ORCID

0000-0002-5938-0699 (Ikonne)

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

DOI

10.1002/prp2.70150

Publication Title

Pharmacology Research & Perspectives

Volume

13

Issue

4

Pages

e70150 (1-11)

Abstract

In the United States, medical educators have expressed concern that an integrated and condensed pre-clerkship curriculum risks leaving gaps in student pharmacology knowledge. This study evaluates a remote-learning clinical pharmacology elective that integrates fundamental pharmacology concepts and principles of medication safety and explores how the course impacts senior medical students' self-reported readiness for residency. Clinical Pharmacology and Medication Safety is a remote elective course for senior medical students. The course integrates a review of basic pharmacology with clinical pharmacology topics through case-based learning sessions led by clinical pharmacists and physicians. To evaluate the elective's effectiveness, students in the fall and spring cohorts completed pre-elective and post-elective questionnaires, and differences in responses were analyzed using the Mann–Whitney U test. Thematic analysis was used to evaluate qualitative data. Preparation for residency was a major theme that emerged from students responding to why they enrolled in the elective. A significant increase in students' perceived understanding was observed of what is required to safely prescribe drugs and more commonly prescribed drugs such as antimicrobials (p <  0.001). Further, pre- and post-elective analysis revealed a significant increase in students' perceived ability to recognize medication errors and initiate discussions with the health care team (p <  0.001). Eta-squared was calculated to determine effect size, and most indicated a “large difference” from pre-to post. This clinical pharmacology elective exemplifies how to effectively use technology within the elective phase to vertically integrate basic science content across the medical curriculum within the framework of an integrated and condensed pre-clerkship phase.

Rights

© 2025 The Authors.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Interntational (CC BY-NC 4.0) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

Data Availability

Article states: "The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request."

Original Publication Citation

Graham, E. B., Wightkin, W. T., Bay, C. R., & Ikonne, U. S. (2025). Clinical pharmacology and medication safety: A remote learning elective designed for senior medical students. Pharmacology Research & Perspectives, 13(4), 1-11, Article e70150. https://doi.org/10.1002/prp2.70150

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