A novel clinical pharmacy experience for third-year medical students

A novel, clinical curriculum was developed to teach third-year medical students the principles of prescribing for elderly people. The experience involved a didactic session with a community pharmacist and a home visit to assess a senior citizen volunteer who was over age 75 years and was prescribed more than five medications. The medical students completed pre- and postexperience questionnaires to assess knowledge and opinions. Statistical analysis used paired t tests to compare pre- and postknowledge. The percentage agreeing or disagreeing were calculated for Likert opinion responses by using mean summary scores. Pre- and postexperience results were compared using paired t tests. Students showed improved knowledge scores on recognizing drug-drug (P=0.029) and drug-disease interactions (P=0.012). Knowledge on true/false prescribing questions was improved (P=0.005). Students felt that their current curriculum gave insufficient time to prescribing issues, and wanted more education about the use of medications and appropriate prescribing. The majority of students felt that they learned new things (81%), the experience was enjoyable (65%), important topics were covered (71.4%) and they would be more likely to confer with a community pharmacist because of the experience (75%). The novel curriculum described appears to be effective and warrants further evaluation.