of pharmacogenomics instruction and level of faculty development in this area in schools and colleges of pharmacy in the United States. Methods. A questionnaire used and published previously was further developed and sent to individuals at all US schools and colleges of pharmacy. Multiple approaches were used to enhance response. Results. Seventy-five (83.3%) questionnaires were returned. Sixty-nine colleges (89.3%) included pharmacogenomics in their PharmD curriculum compared to 16 (39.0%) as reported in a 2005 study. Topic coverage was ,10 hours for 28 (40.6%), 10-30 hours for 29 (42.0%), and 31-60 hours for 10 (14.5%) colleges and schools of pharmacy. Fewer than half (46.7%) were planning to increase course work over the next 3 years and 54.7% had no plans for faculty development related to pharmacogenomics. Conclusions. Most US colleges of pharmacy include pharmacogenomics content in their curriculum, however, the depth may be limited. The majority did not have plans for faculty development in the area of pharmacogenomic content expertise.

An Effective Approach to Teaching Pharmacogenomics in the First Year of Pharmacy Curriculum

“…27 In 2010, that number grew to 69 out of 75 (92%). 28 However, 40% of these schools offer 10 or fewer didactic hours in pharmacogenomics, 28 and in some situations, pharmacogenomics is offered only as an elective.…”

“…The pharmacogenomics learning in these SBT courses involves the discussion of particular scenarios, applying and reinforcing the learned concepts as suggested by previous work. 29 Furthermore, this P1 course includes ethical, legal, social and economic implications, as well as metabolomics, epigenetics and bioinformatics, covering some of the suggested additional pharmacist competencies 27,28 that were reported as "deficient" in some schools in the 2010 study. 28 If a patient is an ultra-rapid metabolizer for a specific enzyme, a medication metabolized by that enzyme will _____.…”

Translation of pharmacogenetics to clinical practice: what will it take?

“…Other factors that influence the translation of pharmacogenetic principles into clinical practice involve education of healthcare professionals in a topic that is complex to understand. For example, pharmacogenetics is not covered in all pharmacy schools in the USA and for those that do cover pharmacogenetics, approximately 40% of schools offer less than 10 h of coverage in this area throughout a 4-year curriculum [15]. This compares with only 28% of reported US and Canadian medical schools having more than 4 h of curricular content in pharmaco genomics [16].…”

Assessing Feasibility of Delivering Pharmacogenetic Testing in a Community Pharmacy Setting

“…As pharmacists have specialized expertise about drug effects and metabolism, and regularly interact with both patients and providers, they occupy a unique position in the healthcare delivery team and may be ide ally suited to provide PGx testing. Further, PGx content has been or is currently being incorporated into pharmacy curricula [15][16][17][18][19][20], more so than training programs of other care providers [21,22], making pharmacists well suited to provide this service to their custom ers. Patients often rely on their community [23].…”