The teaching and organisation of clinical pharmacology in European medical schools

Summary

A World Health Organisation (European Regional Office) working party has been established to review the progress of clinical pharmacology in European countries. As part of this review a questionnaire on the teaching of chlinical pharmacology was sent to the Deans of all 350 medical schools in the region. Very few replies were received from U.S.S.R., Greece and Portugal and these countries' returns were not analysed further. The overall compliance rate (excluding these countries) was 82% with a figure of 84% from Western Europe and 74% from Eastern Europe. An average time of 96 h (range 0–320) was devoted to pharmacology teaching in the medical curriculum in Western Europe with 124 (0–240) h in Eastern Europe. In contrast 28 h (0–210) was devoted to clinical pharmacology teaching in Western Europe and 27 h (0–90) in Eastern Europe. On average in Western Europe each medical school had 2 individuals trained in clinical pharmacology with 1.3 posts in the subject and the figures for Eastern Europe were 2.3 and 1.1 respectively. However these figures hide a wide variance in the teaching of clinical pharmacology. Particularly in Western Europe there are a number of medical schools in Italy, Spain and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) where clinical pharmacology is not taught and there is a dearth of individuals trained in the subject. Every effort to encourage clinical pharmacology and its teaching should be made, particularly in these countries.