Medication Safety Curricula in US Medical Schools—A Call for Action

Abstract

With evidence on gaps between expectations of entering residents and their performance in both medication ordering and prescription writing, our study is an attempt to document the extent to which related topics are being covered in undergraduate medical education. Results received from an online survey conducted through the American Medical Student Association found that a high percentage of clinical year students had little or no experience in writing or ordering prescriptions. Our results suggest that there is a lack of adequate coverage of these topics and this, at least partly, could explain the higher medication errors among entering residents.