Why identify core concepts in pharmacology?
Pharmacology, defined as the science of drugs or medicines and their interactions with biological systems, integrates knowledge from a number of disciplines, including but not limited to physiology, pathology, chemistry, biochemistry, structural biology, and mathematics. Pharmacology is taught across the breadth of health professional, biomedical and basic science contexts, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and via a range of instructional modes (Rubaiy, 2021). In these various programs, the enormous volume of pharmacology content is often afforded limited time within curricula. In recent years, the creation of integrated courses and the merging of physiology and pharmacology departments has contributed to the decreased time dedicated to teaching pharmacology concepts. No pharmacology program, however well-resourced, has sufficient time to teach students all the knowledge in the discipline. While the sheer volume of the “potential curriculum” increases exponentially each year, available time for teaching continues to decline overall (Lloyd et al., 2013). This is obvious in integrated health professions education, where economic and administrative considerations, medical education reforms shortening the preclinical years, and a focus on competency-based models can all minimise time for teaching foundational sciences, including pharmacology.
Studies of health professional graduates report perceived gaps in pharmacology knowledge (Bullock & Leversha, 2019). Manias and Bullock (2002) conducted six focus groups with clinical nurses in Australia and found that “all nurses experienced difficulties in understanding and demonstrating pharmacological concepts in the clinical practice setting.”
The authors of the well-cited investigation into prescriber error for the General Medical Council (London), known as the EQUIP study, argued”More could have been done during undergraduate education to link theory with practice” (Dornan et al., 2009). In order to ensure educational effectiveness and patient safety, we contend that it is essential to first identify the foundational concepts of pharmacology students require in order to provide them with the ability to link theory to practice.
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for a skilled workforce across a range of industries to meet the healthcare requirements of our global communities. From the discovery of new medicines to safe and effective prescribing, our scientists and health professionals require the ability to apply these enduring ideas years after graduation.
In addition to providing consensus on the critical knowledge all students studying pharmacology need, core concepts provide a range of other benefits. Assessments that test their attainment, known as concept inventories, provide students and educators with the tools to measure their progress on the ‘knowledge that matters’. With such tools, educators can compare the effectiveness of innovative pedagogical methods, and administrators can rigorously and reproducibly compare program learning(Sands et al., 2018).