Methods and Findings in Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology
Vol. 24, Suppl. A, 2002, pp. 19
ISSN 0379-0355
Copyright 2002 Prous Science, S.A.
CCC: 0379-0355/2002
http://www.prous.com

The Need for Core Curricula in the Teaching of Pharmacology: The Study of the Spanish Society of Pharmacology

J.E. Baños, I. Bellido, M.V. Clos, M.D. Ivorra, J.J. Meana and S. Sánchez

Teaching and Education Group, Spanish Society of Pharmacology

The growth of biomedical knowledge in the last decades has been enormous, making the teaching of all available facts a formidable task. As a consequence, the concept of core curriculum has been developed to outline the basic knowledge needed to adequately perform in a specific field. In the opinion of the British Pharmacological Society (BPS), these core curricula may be useful for the following purposes (1):

- To offer ideas to course developers as to what to include in their courses
- To use a BPS benchmark where course developers feel under pressure to reduce the content of their course
- To identify the changing nature of the subject
- To provide a guide to the minimum knowledge and skills a student should possess
- To allow university management, quality assurance and professional bodies to see what this scientific society considers to be core curricula

Pharmacology has become an ever more complex science in recent decades. The availability of new drugs, the appearance of different pharmacological groups, the development of molecular biology and biotechnology and the increasing interest in safety and cost issues have created a body of knowledge that is difficult to cope with (2). Moreover, new studies, or old studies previously not of interest, are now being taught. There are two main consequences of this situation: first, there is a need to select content that should be included in the syllabuses. Second, new students means new needs, and as such, new curricula should be prepared. It is clear that medical students have different goals than veterinary, dental or pharmacy students. The same reasoning applies to students from biology, biotechnology, biochemistry, psychology or optics schools. These assumptions justify the definition of basic knowledge in pharmacology for each type of student, in other words, the creation of core curricula.

Several years ago, some teachers from the USA and Great Britain designed core curricula for the students of clinical pharmacology (3-5). More recently, the BPS has undertaken projects to establish the basic content of
the pharmacology curriculum and has already finished the core curriculum for Bsc pharmacology, dentistry, pharmacy, preregistration nursing courses and veteri-nary science, available at http://www.bps.ac.uk/ coreCurri.html. Following the guidelines of the Bologna declaration, different countries are each preparing curricula to harmonize the European Union curricula.

The Spanish Society of Pharmacology has recognized the need to establish a core curricula for teaching the discipline in Spanish universities. A Teaching and Education Group (TEG) was created last year and its first task was to develop core curricula of pharmacology for health science faculties in which pharmacology is a compulsory topic: medicine, pharmacy, veterinary and dentistry. Over the last nine months, the TEG has been collecting different syllabuses and analyzing the similarities in order to define what should be the core curriculum in each discipline. The final objective is to define what basic pharmacology contents should be taught to each student, taking into account his/her academic profile. The TEG believes that its work will help to harmonize the teaching of pharmacology in Spanish universities.

REFERENCES

1. http://www.bps.ac.uk/coreCurri.html (Consulted July 9, 2002).

2. Baños, J.E., Reverte, M., Bosch, F. Teaching pharmacology in the 21st century: Challenges and opportunities. TiPS 2002, 23: 294-7.

3. Mucklow, J.C. What knowledge and skills are essential for specialists in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics? Results of a Delphi study. Br J Clin Pharmacol 2002, 53: 341-6.

4. Walley, T. Webb, D.J. Core content of a course in clinical pharmacology. Br J Clin Pharmacol 1997, 44: 171-4.

5. Nierenberg, D.W. A core curriculum for medical students in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics. J Clin Pharmacol 1991, 31: 307-11.

Methods and Findings in Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology Vol. 24, Suppl. A, 2002, pp. 19
ISSN 0379-0355 Copyright 2002 Prous Science, S.A. CCC: 0379-0355/2002 http://www.prous.com