The Anatomical Society core anatomy syllabus for pharmacists: outcomes to create a foundation for practice

Abstract

The Anatomical Society has developed a series of learning outcomes that ‘experts’ within the field would recommend as core knowledge outputs for a Master's Degree Programme in Pharmacy (MPharm) within the UK. Using the Anatomical Society core gross anatomy syllabus for medical anatomy as a foundation, a modified Delphi technique was used to develop outcomes specific to pharmacy graduates. A Delphi panel consisting of medical practitioners, pharmacists and anatomists (n = 39) was created and involved ‘experts’ representing 20 UK Higher Education Institutions. The output from this study was 49 pharmacy‐specific learning outcomes that are applicable to all pharmacy programmes. The new MPharm anatomy syllabus offers a basic anatomical framework upon which pharmacy educators can build the necessary clinical practice and knowledge. These learning outcomes could be used to develop anatomy teaching within an integrated curriculum as per requirements of the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC).

The Anatomical Society’s Core Anatomy Syllabus for Dental Undergraduates

“…The inclusion of clinical anatomical correlations within the survey was also discussed, and a consensus was reached not to highlight these in order to avoid steering the Delphi panel. This approach is in line with the approaches adopted by other core anatomical curriculum papers (Smith et al 2016a;Connelly et al 2018;Finn et al 2018;Holland et al 2019), where the principle has been to arrive at a consensus to be able to guide a range of curricula in the UK and beyond, many of which retain a clear demarcation between preclinical and clinical course content. To adopt an alternative approach and single out anatomy in the dental curriculum, by highlighting those learning outcomes with clinical correlations, would be inconsistent.…”

“…This study employed a modified Delphi approach, as described in the Anatomical Society's previously published syllabuses (Smith et al ,b; Finn et al ; Connelly et al ; Holland et al ) and methodology paper (Smith et al ,b). The modified Delphi utilised existing learning outcomes as a starting point, rather than a blank page approach as per a traditional Delphi approach (Moxham et al ).…”

“…The research group, who coordinated the project, consisted of three of the contributing authors (GF, JM, MC). All authors have experience in teaching anatomy to undergraduate dental students, and GF, BM and SM have expertise in Delphi methodologies for developing anatomical syllabuses (McHanwell et al ; Moxham et al ; Smith et al ,b; Connelly et al ; Finn et al ; Holland et al ). MC and BM have dental qualifications, and BM has written textbooks on head and neck anatomy for dentistry and is a member of the international committee dealing with anatomical and oroanatomical terminologies.…”

“…Previous papers have contested the level at which consensus should be set for Delphi studies (Keeney et al 2011). Figures within the literature range from 70% to 100% (Latif et al 2016;Finn et al 2018), with similar projects for different undergraduate programmes using 80% (McHanwell et al 2007;Moxham et al 2014;Smith et al 2016a,b;Connelly et al 2018;Finn et al 2018;Holland et al 2019). There are 16 institutions teaching dentistry in the UK, each using their own curricula.…”

“…Within the UK and Europe, no detailed guidance on recommended anatomical content for dental courses exists. There are, however, recommended core syllabuses developed by the Anatomical Society for several other healthcare disciplines (Smith et al ,b; Finn et al ; Connelly et al ; Holland et al ). This is not to say that there is any evidence of a diminishing role for anatomy within dental curricula.…”