A Spreadsheet Tool to Analyse Medical Pharmacology Curricula in Germany

ORIGINATOR: Stefan Herzig , Department of Pharmacology, University of Cologne, 50931 Köln, Germany; tel +49(0)-221 478 6064; fax +49-(0)-478 5022; e-mail stefan.herzig@uni-koeln.de 

SUMMARY: Medical pharmacology curricula  in Germany are determined by an encyclopaedic list of learning goals (so-called "Gegenstandskatalog"). However,  actual programs differ among Medical Schools, due to the limited time allocated to pharmacology teaching, and due to special fields of interest and competence of the lecturers involved. A simple spreadsheet tool was developed to record the content of curricula from individual institutions. It has been completed by three institution in a pilot phase and will be circulated throughout Germany for a more complete survey.

STUDENTS: Curricula for Medical students (3^rd to 6^th  year) are analysed

OBJECTIVES: Compilation and comparison of curricula of a number of individual institutions should help:

• To emphasize the weight usually given to pharmacological topics in medical education
• To generate a consensus "core curriculum" as a basal teaching standard
• To serve as a stimulus and guideline to rearrange programs
• To locate teachers with particular expertise in more specialized topics
• To construct a content matrix for collecting and distributing teaching and learning material (e.g., via Internet)

DETAILS: An Excel spreadsheet was generated where Medical Pharmacology curricula are recorded along three dimensions:

• Topic (selection from a list of general topics or drug classes)
• School year (3^rd year students of General Pharmacology,  4^th or 5^th year students of Clinical Pharamcology, other)
• Mandatory course or seminar or small-group session, versus optional lecture or seminar

The content of each part of a teaching/learning session is entered into the appropriate spreadsheet position as a (fraction of ) teaching hours. A spreadsheet template can be downloaded here English version or German version  Data from individual institutions currently three: English version will be collected and statistically analysed (number of topics covered, mean and range of time allocated to individual topics etc). A continuously updated version of the "average" curriculum will be displayed on the homepage of the German Pharmacological Society DGPT

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