Main Article Content

Abstract

Background

Pharmacology, like any other branch of medicine, is progressing by leaps and bounds. It is generally agreed that reviewing the teaching program at regular intervals, and modifications in the methodologies of imparting basic knowledge about drugs and drug therapies is a must. Medical students are in direct contact with the health of patients, it is very important to investigate the factors affecting their learning. It has been observed that these professors, in fact, lack the necessary innovations in medical education which will cause that future physician’s needs are not safeguarded properly and they will encounter with serious problems at the time of offering service to patients.


It was felt that the student’s feedback would reveal



  1. a) Whether the so-called reforms are acceptable to them.

  2. b) Their opinion for the betterment of teaching/learning the subject.

  3. c) Drawbacks in our curriculum.

  4. d) Difficulties present at the student side

  5. e) Drawbacks present at the teachers side


Methods

A questionnaire was designed and given to Second-year medical students. They have to fill in and make suggestions according to the options given. Medical students just appeared for II MBBS examination (waiting for the results) are the participants in the study. A questionnaire consisting of 20 questions with 3–8 options were given to each of them and asked to tick the option/ options which they feel was/were the best. Students will be allowed to offer their own suggestions for certain important items in addition to the available options. The completed questionnaires were collected by the postgraduate students. Students were instructed not to reveal their identity in the questionnaire.






 






Results

Most traditional teaching methods lack the necessary efficacy. The reason is that they are mostly theory-based and do not care about performance. 54% students wanted relevant movie clips. 67% of the students preferred studying pharmacology from textbooks alone. 96% of students can tolerate the lectures for nearly 40 minutes only. 81% of students are in favour of teaching pharmacology till they reach CRRI.


Conclusion

The top reform they suggested is to include movie clips relevant to the topic. Preference of studying pharmacology by text books only; very few prefer lecture notes. Test should be conducted every month and the duration of a lecture should not go beyond 40 minutes. Importantly, pharmacology should be taught even in III MBBS and during internship as an orientation review. A good number of students suggested that case studies have to be included as a part of regular teaching.

Keywords

Student’s suggestions Questionnaire Reforms

Article Details

How to Cite
M. SaravanaKumar, Abhishek R. U, & Akshay Kumar. (2021). Opinion and suggestions of undergraduate medical students on current teaching methods in pharmacology - A questionnaire based study. International Journal of Research in Pharmacology & Pharmacotherapeutics, 8(2), 258-265. https://doi.org/10.61096/ijrpp.v8.iss2.2019.258-265

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