Transforming pharmacology education: Insights from the pharmacology education project in the era of digital learning.

The IUPHAR Education Section's Pharmacology Education Project (PEP; www.pharmacologyeducation.org) provides an open-access, peer-reviewed platform to support pharmacology education globally.

UK Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA): The development, implementation and outcomes of a national online prescribing assessment.

Aims: The United Kingdom (UK) Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA) is a 2-h online assessment of basic competence to prescribe and supervise the use of medicines. It has been undertaken by students and doctors in UK medical and foundation schools for the past decade. This study describes the academic characteristics and performance of the assessment; longitudinal performance of candidates and schools; stakeholder feedback; and surrogate markers of prescribing safety in UK healthcare practice.

Student and pre-registration pharmacist performance in a UK Prescribing Assessment.

Student and pre-registration pharmacist performance in a UK Prescribing Assessment': room for improvement and need for curricular change Background Increasingly the global policy direction is for patient-facing pharmacist prescribers. The 'UK Prescribing Safety Assessment' (PSA) was developed for medical graduates to demonstrate prescribing competencies in relation to the safe and effective use of medicines. Objectives To determine PSA performance of final year undergraduate student pharmacists (year 4) and pre-registration pharmacy graduates (year 5) and explore their opinions on its suitability.

Candidates undertaking (invigilated) assessment online show no differences in performance compared to those undertaking assessment offline.

Background: Medical education has historically relied on high stakes knowledge tests sat in examination centres with invigilators monitoring academic malpractice. The COVID-19 pandemic has made such examination formats impossible, and medical educators have explored the use of online assessments as a potential replacement. This shift has in turn led to fears that the change in format or academic malpractice might lead to considerably higher attainment scores on online assessment with no underlying improvement in student competence.

Candidates registered for reasonable adjustments underperform compared to other candidates in the national undergraduate Prescribing Safety Assessment: Retrospective cohort analysis (2014-2018).

Aims: Candidates with disabilities are eligible for reasonable adjustments (RA) while undertaking the national Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA). The PSA is a novel open-book, time-constrained, multiformat assessment that may pose challenges to candidates with dyslexia and other disabilities.

Methods: Retrospective cohort analysis of 36 140 UK candidates undertaking first-sitting of the PSA (2014-2018).

Structural and Mechanistic Studies of the Rare Myristoylation Signal of the Feline Immunodeficiency Virus.

All retroviruses encode a Gag polyprotein containing an N-terminal matrix domain (MA) that anchors Gag to the plasma membrane and recruits envelope glycoproteins to virus assembly sites. Membrane binding by the Gag protein of HIV-1 and most other lentiviruses is dependent on N-terminal myristoylation of MA by host N-myristoyltransferase enzymes (NMTs), which recognize a six-residue "myristoylation signal" with consensus sequence: MGXXX[ST]. For unknown reasons, the feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), which infects both domestic and wild cats, encodes a non-consensus myristoylation sequence not utilized by its host or by other mammals (most commonly: MGNGQG).

Medical graduate views on statistical learning needs for clinical practice: a comprehensive survey.

Background: This paper seeks to contribute to a reputable evidence base for required competencies across different topics in statistics and probability (statistical topics) in preparing medical graduates for clinical practice. This is in order to inform the prioritization of statistical topics within future undergraduate medical curricula, while exploring the need for preparing tomorrow's doctors to be producers, and not merely consumers, of statistics.

Methods: We conducted a comprehensive online survey from July 2013 to August 2014 for a target group of 462 medical graduates with current or prior experience of teaching undergraduate medical students of the University of Edinburgh of whom 278 (60.

Evaluation of online clinical pharmacology curriculum resources for medical students.

Aims: To identify and evaluate clinical pharmacology (CP) online curricular (e-Learning) resources that are internationally available for medical students.

Methods: Literature searches of Medline, EMBASE and ERIC databases and an online survey of faculty members of international English language medical schools, were used to identify CP e-Learning resources. Resources that were accessible online in English and aimed to improve the quality of prescribing specific medications were then evaluated using a summary percentage score for comprehensiveness, usability and quality, and for content suitability.

Prescribing competency assessment for Canadian medical students: a pilot evaluation.

Background: The knowledge and ability to prescribe safely and effectively is a core competency for every graduating medical student. Our previous research suggested concerns about medical student prescribing abilities, and interest in a standardized assessment process.

Methods: A multi-year cross-sectional study evaluating the feasibility, acceptability, and discriminative ability of an online prescribing competency assessment for final year Canadian medical students was conducted.

The IUPHAR Pharmacology Education Project.

Online learning, an essential component of most traditional contact-based educational programs, must be of high quality to contribute effectively to learning. The availability of first-class web-based materials is particularly valued by both learners and educators in resource-poor nations. In this Practice article, we introduce the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (IUPHAR) Pharmacology Education Project (PEP) (https://www.

Exploring the utility of the Prescribing Safety Assessment in pharmacy education in England: experiences of pre-registration trainees and undergraduate (MPharm) pharmacy students.

Objectives: (i) To provide a preliminary indication of the performance of pharmacy undergraduate students and pre-registration pharmacy trainees in the Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA). (ii) To determine the feasibility of administering and delivering the PSA in schools of pharmacy. (iii) To examine the potential relevance of the PSA and associated training materials to pharmacy education.

Sporadic sampling, not climatic forcing, drives observed early hominin diversity.

The role of climate change in the origin and diversification of early hominins is hotly debated. Most accounts of early hominin evolution link observed fluctuations in species diversity to directional shifts in climate or periods of intense climatic instability. None of these hypotheses, however, have tested whether observed diversity patterns are distorted by variation in the quality of the hominin fossil record.

Key Learning Outcomes for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Education in Europe: A Modified Delphi Study.

Harmonizing clinical pharmacology and therapeutics (CPT) education in Europe is necessary to ensure that the prescribing competency of future doctors is of a uniform high standard. As there are currently no uniform requirements, our aim was to achieve consensus on key learning outcomes for undergraduate CPT education in Europe. We used a modified Delphi method consisting of three questionnaire rounds and a panel meeting.

Prescribing Safety Assessment 2016: Delivery of a national prescribing assessment to 7343 UK final-year medical students.

Aims: Newly graduated doctors write a large proportion of prescriptions in UK hospitals but recent studies have shown that they frequently make prescribing errors. The prescribing safety assessment (PSA) has been developed as an assessment of competence in relation to prescribing and supervising the use of medicines. This report describes the delivery of the PSA to all UK final-year medical students in 2016 (PSA2016).

Piloting the United Kingdom 'Prescribing Safety Assessment' with pharmacist prescribers in Scotland.

Background: Prescribing is a complex task requiring considerable knowledge and skills. The Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA) was developed by the British Pharmacological Society and the United Kingdom (UK) Medical Schools Council. Between February and June 2014, over 7000 final year medical students undertook the PSA, with an overall pass rate of 94%.

Rational prescribing: the principles of drug selection.

Prescribing is the most important tool used by physicians to cure illness, relieve symptoms and prevent future disease. It is also a complex intellectual task that requires formulation of an appropriate treatment regimen from the many thousands available, taking into account the infinite variation in the patients they encounter. Unfortunately, the selection of a medicine and dosage regimen is sometimes suboptimal, leading to poor patient outcomes (eg treatment failure, avoidable adverse reactions).

Development and Validation of the McMaster Prescribing Competency Assessment for Medical Trainees (MacPCA).

Background: Prescribing is an essential skill for all physicians, built on knowledge of clinical pharmacology, therapeutics and toxicology across the life cycle. The decline in organized clinical pharmacology training in medical schools, combined with an expanding pharmacopeia and increasing complexity of patient care, makes prescribing competency difficult for medical students to master.

Objectives: To develop and validate the McMaster Prescribing Competency Assessment (MacPCA), an online tool suitable for evaluating clinical pharmacology knowledge and prescribing skills of medical trainees in Canada.

Potential benefits of student- and junior doctor-led textbooks.

Introduction: Medical textbooks are an important teaching supplement. Few have junior doctors or medical students ('juniors') as primary contributors. However, the strengths of junior-led face-to-face teaching are now well-established, and we hypothesized that similar advantages would be transferrable to a textbook setting.

Prevalence and causes of prescribing errors: the PRescribing Outcomes for Trainee Doctors Engaged in Clinical Training (PROTECT) study.

Objectives: Study objectives were to investigate the prevalence and causes of prescribing errors amongst foundation doctors (i.e. junior doctors in their first (F1) or second (F2) year of post-graduate training), describe their knowledge and experience of prescribing errors, and explore their self-efficacy (i.