Exploring the landscape of pharmacology education in Health Professions Programs: From historical perspectives to current approaches to teaching

Although health care professionals have been providing care as part of organized medical systems for millennia, therapeutics in its current sense only emerged in the nineteenth century. Teaching was conducted primarily using a lecture-based format. The Therapeutic Revolution of the 1930s heralded an explosion in the number and types of therapies available. As therapy has evolved so has teaching. Didactic teaching has, in many cases, been replaced by active learning and the health professions curriculum has shifted from an instructor-centered and discipline-based to a learner-centered, competence-based model. Pharmacology as a stand-alone discipline has largely been integrated into systems based or other modes of teaching. Assessments have also evolved from traditional examination formats that emphasized rote knowledge memorization to other assessment formats such as objective structured clinical examinations that emphasize evaluation of skills and attitudes. It has been challenging to define the best modalities given the wide variances in health professions education and the structure of health care systems internationally. Nonetheless, International collaboration efforts have been crucial to define core competencies which can then be used to guide curricular development. Challenges facing educators also include teaching ethical conduct of prescribing and how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be used in both teaching and evaluation, suggesting the need for on-going dialogue, continuing professional development and research in these important areas.