Student perceptions about pharmacology teaching and curriculum at a tertiary care medical institute of Haryana state, India – an appraisal

Abstract

Background

The present pharmacology curriculum is inadequate and not uniform across all medical colleges across India, inspite of guidelines issued by the Medical Council of India (MCI). Feedback form the stakeholder i.e. faculty and students is an important aspect to find lacunae and suggest changes in the existing teaching & curriculum. Hence, the present study was planned to obtain feedback from the student’s regarding pharmacology teaching and curriculum.

Methods

A total of 120 medical students from III & IV professional years, interns & residents were participants of the study. Feedback questionnaire focusing on the perception towards various aspects of pharmacology syllabus, teaching and measures to improve the existing pharmacology curriculum and assessment was administered. The questionnaire contained both open ended and also close ended questions on Likert’s five point scale.

 Results

Students felt that pharmacy practical and experimental exercises need to be removed from the curriculum. It was stressed on to conduct more integrated seminar, tutorials, group discussions and problem based learning.  Students suggested topics like clinical pharmacology, sports & emergency medicine, clinical research, ethics and new medicine formulations etc. to be included. Majority of students felt the need of monthly tests to compute for internal assessment.

Conclusion

The teaching methods should include more of small group teaching methods with judicious use of the modern teaching aids. The pharmacology curriculum should be made more need based, integrated with clinical subjects, focusing towards the objectives to be achieved by national health programme.