status of Chemistry content in the professional pharmacy curriculum: Results of a national survey, The

American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, Fall 2000 by Roche, Victoria F, Davis, Patrick J, Pankaskie, Marvin C, Currie, Bruce L, Et al

A national survey which evaluated the current and anticipated future emphasis of chemistry-related content, the credentials of the faculty teaching the content and pedagogical methods used in the delivery of the content was conducted in 1997-1998. Thirty-three schools or colleges of pharmacy participated. Twenty-one content areas related to General Principles, Medicinal Chemistry, Clinical/Biological Chemistry and Computational/Analytical Chemistry were addressed in the survey instrument. The first section of the survey asked about past, current and anticipated future emphasis on each topic, as well as the disciplines) of the individuals responsible for delivery. The second section asked about the format of the courses) that offered the content, pedagogical methods employed in those courses, and perceived adequacy of coverage. The majority of the respondents reported a steady emphasis on the content areas over the past five years with little change anticipated in the foreseeable future. In general, coverage of the General Principles and Medicinal Chemistry content areas was perceived as adequate. Coverage was most commonly deemed inadequate in the Computational/Analytical area, although the Clinical/Biological topics of biotechnology and herbals and natural products were also viewed as in need of augmentation. Faculty educated in the chemical sciences were heavily engaged in the instruction of all topics, and were joined appropriately by pharmacology and pharmaceutics faculty in selected topic areas. Courses in the Computational/Analytical area are most likely to be taught by a single instructor, or by a team of faculty within a single discipline. Multi-disciplinary coverage (either within a single course or in multiple courses) was common in all of the other content areas. Case studies and computerized learning aids were commonly utilized in the delivery of chemistry-related content, with recitations, laboratories and demonstrations used less frequently to augment lecture. Schools and colleges of pharmacy are offering a wide variety of chemistry-related elective coursework to professional students. Respondents view the foundational nature of chemistry, the critical-thinking and problem-solving skills the discipline instills, and the ease with which it can be integrated with other science and practice-based courses as the major strengths of this basic pharmaceutical science.

INTRODUCTION

Concurrent with the increased emphasis on clinical course work that has been an integral part of the curriculum reform process in pharmacy education has come concern over the fate of chemistry-related content in the contemporary professional curriculum. Many medicinal chemists have willingly and creatively modified their discipline's content to make it relevant to future practitioners. Innovations such as the chemically-based case study and structurally-based therapeutic evaluation(1-4), as well as diverse active learning strategies(5-7), have been developed and utilized extensively by medicinal chemists. Even so, when the dust of curricular reform had settled, several colleagues in the Section of Teachers of Chemistry expressed frustration over having credit hours cut from their courses and/or fear that their subject, so unique and important to the scientific practice of pharmacy, will disappear from the curriculum altogether.

The last formal national survey of chemistry-related content in the professional curricula of schools and colleges of pharmacy, and the faculty teaching it, was published in 1981(8,9). Two others of similar format and scope were initiated in 1984 and 1990 and the preliminary results reported the following years at the Section meeting held in conjunction with AACP Annual meetings in San Francisco and Boston, respectively. These studies provided a "snapshot in time" and reported information on the credit hours that were then devoted to specific didactic and laboratory courses, the number of schools and colleges requiring them, and whether they were taught by pharmacy faculty. The surveys also asked about changes in credit hour assignment for the various courses, and investigated the prevalence of team-teaching in the chemistry curriculum. The survey published in 1981 was conducted prior to the establishment of the Commission to Implement Change in Pharmaceutical Education and the national curriculum reform movement, and did not specifically address issues of relevance of content to practice or integration of content with other pharmaceutical and clinical science course work. In addition, the respondents' opinions of the current and future adequacy of the content was not addressed.

By 1997 the Section of Teachers of Chemistry had developed and approved a revised set of chemistry-related competencies to guide schools and colleges in covering critical chemistry content deemed essential to the scientific and rational practice of pharmacy. However, with so much curricular movement going on at a national level, and with so much uncertainty about the fate of chemistry in the curricular revolutions being staged at almost every school and college of pharmacy, it was deemed prudent to update and expand the information available to academicians. To that end Bruce Currie, in his role as Chair of the Section of Teachers of Chemistry, charged a special Committee to conduct a survey to identify the current status of chemistry in the pharmacy curriculum. The Committee set about its work in earnest in early 1997 and collected data through the fall of 1998.