Pharmacy is a healthcare professional that requires intensive training and professional skills to provide optimum care to patients. The emerging clinical role of pharmacy focuses on the patient-centered model, comprehensive assessment, and teaching methods are required to fulfill the professional competencies [1]. Thus, the content and delivery of pharmacy education, together with the evolution of practices in healthcare, have generated new challenges for practitioners and academicians worldwide [2, 3]. Fittingly and fortunately, pharmacy education research in the academic setting has grown rapidly to provide innovative solutions to these challenges. In 2012, Svensson and his colleagues called for a number of changes in pharmacy education, one of which was to “prepare students to be innovative and create nontraditional career paths” [4]. Focusing on the future of pharmacy education and professional development, the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) convened a consensus-seeking invitational conference in 2015 [3]. Since Standards 2016, pharmacy education is beginning to explore and describe teaching students to think creatively, that is, to develop innovative thinking abilities [5]. Accordingly, many countries are currently undertaking major reforms in pharmacy education due to the changing landscape of health and healthcare delivery [6].
In China, it has long been emphasized that culturing innovative thinking and carrying out innovative practice are indispensable elements in pharmaceutical education, which could promote the core competencies of students majoring in pharmacy or clinic pharmacy. In our university, a five-year bachelor of clinic pharmacy degree (BCPharm) program has been carried out for about 20 years. Similar with the M.S. and Ph.D. in pharmaceutical sciences, the BCPharm undergraduates are also trained in a wide array of research areas, including areas of focus from medicinal chemistry to health policy and outcomes, among which the course “Research and Development of New Drugs (R&D of New drugs)” is one of the professional compulsory courses.
The course “R&D of New drugs” is an integrated curriculum that designed to integrate academic and vocational education in a curriculum framework. This course is carried out in the 8th semester for senior BCPharm undergraduates, followed by a 1 year’s internship. The themes range from the laboratory findings to the stage of new drug approval, and even to the clinic observation post-marketing. From experiment to practice, it includes not only contents of pharmaceutic and medicinal chemistry, but also knowledges involved with pharmacology, toxicology, and the patents and legal. This course would meet the clear need for individuals trained in the pharmaceutical sciences to advance drug discovery, development, and optimization of therapy within academia, industry, and governmental agencies.
It is well-known that innovative research is the backbone of the pharmaceutical industry and has been the basis of most of the improvements in clinical care. According to Merriam Webster, innovation is the introduction of something new, or a new idea, method, or device. Educational Outcomes include four core domains: foundational knowledge, essentials for practice and care, approach to practice and care, and personal and professional development [7]. Moreover, observational evidence suggests that students are better prepared by gaining experience in real practice contexts, not just simulation [8]. In our department, we hold the idea that it is the collaborative responsibility of leaders, teachers, and students themselves to produce high-quality progress that advance knowledge and educational practice. Accordingly, apart from inculcating knowledge to students via traditional methods such as face-to-face didactic lectures, tutorials, and case studies, the student-centered learning methods are carried out in our teaching practice, synergizing with the current teaching and learning methods.
Besides introducing the frontier knowledge, new findings, and new method of pharmacy, we take it as our duty to guide the students to participate in the process of scientific and technologic practice. Supporting by the National or Provincial Natural Science Foundation, and funding from educational reform project or other sources, many students have touched the field of scientific research guided by the teachers. In our assumption, these measures will bring the students significant improvements in the scientific justification of the research question, experimental ability especially the clarity and details regarding methodology, analyzing and description ability of concise data and results. More importantly, we expect for an innovative thinking, for example, an effective discussion about the frames research findings in the context of what is already known.
To evaluate the effect of participating in the scientific practice on the learning outcome in the course “Research and Development of New Drugs”, the data of undergraduate major in clinical pharmacy from 2019 to 2022 were collected and compared in the present study.
Study Design And Participants
This study was conducted at Anhui Medical University between September 2020 and June 2022, and the protocol was approved by the ethics committee of the Anhui Medical University. 232 BCPharm undergraduates were enrolled, among which 115 were in Grade 2016, and the other 117 were in Grade 2017. The participants were grouped according to their practice of scientific research, and their data of age, gender, and scores in the course “R&D of New drugs” were collected and compared.
The scientific practice includes participating the scientific research program such as the National or Provincial Natural Science Foundation, the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program for College students, or funding from educational reform project and other sources. Guided by a professional teacher team, as an experimenter and/or as a team member during the preparatory or experimental stage, they can get touch with the whole progress from screening a leading compound, optimizing the structure, to testing the potential pharmacological activity of the screened compound and exploring the mechanism. Additionally, team-based debate approach has also been introduced.
Statistical analysis
The data were analyzed using SPSS (version 17.0; IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). The data are expressed as mean ± standard error of the mean (SEM), and the statistical significance was set at P < 0.05. A one-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test showed a normal distribution of continuous variables. Student’s t-test for independent samples was used to compare the age and score between groups. Gender differences between groups were tested using the chi-square test.