Poetry in teaching pharmacology: Exploring the possibilities

Educational Interventions for Medical Students to Improve Pharmacological Knowledge and Prescribing Skills: A Scoping Review

Introduction

Medication-related errors place a heavy financial burden on healthcare systems worldwide, and mistakes are most likely to occur at the stage of prescribing. Junior doctors are more likely to make prescribing errors, and medical graduates also lack confidence and preparedness towards prescribing. Thus, this review aimed to evaluate the existing educational approaches to improve pharmacological knowledge and prescribing skills among medical students.

Methods

CENTRAL, CINAHL, ERIC, Ovid Embase, Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid PsycINFO, and Scopus were searched with keywords related to "pharmacological knowledge", "prescribing skills", "educational interventions" for articles published since 2016.

Results

3595 records were identified, and 115 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility. Eighty full-text articles were eligible and included in this review. Thirty-seven studies focused on improving prescribing skills, whilst 43 targeted pharmacological knowledge. A broad range of interventions was implemented, including e-learning, case-based, interprofessional, and experiential learning. Pharmacological knowledge and prescribing skills were measured in various ways, and all studies reported one or more positive findings at Kirkpatrick level 1 or 2. No study reported outcomes at Kirkpatrick levels 3 and 4.

Discussion

The World Health Organisation's Good Guide to Prescribing was the foundation of the development of prescribing educational interventions. Emerging interventions such as experiential and interprofessional learning should be incorporated into the prescribing curriculum. Innovative approaches such as game-based learning can be considered for clinical pharmacology teaching. However, there was a lack of outcomes at Kirkpatrick levels 3 and 4. Robust methodology and reliable outcome measures are also needed in future studies.

Mini-Review - Teaching Writing in the Undergraduate Neuroscience Curriculum: Its Importance and Best Practices

In neuroscience and other scientific disciplines, instructors increasingly appreciate the value of writing. Teaching students to write well helps them succeed in school, not only because they perform better on assessments but also because well-structured writing assignments improve learning. Moreover, the ability to write well is an essential professional skill, because good clear writing in conjunction with good clear thinking results in increased success in fellowship applications, grant proposals, and publications. However, teaching writing in neuroscience classrooms is challenging for several reasons. Students may not initially recognize the importance of writing, teachers may lack training in the pedagogy of writing instruction, and both teachers and students must commit substantial time and effort to writing if progress is to be made. Here, we detail effective strategies for teaching writing to undergraduates, including scaffolding of teaching assignments, both within a class and across a curriculum; use of different types of writing assignments; early integration of writing into courses; peer review and revision of assignments; mentoring by student tutors; and use of defined rubrics. We also discuss how these strategies can be utilized effectively in the context of multicultural classrooms and labs.

Evolution of pharmacology education in India: Past and future

Pharmacology education has passed through various stages in the evolution sequence due to ever-changing type and repository of drugs as well as technological advancements in the educational processes. This article reviews the journey of evolution of pharmacology education. Pharmacology is relevant component of various curricula in medical, dental, and paramedical courses. A huge number of students learn pharmacology as a subject. Important milestones in evolutionary sequence included revisions and updates in learning objectives, teaching-learning material/methods and assessment in undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) levels. During this period, a number of pharmacology organizations and associations were formed for the progress of the subject. The inception of Indian Pharmacological Society and International Union of Pharmacology is worth mentioning. There are standardization and unification efforts being done in pharmacology education at national and international levels. The era of animal experimentation is struggling to survive in the new era of animations and simulations. There is increasingly more emphasis on the relevant clinical pharmacy and clinical pharmacology components in the education. The past evolutionary sequences provide leads for future evolutions. New courses and innovations are being designed and implemented to make pharmacology education more meaningful and useful to the new technology-savvy students. A number of innovations in the form of case-based learning, objective-structured practical examination, small group learning, interactive, and integrated methods are being implemented. There is a lot of work being done to introduce a competency-based intergraded curriculum in medical UG and PG courses. All these evolutionary sequences require changing and evolving role of teachers as facilitators.