Pharmacist-Led Education for Final Year Medical Students: A Pilot Study

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Clinical Pharmacy
• Patient Safety

Background:

• Prescribing is a critical skill for medical officers, yet errors can harm patients and increase costs.
• The role of pharmacist-led education in enhancing medical students' prescribing skills is not well-defined.
• Improving prescribing competency is essential for safe and effective patient care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of pharmacist-led education on the quality and safety of final year medical students' prescription writing.
• To compare prescribing skills between students receiving pharmacist intervention and those in a control group.

Main Methods:

• Final year medical students were randomized into a tutorial group (TG) receiving pharmacist education and a non-tutorial group (NTG).
• Prescribing skills were assessed pre- and post-intervention, including Schedule 4, Schedule 8, S4 streamline, and Mixed case prescriptions.
• The TG received case-based learning from a clinical pharmacist and pharmacy educator.

Main Results:

• No significant baseline differences were observed between the TG and NTG.
• The TG showed significant improvement in post-intervention prescribing scores (p = 0.012).
• The NTG experienced a significant decrease in scores (p = 0.004), with a higher proportion of passes in the TG (p < 0.001).

Conclusions:

• Pharmacist-led education effectively improved short-term prescribing skills in final year medical students.
• Experiential learning without structured pharmacist input led to a decline in prescribing skills.
• Further research is recommended to explore the long-term benefits and integration of pharmacist-led prescribing education into medical school curricula.