Innovative Approaches to Teaching Clinical Pharmacology: Problems of an Emerging Curriculum

Abstract

The Journal of Clinical Pharmacology is publishing an educational series dealing with Innovative Teaching programs in Clinical Pharmacology. Claire M. Lathers, PhD, FCP, and Alphonse J. Ingenito, PhD, FCP, are coediting this series of articles. Two articles have been published to date. The first is coauthored by AJ Ingenito, CM Lathers, and HJ Burford, and is entitled “Instruction in Clinical Pharmacology: Changes in the Wind” (J Clin Pharmacol 1989;29:7–17) and the second was written by CM Lathers and CM Smith and is entitled “Teaching Clinical Pharmacology: Coordination with Medical Pharmacology Courses” (J Clin Pharmacol 1989;29:581–597). The third article, “Incorporation of Clinical Pharmacology into the Fourth Year of the Medical Curriculum: Teaching Clinical Pharmacology Without a Clinical Pharmacologist,” (J Clin Pharmacol 1990;30:1065–1073) was written by Patricia Williams, PhD at Eastern Virginia Medical School. The fourth article (in press) written by Duncan E. Hutcheon, MD, FCP of UMDNJ in Newark, and Hoda Wadie El‐Gawly, MD, PhD, from the University of Suez, describes a computer‐based problem‐solving system in clinical pharmacology.A system that isn't innovating is a system that is dying. In the long run, the innovators are the ones who rescue all human ventures from death by decay. So value them. You don't have to be one yourself, but you should be a friend of the innovators around you. And if you don't have any around you, you had better import some.