Creation of a Didactic Clinical Pharmacology Lecture Series for Internal Medicine Residents

One of the noted areas of weakness for internal medicine residents is pharmacology. However, there is little data documenting the creation and effect of a comprehensive pharmacology didactic program. Our goal was to create a two-year clinical pharmacology didactic program focused on areas of stated weakness and to evaluate this program for an increase in knowledge and prescribing confidence of the participants.

From August 2020 to June 2022, a two-year pharmacology program was developed, which included 20 didactic lectures on a variety of topics. Pre- and post-tests were given for 15 of the lectures, and four surveys were given, two during each year of the program. Four questions on each survey were the same and asked about confidence in choosing an appropriate medication based on current guidelines, patient-specific factors, primary literature, and pharmacokinetics.

Over the two years, participation in the pharmacology sessions ranged from 17 to 29 residents (65-74% of the residency class). The average pre- and post-test scores increased by an average of 25.1%, which was a statistically significant increase (p<0.001, 95% CI [17.5, 32.8]). A Kruskal-Wallis H test showed a statistically significant difference in resident-reported confidence adjusting medications based on primary literature between the different survey groups, χ2 = 9.871, p = 0.02.

A two-year, didactic pharmacology program improved the knowledge of resident participants and confidence in their ability to choose an appropriate medication based on primary literature.