Curriculum innovation in psychopharmacology for psychiatric nurse practitioner fellows: A case study

The Annie Goodrich Post-Graduate Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner (NP) Fellowship, established in 2017, supports advanced practice nurses transitioning into independent psychiatric roles by emphasizing excellence in care and education. Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners (PMHNP-BC) often enter practice with limited experience managing complex psychopharmacologic regimens, creating a critical gap in competency. To address this need, we developed a specialized psychopharmacology curriculum designed to strengthen foundational knowledge and promote confident, evidence-informed clinical decision-making. This educational case study describes the development, implementation, and preliminary evaluation of this psychopharmacology curriculum within a postgraduate psychiatric NP fellowship program. Initial efforts to incorporate multiple disciplines into the curriculum proved challenging, prompting a shift to a focused 10-week seminar series led by interprofessional faculty using a case-based approach. Seminar topics included psychiatric emergencies, prescribing during pregnancy and postpartum, and strategies for safe medication tapering. Curriculum timing and content were refined through iterative feedback from fellows and faculty, as well as preseminar and postseminar evaluations assessing the fellows perceived changes in knowledge, confidence, and relevance to clinical practice. Key lessons learned include the importance of aligning content with NP professional identity, addressing interdisciplinary barriers, and fostering sustainable faculty collaboration. This innovative approach offers a replicable curriculum for enhancing psychopharmacology education in postgraduate psychiatric NP training. By bridging foundational knowledge with advanced clinical decision-making, the curriculum was designed to support the development of practitioners prepared to deliver safe, person-centered, and collaborative psychiatric care.