Methods and Findings in Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology
Vol. 24, Suppl. A, 2002, pp. 23-24
ISSN 0379-0355
Copyright 2002 Prous Science, S.A.
CCC: 0379-0355/2002
http://www.prous.com

Core Curriculum in Pharmacology for Pharmacy Students

M.D. Ivorra

Departament de Farmacologia, Facultat de Farmàcia, Universitat de València, Spain

The current situation of pharmacology and the pharmacy curriculum in the pharmacy schools of Spain (Alcalá, Barcelona, Complutense de Madrid, Granada, La Laguna, Miguel Hernández de Elche, Salamanca, Santiago de Compostela, Sevilla, Valencia, País Vasco, San Pablo-CEU Madrid, Cardenal Herrera-CEU Valencia, Navarra and Alfonso X el Sabio) has been analyzed in order to create a consensus document on core curriculum in pharmacology for pharmacy students.

The Real Decreto 1464/1990, 26 de octubre (B.O.E. 20 de noviembre) establishes the new directives necessary to obtain the official title of pharmacy and determines the minimum obligatory contents, thus allowing different schools to establish their own study plans. This has generated differences in the curricula of the different schools, mainly in the facilitation of some subjects and in the number of total credits assigned to each subject. The Real Decreto assigned the subject "Pharmacology and clinical pharmacy", with a minimum of 11 theoretical credits (TC; 110 hours) and 5 practical credits (PC), to two areas: "Pharmacology" and "Pharmacy and pharmaceutical technology". In both Valencia universities (M. Hernández and Cardenal Herrera-CEU), "Pharmacology and clinical pharmacy" is offered as a single subject with 12 TC, 11 TC and 11 TC, respectively. In all other universities it has been divided into two subjects: "Pharmacology" assigned to the area of "Pharmacology" and "Cinical Pharmacology" in some universities (Sevilla, País Vasco, San Pablo-CEU Madrid, Navarra and Alfonso X el Sabio), "pharmacology and pharmaceutical technology" in others (Alcalá, Barcelona, Granada, La Laguna and Salamanca) or to both areas (Complutense de Madrid). "Pharmacology" is offered as a single subject given over the course of 1 year or divided into two subjects over the course of 2 years.

The present study analyzed the contents of theoretical "Pharmacology" syllabuses of the different schools given as one or two subjects. Neither the practical aspects of "Pharmacology" nor the theoretical and practical aspects of "Clinical pharmacy" were evaluated. The content of the different syllabuses was quite similar between the schools and it was also similar to the core curriculum in pharmacology for pharmacy courses published by The British Pharmacological Society (http://www.bps.ac.uk/ BPS.htlm). The main difference in the Spanish school syllabuses is the time that each department spends developing it. In fact, the number of total credits ranges from 7.5 to 13.5 (10.9 ± 1.7, mean ± SD). The theoretical content of the different topics as well as the time spent in their development was analyzed. Taking into account the great variability in the total number of credits between the schools, we calculated the time spent in developing each topic as a percentage of the total number of credits (Fig. 1). The pharmacology syllabus is divided into different sections and the main difference between the schools is the distribution of several topics into the various sections. In the present analysis, we included the different topics in the sections displayed in Figure 1 taking into account that the "Cardiovascular, renal and internal medium pharmacology" section includes the study of lipid-lowering drugs, which is in the metabolism section in some syllabuses. The "Inflammation and immune system pharmacology" section includes the study of some cellular mediators (i.e., histamine and antihistamines, eicosanoids and NSAIDs), glucocorticoids (in the endocrine section in some syllabuses), drugs used in the treatment of gout (in the metabolism section in some syllabuses) and immunomodulatory drugs (together with antineoplastics agents in some syllabuses). Some schools included a section on "Cellular Mediator pharmacology", however, in the present analysis the topics regarding the pharmacology of different cellular mediators have been accounted for in their appropriate sections (i.e., histamine in inflammation and digestive sections, eicosanoids in inflammation section, etc.). Also presented are the results obtained from two sections considered only by some schools: "Sensory and dermatologic pharmacology" (7 schools) and "Nutritional pharmacology" (nutritional disorders and vitamins pharmacology) (10 schools). These topics are also considered in the guidance on core pharmacology curriculum for undergraduate pharmacy courses by the BPS.

FIG. 1. Distribution of percent values (mean ± SD) for topics in pharmacy pharmacology curriculum.

The different schools dedicated a similar percentage of total time to the different sections except in the case of general pharmacology, which showed the highest diversity with minimal and maximal values of 6% and 33%, respectively. This could be due to the great variability in time spent on the study of pharmacokinetics and drug development aspects. Considering that the pharmacy curriculum includes the subject of "Pharmacokinetics" in some pharmacology syllabuses, this part is either very short or not included. The reason the topics of drug development are not included in some syllabuses is because it is covered under "Clinical pharmacy". Based on these data a consensus document on core curriculum in pharmacology for pharmacy students will be discussed subsequently.

Methods and Findings in Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology Vol. 24, Suppl. A, 2002, pp. 23-24
ISSN 0379-0355 Copyright 2002 Prous Science, S.A. CCC: 0379-0355/2002 http://www.prous.com