TEACHING OF MEDICAL PHARMACOLOGY: NURTURING THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF DESIRED ATTITUDES WHICH FOSTER SAFE AND RATIONAL DRUG PRESCRIBING

Matthew Gwee, Medical Education Unit and Department of Pharmacology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 10 Medical Drive, SINGAPORE 117597

Purpose

Errors of drug prescribing which compromise patient safety are of serious concern to the medical profession and the public, and have been attributed to inadequate teaching of pharmacology and therapeutics. Prescribing habits of doctors further compound the problem, as they are strongly influenced by how “seniors” prescribe, and also by commercial and patient pressures. An educational approach was therefore used to identify the need to incorporate desired learning outcomes in the attitudes domain for a medical pharmacology course.

Methods

A preliminary Needs Assessment was done by reviewing 4 major pharmacology textbooks. The desired knowledge (K), cognitive skills (S) and attitudes (A) to be acquired for safe and rational drug prescribing were identified performing a Task

Analysis.

Results

All 4 textbooks reviewed did not include any chapter or section specifically focused on nurturing the development of desired attitudes for rational drug prescribing. The task analysis on prescribing of hypnotics identified the desired outcomes in all three domains of learning (KSA), e.g. attitudes: always be aware that starting patients on hypnotics is easy, but stopping can be extremely difficult.   

Conclusion