Teaching and learning pharmacology in Brazil before COVID-19 pandemic: a case study in Rio de Janeiro

• Published in: BMC medical education Vol. 23; no. 1; p. 471
• Main Authors: Fidalgo-Neto, Antonio Augusto, Lopes, Renato Matos, Ribeiro, Ricardo Riedel Martins, de Souza, Cristina Alves Magalhães, de Souza Cavalcanti, Raul Luiz, da Silva Ferreira, Natiele Carla, Alves, Luiz Anastacio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 23.06.2023; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Brazil; Cognition & reasoning; Core curriculum; COVID-19; Drug interactions; Drug stores; Drug therapy; Educational aspects; Educational Practices; Educational Strategies; Epidemics; Holistic Approach; Humans; Influence; Interdisciplinary subjects; Interviews; Knowledge; Learning; Likert scale; Likert Scales; Medical education; Medical errors; Medical schools; Medical students; Pandemics; Patient safety; Pharmacology; Pharmacology - education; Pharmacology curricula; Physicians; Prescriptions; Problem based learning; Psychometrics; Public health; Questionnaires; Semi Structured Interviews; Students, Medical; Study and teaching; Teaching; Teaching Methods; Teaching Models; Workloads; Brazil; Rio de Janeiro Brazil; Pharmacology curricula; Brazil; Medical education; Pharmacology; Medical schools
• ISSN: 1472-6920; 1472-6920
• DOI: 10.1186/s12909-023-04437-4

Knowledge of pharmacology is crucial for physicians to perform rational and safe medicine. Medical professionals are responsible for prescribing drugs and a weak performace of those can result in medication errors leading to disability, hospitalization, and death, among other situations. It occurs worldwide, including in Brazil, so that learning pharmacology impacts on public health service. We aim to investigate the current pharmacology educational practices in medical schools in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We surveyed 14 of 22 medical schools in Rio de Janeiro. Pharmacology teachers (n=16) and medical students (n=89) answered a semi-structured questionnaire that included questions about the staff characteristics, pharmacology content, teacher's concepts, and common practices and resources that were used in pharmacology classes. Our results revealed that the medical schools had similar overall curriculums. Pharmacology teachers work more than 30hs a week (75%) and conducted both research and teaching (62.5%). We also found that the multimedia projector was the most common resource (71.9%), and passive pedagogical methodologies (e.g., expository classes) remain a current strategy in pharmacology classes (89.9%). In general, medical students are poorly motivated (55%), which may be related to their performance in assessments. In addition, students believe that pharmacology is a complex (52%) or very complex subject (46%) since for its full understanding the student needs concepts from other disciplines, which can have an impact on the performance and motivation of students. As a result, these medical students do not fully understand the integration between pharmacology's basic concepts and their clinical applications. These data seem to demonstrate that the adopted teaching and learning pharmacology strategies and methodologies can be improved in Rio de Janeiro.