Defining and unpacking the core concepts of pharmacology education

Pharmacology education currently lacks a research-based consensus on which core concepts all graduates should know and understand, as well as a valid and reliable means to assess core conceptual learning. The Core Concepts in Pharmacology Expert Group (CC-PEG) from Australia and New Zealand recently identified a set of core concepts of pharmacology education as a first step toward developing a concept inventory—a valid and reliable tool to assess learner attainment of concepts. In the current study, CC-PEG used established methodologies to define each concept and then unpack its key components. Expert working groups of three to seven educators were formed to unpack concepts within specific conceptual groupings: what the body does to the drug (pharmacokinetics); what the drug does to the body (pharmacodynamics); and system integration and modification of drug–response. First, a one-sentence definition was developed for each core concept. Next, sub-concepts were established for each core concept. These twenty core concepts, along with their respective definitions and sub-concepts, can provide pharmacology educators with a resource to guide the development of new curricula and the evaluation of existing curricula. The unpacking and articulation of these core concepts will also inform the development of a pharmacology concept inventory. We anticipate that these resources will advance further collaboration across the international pharmacology education community to improve curricula, teaching, assessment, and learning.Marina Santiago, Elizabeth A. Davis, Tina Hinton, Thomas A. Angelo, Alison Shield, Anna-Marie Babey, Barbara Kemp-Harper, Gregg Maynard, Hesham S. Al-Sallami, Ian F. Musgrave, Lynette B. Fernandes, Suong N. T. Ngo, Arthur Christopoulos, Paul J. Whit

Defining and unpacking the core concepts of pharmacology : A global initiative

The authors acknowledge the contribution of the expert group members who contributed their expertise to the study and Professor Martin Kingsbury for his invaluable guidance on concept mapping.Peer reviewe

An evaluation of pharmacology curricula in Australian science and health-related degree programs

Background: Pharmacology is a biomedical discipline taught in basic science and professional degree programs. In order to provide information that would facilitate pharmacology curricula to be refined and developed, and approaches to teaching to be updated, a national survey was undertaken in Australia that investigated pharmacology course content, teaching and summative assessment methods. Methods: Twenty-two institutions participated in a purpose-built online questionnaire, which enabled an evaluation of 147 courses taught in 10 different degrees. To enable comparison, degrees were grouped into four major degree programs, namely science, pharmacy, medicine and nursing. The pharmacology content was then classified into 16 lecture themes, with 2-21 lecture topics identified per theme. The resultant data were analysed for similarities and differences in pharmacology curricula across the degree programs. Results: While all lecture themes were taught across degree programs, curriculum content differed with respect to the breadth and hours of coverage. Overall, lecture themes were taught most broadly in medicine and with greatest coverage in pharmacy. Reflecting a more traditional approach, lectures were a dominant teaching method (at least 90% of courses). Sixty-three percent of science courses provided practical classes but such sessions occurred much less frequently in other degree programs, while tutorials were much more common in pharmacy degree programs (70%). Notably, problem-based learning was common across medical programs. Considerable diversity was found in the types of summative assessment tasks employed. In science courses the most common form of in-semester assessment was practical reports, whereas in other programs pen-and-paper quizzes predominated. End-of-semester assessment contributed 50-80% to overall assessment across degree programs. Conclusion: The similarity in lecture themes taught across the four different degree programs shows that common knowledge- and competency-based learning outcomes can be defined for pharmacology. The authors contend that it is the differences in breadth and coverage of material for each lecture theme, and the differing teaching modes and assessment that characterise particular degree programs. Adoption of pharmacology knowledge-based learning outcomes that could be tailored to suit individual degree programs would better facilitate the sharing of expertise and teaching practice than the current model where pharmacology curricula are degree-specific.Hilary Lloyd, Tina Hinton, Shane Bullock, Anna-Marie Babey, Elizabeth Davis, Lynette Fernandes, Joanne Hart, Ian Musgrave and James Zioga

Defining and unpacking the core concepts of pharmacology education

Pharmacology education currently lacks a research-based consensus on which core concepts all graduates should know and understand, as well as a valid and reliable means to assess core conceptual learning. The Core Concepts in Pharmacology Expert Group (CC-PEG) from Australia and New Zealand recently identified a set of core concepts of pharmacology education as a first step toward developing a concept inventory—a valid and reliable tool to assess learner attainment of concepts. In the current study, CC-PEG used established methodologies to define each concept and then unpack its key components. Expert working groups of three to seven educators were formed to unpack concepts within specific conceptual groupings: what the body does to the drug (pharmacokinetics); what the drug does to the body (pharmacodynamics); and system integration and modification of drug–response. First, a one-sentence definition was developed for each core concept. Next, sub-concepts were established for each core concept. These twenty core concepts, along with their respective definitions and sub-concepts, can provide pharmacology educators with a resource to guide the development of new curricula and the evaluation of existing curricula. The unpacking and articulation of these core concepts will also inform the development of a pharmacology concept inventory. We anticipate that these resources will advance further collaboration across the international pharmacology education community to improve curricula, teaching, assessment, and learning

Identifying the core concepts of pharmacology education : a global initiative

Background and Purpose: In recent decades, a focus on the most critical and fundamental concepts has proven highly advantageous to students and educators in many science disciplines. Pharmacology, unlike microbiology, biochemistry or physiology, lacks a consensus list of such core concepts . Experimental approach: We sought to develop a research-based, globally relevant list of core concepts that all students completing a foundational pharmacology course should master. This two-part project consisted of exploratory and refinement phases. The exploratory phase involved empirical data mining of the introductory sections of five key textbooks, in parallel with an online survey of over 200 pharmacology educators from 17 countries across six continents. The refinement phase involved three Delphi rounds involving 24 experts from 15 countries across six continents. Key Results: The exploratory phase resulted in a consolidated list of 74 candidate core concepts. In the refinement phase, the expert group produced a consensus list of 25 core concepts of pharmacology. Conclusion and Implications: This list will allow pharmacology educators everywhere to focus their efforts on the conceptual knowledge perceived to matter most by experts within the discipline. Next steps for this project include defining and unpacking each core concept and developing resources to help pharmacology educators globally teach and assess these concepts within their educational contexts

Characterization of the time course of the effects of theophylline administration on adenosine receptors in cultured murine neuroblastoma cells

This thesis examines the effects of continuous theophylline pretreatment on the A$sb2$ adenosine receptor system in cultured murine neuroblastoma cell lines, which either do or do not also express A$sb1$ adenosine receptors. N-Ethylcarboxamido adenosine (NECA) stimulates cAMP accumulation and binds to A$sb2$ receptors in a saturable and biphasic fashion in both types of cell cultures. Sixteen hours of theophylline treatment led to a significant increase in the number of low affinity A$sb2$ binding sites, as well as a potentiation of NECA-stimulated cAMP accumulation, regardless of whether the cells expressed A$sb1$ receptors. The enhanced adenylate cyclase stimulation in cells treated for 8 hours is completely blocked by addition of cycloheximide, indicating that new protein synthesis plays a role in the effects of theophylline. The potentiated response to NECA continues through 1 week of treatment in both sets of cultured cells, but disappears after 2 weeks of theophylline pretreatment in the cells expressing both A$sb1$ and A$sb2$ receptors. Binding profiles in cells that do not express A$sb1$ receptors demonstrate that while control cells are sensitive to the effects of the non-hydrolyzable analogue of guanosine triphosphate, Gpp(NH)p, cells that were treated for 4 days or 1 week with theophylline are no longer sensitive to the effects of this compound. This could indicate either an enhanced coupling between the receptor and the stimulatory guanine nucleotide regulatory protein (G$rm sb{s}$ protein) or a complete uncoupling of these two proteins. There is a significant decrease in the basal cAMP levels after 4 days or more of treatment, as well as an increase in the immunoreactivity of the $alpha$ subunit of the stimulatory G protein after 2 weeks of treatment. Taken together, these findings would tend to favour the possibility of enhanced coupling between the receptor and the G$rm sb{s}$ protein. Cells that express both receptor subtypes also sho

Synthesis of the Mechanisms of Opioid Tolerance: Do We Still Say NO?

The use of morphine as a first-line agent for moderate-to-severe pain is limited by the development of analgesic tolerance. Initially opioid receptor desensitization in response to repeated stimulation, thought to underpin the establishment of tolerance, was linked to a compensatory increase in adenylate cyclase responsiveness. The subsequent demonstration of cross-talk between N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) glutamate receptors and opioid receptors led to the recognition of a role for nitric oxide (NO), wherein blockade of NO synthesis could prevent tolerance developing. Investigations of the link between NO levels and opioid receptor desensitization implicated a number of events including kinase recruitment and peroxynitrite-mediated protein regulation. Recent experimental advances and the identification of new cellular constituents have expanded the potential signaling candidates to include unexpected, intermediary compounds not previously linked to this process such as zinc, histidine triad nucleotide-binding protein 1 (HINT1), micro-ribonucleic acid (mi-RNA) and regulator of G protein signaling Z (RGSZ). A further complication is a lack of consistency in the protocols used to create tolerance, with some using acute methods measured in minutes to hours and others using days. There is also an emphasis on the cellular changes that are extant only after tolerance has been established. Although a review of the literature demonstrates a lack of spatio-temporal detail, there still appears to be a pivotal role for nitric oxide, as well as both intracellular and intercellular cross-talk. The use of more consistent approaches to verify these underlying mechanism(s) could provide an avenue for targeted drug development to rescue opioid efficacy

Student Evaluation of Teaching: A Study Exploring Student Rating Instrument Free-form Text Comments

Student rating instruments are recognised to be valid indicators of effective instruction, providing a valuable tool to improve teaching. However, free-form text comments obtained from the open-ended question component of such surveys are only infrequently analysed comprehensively. We employed an innovative, systematic approach to the analysis of text-based feedback relating to student perceptions of and experiences with a recently developed university program. The automated nature of the semantic analysis tool 'Leximancer' enabled a critical interrogation across units of study, mining the cumulative text for common themes and recurring core concepts. The results of this analysis facilitated the identification of issues that were not apparent from the purely quantitative data, thus providing a deeper understanding of the curriculum and teaching effectiveness that was constructive and detailed

Aplysiols C–E, brominated triterpene polyethers from the marine alga Chondria armata and a revision of the structure of aplysiol B

Three new brominated triterpene polyethers, aplysiols C–E (1–3), were isolated from extracts of the red alga Chondria armata. Structures were determined by comparison with the closely related metabolite, aplysiol B, which was previously reported from the anaspidean mollusc Aplysia dactylomela. The relative stereochemistry of the tetracyclic ring system was determined from 1D gradient selective NOESY experiments and from biogenetic considerations that support a revision of the stereochemistry proposed for aplysiol B. In addition, three known brominated C15 acetogenin acetylenic ethers: (−)-pinnatifidenyne, (+)-laurenyne, and (+)-obtusenyne, two brominated diterpenes: (−)-ent-angasiol and (−)-ent-angasiol acetate, and the symmetrical halogenated triterpene polyether intricatetraol were isolated

Implementation of a multi-disciplinary ethics unit

The multi-disciplinary unit Social Responsibility in Action (SRA) was developed for students with an interest in ethics who were completing undergraduate degrees in Arts, Commerce, Design or Science at an Australian research-intensive university. The academic objectives of this unit were to increase student awareness, knowledge, understanding and critical thinking skills related to various ethical issues. Lecturers from five disciplines (philosophy; animal biology; anatomy, physiology and human biology; law; pharmacology) collaborated in the design and delivery of SRA, which comprised lectures, tutorials and a research-based project. Anonymous surveys were administered at the start and end of the semester to obtain feedback on student expectations and learning experience, respectively. Data across three student cohorts showed that at the start of semester, 80% of student comments indicated a desire to expand their interest of ethical matters, 59% a desire to gain understanding and knowledge and 59% to gain critical thinking or communication skills. SRA was extremely well received by students, with 98% of respondents indicating that this multi-disciplinary ethics unit had met their expectations. Students also found that the variety of teaching styles, unit content and multi-disciplinary approach stimulated learning