Pharmacist-led teaching as a longitudinal theme for medical school curriculums - A solution for reducing prescribing errors in junior doctors?

Abstract

Medication errors are a significant problem faced by health services internationally. Prescribing errors are a common preventable source of morbidity and mortality, and as such it is our duty as healthcare professionals to minimise them as much as possible. Many prescriptions, and errors, are written by junior doctors. Which raises the question of whether the medical school curriculum could be changed to better prepare students for prescribing. There is a great deal of evidence in the literature describing how pharmacist-led teaching in later years of medical school has a beneficial effect on the quality of prescriptions written by junior doctors. In addition, this style of teaching leads to a reduction in the number of prescribing errors that occur. However, many of these papers still reported that students were still apprehensive about their prescriptions after the teaching programmes, and a number of their prescriptions still contained some inaccuracies. The University of Liverpool organises 'Safe Prescribing' teaching sessions during years 3-5 of the undergraduate medical curriculum. This programme consistently receives positive feedback and results in students feeling more comfortable and confident in a variety of prescribing scenarios. Incorporating pharmacist-led teaching as a longitudinal theme from the early stages of medical school is one way positive habits can be built and reinforced. This may in turn reduce the number of prescribing errors that occur, both in junior doctors and more senior doctors as these clinicians progress through their training armed with an effective skill set.