E-drug: Undergraduate pharmacotherapy teaching (cont'd)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Dzulkifli Abdul Razak and Professor David Henry have given
their versions of the approaches followed in Malaysia and Australia
respectively.
The non-existence of Pharmacology as a 'formal' subject in Malaysian
medical schools is a cause of some concern. We cannot wish away a
subject by integrating it, all of us would agree that a basic knowledge
of pharmacological principles will have to be taught as isolated
non-integrated topics in order to develop better understanding of the
systems. Secondly, the 'small group learning' method is not adoptable
in Indian conditions primarily because the annual intake in the medical
schools (colleges) is high (>150-200) and trained pharmacology
teachers are difficult to come by.
I tend to agree with the views of Prof. David Henry about identifying
and teaching the main principles that the student really ought to know
in order to develop a basis for understanding clinical medicine and
most importantly to become good GPs. Given the large class size in
Indian schools we can only hope to have 'fixed resource sessions'.
The practice of Problem Based Learning has been experimentally tried
on a sample group by our department in the past but its translation
into the larger aspect would mean a drastic financial drain which
would not be allowed immediately by most of our medical schools.
At present we can only envisage to break away from the past by
abandoning archaic experiments which have been in existence for the
last half century and develop methods to strengthen the infrastructure
of our schools to include a problem based curriculum.
Those who wish to learn more about the Medical Council of India may
find the following of interest:
http://www.mciindia.org
http://www.financialexpress.com/ie/daily/19970603/15450493.html
With regards,
Dr. Jatinder Singh MD
Dept. of Pharmacology
Government Medical College
Amritsar 143 001
INDIA
Email: jatindersingh@vsnl.com
--
Send mail for the `E-Drug' conference to `e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'.
Mail administrative requests to `majordomo@usa.healthnet.org'.
For additional assistance, send mail to: `owner-e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'.