[Trial of the integrated cross-field pharmaceutical education in the first year of faculty of pharmacy].

Yakugaku Zasshi 130(12):1647-53 (2010) PMID 21139390

The six-year pharmacist education course has begun, and now first-year students receive clinical training. Interdisciplinary problem-solving capabilities covering chemistry, biology, molecular biology, pharmacology, pathology, and pharmacokinetics are necessary for new pharmacists. However, the conventional pharmaceutical science education was so separate from other fields that education for interdisciplinary cooperative capability was insufficient. This was especially true of elemental science courses, because they are not directly connected with clinical knowledge, and there is a problem of low student interest in those courses. As a result, students acquired only recall-level knowledge in clinical courses and their problem-solving capabilities in clinical treatment and drug development deteriorated. Therefore we offered a trial lecture aimed to help students recognize the important relationship between elemental science courses and clinical courses and increase their motivation to enroll in these courses. Specifically, the trial lecture covered cancer therapy, in reference to mechanisms of carcinogenesis, epidemiology, physiology of cancer, anticancer drugs with explanations of the mechanism of action of carcinogens, anticancer drugs, and molecular-targeted drugs from the viewpoints of organic chemistry and biochemistry by a specialized teacher. This paper reports on this experimental lecture with evaluations from students.