Pharmacist-led Education Curriculum for Fourth-Year Medical Students: a Single-Center Experience

Background: Doctors are usually challenged by the transition between theoretical basic science knowledge and actual clinical practice. Thus, a critical educational intervention is the early incorporation of pharmacists into the pharmacotherapy courses for undergraduate medical students from their college years and moving to the practice setting. Objective: We sought to determine if a pharmacist-led education course would improve medical students' knowledge of general pharmacotherapy topics.Methods: All fourth-year female medical students were invited to enroll in the pharmacy practice curriculum between January and March 2022. The program was divided into three main domains: formal lectures, a hands-on prescription writing skills session, and on-site pharmacy practice sessions. The pharmacy practice session was divided into three sections: first section pharmacy practice, second section pharmacy innovation, and the third section clinical pharmacy. Those who completed the curriculum were requested to complete pre-and post-session assessments and curriculum evaluations. Results: One hundred fourteen medical students enrolled in the pharmacy practice module. One hundred eleven (97.4%) completed the pre-and post-course assessment. After completing the module, the medical students' knowledge scores improved from pre-to post-course. A significant difference in the overall knowledge was observed between the pre-course and post-course scores (9.51 versus 16.04; p<0.001). The difference between the pre-course and post-course scores was also significant when comparing the knowledge per each part of the assessment, showing an average score of 2.78 versus 4.05 (p<0.001) for the first section; 3.39 versus 5.49 (p<0.001) for the second section; 3.34 versus 6.48 (p<0.001) for the third section. The program received overall positive feedback; the experience was rated overall as "Excellent" by 73% of the participants. Conclusion: We have demonstrated the impact of a pharmacist-led curriculum for medical students on improving their knowledge of fundamental pharmacy practice areas.