Education in clinical pharmacology

Abstract

first aim is to pro- duce pharmacologists who will work in various capacities in academia and industry, with the major goal of maintaining a sufficient number of pharmacologists to keep the field viable and creative. In this sense, education functions to maintain pharmacology for its own purpose and prevent it from merging com- pletely into the big melting pot of molecular biology. A second purpose reaches beyond its own needs and is directed at a group of people who are not pharmacologists, namely phar- macists and medical doctors. In par- ticular, the pharmacologist teaches the medical student the scientific basis of pharmacology. Furthermore, there is the need to teach therapeutics with the aim of obtaining conscien- tious and therapeutically proficient medical doctors. This goal has been accomplished in various countries with variable success, but the pre- scribing habits of German medical doctors have been criticized both nationally and intemationallyr,2. This criticism mainly reflects the lack of successful education in pharma- cology and therapeutics in Germany. At present, the state-dictated cur- riculum in Germany requires only education in pharmacology and has led to the afore-mentioned dismal results. Consequently, the need for a much better education in therapeutics in Germany has been recognized”. It is now clear that it is necessary to have a separate and in-depth education in therapeutics in addition to a basic course in pharmacology, and the teaching of therapeutics falls into the natural competence of the clinical pharmacologM+. The current trends of some pharmacological depart- ments in Germany to add a ‘little’ clinical pharmacology by appointing a junior level faculty member to take care of this field or, as has been suggested by Habermannr in his re- sponse to the article of Page ef RI!, to confer this duty to ‘any able and eager competitor’ is, in our opinion, a grave mistake and will not result in the desired improvement in the pre- scribing habits of the medical doc- tors. Whoever creates such a ‘chal- lenge cup’ of clinical pharmacologists ignores that this discipline is in- volved in various aspects of human medicine from basic science to hu- man pathophysiology, drug develop- ment, pharmacoeconomics and regu- latory function. Education in clinical pharmacology has been defined in various ways in different countries. In Germany, clinical pharmacology has finally been established as a field separate from pharmacology, and an essential part of the curriculum is ward experience. In addition, the educational experience includes years of consulting activity on the wards, running of the drug-assay laboratory and conducting studies in Phases 1 through 4, thus preparing the clinical pharmacologist to ultimately teach therapeutics. In summary, pharmacology has failed in Germany