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).