What should medical students know and be able to do in order to prescribe rationally by the time they graduate? And, how should we teach and assess prescribing during the undergraduate medical education in Europe? These were the two questions in our new study, which has just been published in Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics.
Together with 92 teachers from 25 European countries (Network of Teachers in Pharmacotherapy), we have defined 252 learning outcomes that should be included in undergraduate curricula to ensure that European graduates are able to rationally. Furthermore, we have developed a blueprint of a European core curriculum in describing when and how these learning outcomes might be taught and assessed (see figure below). We hope that this collaborative project is another important step towards better prescribing in Europe! The manuscript can be accessed here.

In December, Lenka Souckova and professor Regina Demlova from Masaryk University in Czech Republic visited RECIPE to share educational experiences.

They had the following comments regarding their visit:
"We found the visit absolutely helpful and fruitful. It was a great occasion to compare syllabus in pharmacology within individual disciplines and semesters to reach final consensus and develop a list of key curricular outcomes for clinical pharmacology and therapeutics education during the undergraduate medical curriculum in Europe. Your innovative approach to students and new methods of teaching, focused on students’ skills to apply their knowledge to clinical practise, was very inspiring for us. We appreciated especially high activity and motivation of your students during workshops and seminars. It is enviable how you manage the interconnection between pharmacotherapy teaching and its application to clinical practise, when students may evaluate and prepare suggestions of pharmacotherapy of real patients during their learning."

A new interprofessional student-run clinic (initiated by RECIPE) has been introduced in the VU University Medical Center. In this clinic, medical students work in teams together with nursing and pharmacy students. They conduct therapeutics consultations with polypharmacy patient under the supervision of a geriatrist. They learn how to optimise the therapeutic regimen of these patients as a team. Also, they learn how to communicate the therapeutic plans with the patients and their relatives, and are responsible for the follow-up.

Michiel van Agtmael has been appointed professor of Pharmacotherapy Education at the VU University Medical Center on the 1st of September 2017. He has been working at VU University Medical Center since 2001 as an internist-infectiologist. Michiel is the successor to Prof.dr. Theo de Vries who retired in 2013. Michiel is also the new chair of the Education Working Group of the European Association of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (EACPT).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seventeen Master Oncology nurses completed the 14-month training programme provided by RECIPE and are now certified to prescribe drugs. Congratulations!

 

 

 

 

 

The interprofessional student-run clinic 'Learning by doing' initiated by Jelle Tichelaar, Michiel van Agtmael, Michael Reumerman and Erik Donker has been nominated for the VU Innovation Award. Also, Jelle Tichelaar has been nominated for the Teacher Talent Award of the VU University Amsterdam.

The RECIPE group has attended the congress of the European Association of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (EACPT) in Prague. The congress took place from the 24th to the 27th of June. In total, 2 oral presentations and 6 poster presentations were provided by RECIPE members. A new record! All our presentations and posters can be downloaded here.

RECIPE members Jelle Tichelaar , Tim Schutte and David Brinkman completed their training in clinical pharmacology at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam. They are now officically registered as a clinical pharmacologist in The Netherlands. Congratulations!

RECIPE has published a new intervention study about improving appropriate antimicrobial prescribing in hospitals. The Dutch Unique Method for Antimicrobial Stewardship (DUMAS) study was a prospective, stepped-wedge, participatory intervention study. The study was performed at 7 clinical departments (2 medical, 3 surgical, and 2 pediatric) in a tertiary care medical center and a general teaching hospital in the Netherlands. We offered prescribers a free choice of how to improve their antimicrobial prescribing. Prescribers were stimulated to choose interventions with higher potential for success based on a root cause analysis of inappropriate prescribing. The mean antimicrobial appropriateness increased from 64% at intervention start to 77% at 12-month follow-up, without a change in slope. This study shows that the use of a behavioral approach preserving prescriber autonomy resulted in an increase in antimicrobial appropriateness sustained for at least 12 months. The manuscript can be accessed here.

David Brinkman has won the Education Award 2017 of the Dutch Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Biopharmacy (NVKF&B). He has contributed in developing a European network to improve clinical pharmacology and therapeutics education across Europe. This has resulted in two publications in Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics. Further studies will be conducted to develop a European core curriculum in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics.

In collaboration with the EACPT, RECIPE has published a second European study. In this multicenter study, we evaluated the current structure, delivery and assessment of CPT education in the European Union (EU). 185 medical schools (64%) from 27 EU countries responded. Traditional learning methods were mainly used. The majority of respondents did not provide students with the opportunity to practise real-life prescribing and believed that their students were not well prepared for prescribing. There is a marked difference in the quality and quantity of CPT education within and between EU countries, suggesting that there is considerable scope for improvement. A collaborative approach should be adopted to harmonise and modernise the undergraduate CPT education across the EU. The manuscript can be accessed here.