The teaching of pharmacology in medical schools: current status and future perspectives

Pharmacology is a core course in all medical school curricula. In most medical schools, pharmacology, is taught during the second year and teaching covers both basic aspects and useful drugs for the treatment of human diseases. It is assumed that relevant pharmacologic knowledge is revisited during the clinical clerkships and that students ore adequately trained to prescribe drugs upon graduation. However, for many years it has been noted that pharmacological training is sometimes insufficient and that inadequate and irrational prescription of drugs is a very common problem in clinical settings, Information overload and proliferation of new drugs have been recognized as two of the major contributing factors. To address this issue, many authors have recommended the development of a core curricula in pharmacology which all students would have to complete coupled witha restricted list of drugs. Based on our own teaching experience we have identified what should constitute the core content of pharmacology courses in medical schools and have written a study guide for this discipline. Both documents provide an organizational framework to help second Year medical students ascertain what part of the vast knowledge in pharmacology they need to learn. The number of drugs that students have to manage is limited to 168. Our program constitutes the first effort to medicalize the teaching of pharmacology, in medical schools. We expect that most medical schools will follow our guidelines as our program is applicable to all curricula modalities.