A Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy Elective Course to Enhance Pharmacy Students’ Literature Evaluation Skills and Ability to Apply Clinical Evidence

Abstract

To design and implement a cardiovascular pharmacotherapy elective course to enhance pharmacy students' ability to evaluate medical literature and apply clinical evidence. In weekly class sessions, students were provided an overview of the important literature supporting therapeutic guidelines for the management of major cardiovascular diseases. Students worked in groups to complete outside-of-class assignments involving a patient case and then discussed the case in class. During the semester, each student also independently completed a literature search on an assigned topic, summarized the studies found in table format, and presented 1 of the studies to the class. Students' grades on weekly patient case assignments steadily increased over the semester. Also, the average grade on the final examination was higher than the grade on the midterm take-home examination. On the course evaluation, students rated the course favorably in terms of improvement of confidence in evaluating the primary literature and applying it to practice. Completion of the cardiovascular pharmacotherapy elective increased pharmacy students' level of confidence in evaluating literature and applying clinical evidence in making patient care decisions.