Optimizing curriculum and faculty structure: Diagnosing systemic barriers in Chinese hospital postgraduate...

Hospital-based postgraduate training is vital for cultivating advanced pharmacy professionals in China, yet significant systemic issues persist, severely impacting training quality. This study aims to diagnose structural barriers in the curriculum design, instructional capacity, and collaborative teaching models of Chinese hospital postgraduate pharmaceutical education.

A structured questionnaire survey was administered to 78 hospitals across 25 provinces in China, representing all seven major geographic regions. The survey assessed four key educational domains: curriculum system rigor, faculty supervisory structures, research integration platforms, and university-hospital collaboration efficiency. Descriptive statistical analyses were used to identify institutional and regional disparities in teaching practices.

The analysis revealed widespread deficiencies in standardized instruction and quality assurance. Curricular fragmentation was evident: only 53.06 % of institutions offered clinical pharmacy coursework, and 22.45 % lacked any internal teaching activities. Accountability for teaching was weak, with only 44.9 % of hospitals having formal evaluation mechanisms for supervisors. Furthermore, postgraduate research training often remained auxiliary in nature (low-level tasks), and effective university-led collaborative models were rare (22.45 %), contributing to the inefficient communication cited by nearly half (46.88 %) of respondents. Notably, the availability of Good Clinical Practice (GCP) centers demonstrated significant regional disparities (Adjusted FDR q ≈ 0.048).

Postgraduate pharmacy education in Chinese hospitals is critically hampered by fragmented, non-standardized curricula and weak institutionalized collaboration. Reform must prioritize the adoption of structured, competency-based curriculum development, implement robust faculty capacity building and evaluation systems, and establish institutionalized university-hospital partnerships to ensure the delivery of high-quality, research-integrated training.