Pharmacology education in the USA: I. The role of undergraduate programmes

Abstract

Over the past decade, there have been numerous clarion calls to improve specialist education in pharmacology in the USA. Leading figures from industry, academia, and professional societies have noted that the broad, interdisciplinary education necessary for a good grounding in pharmacology is sorely lacking in many US universities and medical schools’-‘. While many European countries offer undergraduate degrees in pharmacology and its sister science toxicology, American programmes are concentrated primarily in medical and professional schools, which offer a comprehensive curriculum in pharmacology only at the masters or doctoral level. There is no doubt that demand for pharmacology educationat thegraduate level is extremely well-served: the several hundred programmes in schools of medicine and pharmacy throughout the country havr produced nn adequate supply, or pcrhaps even a surplus, of pharmacologists with advanced degrees and specialist training. Only a handful of American universities, however, offer any substantive education in pharmacology at the undergraduate level, despite inaeasing demand for well-trained bachelor-level pharmacologists from industrial, academic, and government research laboratories. Just three USA universities ‘. University of California at Santa Barbara and the State University of New York campuses at Buffaio and Stony Brook offer comprehyn:.ivr undergraduate pharmacology pro-. grammes. This article focuses on ht 5~ these programmes have been developed, the kinds of students they attract, and some of the teaching approaches they are using. It concludes with some proposals for improving both the quality and quantity of undergraduate education in the pharmacological scicnccs.