ORIGINAL ARTICLE Identification of Practical Pharmacology Skills Useful for Good Clinical Practice

Background: Awareness about animal ethics is increasing everywhere. This increased aware-ness coupled with strict regulations discourag-ing the use of animals for routine experiments have tied the hands of many pharmacologists. They are now forced to develop alternative ex-periments without using animals. At present, there is acute need to come out with more in-novative and useful practical exercises for phar-macology practical sessions. In this background, the present study was undertaken to develop the much-needed alternative experiments. Aims and Objective: To identify new pharmacologi-cal practical skills useful for good clinical prac-tice. Material and Methods: A pre-tested ques-tionnaire was administered to 110 doctors of different categories like house surgeons, post-graduate students, assistant professors and pro-fessors who are working in a tertiary care hos-pital. They were asked to give their suggestions regarding new pharmacology practical skills useful for good clinical practice. Statistical analysis: Responses of the participants to the questions asked were tabulated and analyzed. Suggestions given by them were listed out and studied. Results: Use of emergency drugs, dos-age calculation, drugs used in pregnancy, case discussions and prescription writing exercises received a lot of support from the participants. Research methodology, cost calculation, ani-mal experiments and interpretation of data of animal experiments did not receive support from the participants. Suggestions given by the participants regarding useful pharmacological skills belonged to the areas like therapeutics, safe use of drugs, recent advances, analysis of information given by the medical representa-tives and analyzing articles in journals for know-ing the efficacy of drugs. Conclusion: Exer-cises relevant to the clinical practice, as iden-tified in this study, can be introduced as practi-cal pharmacology exercises. Steps are to be taken to highlight the importance of research methodology and pharmaco-economics to the undergraduates