Clinical Pharmacology and Problem-Based Learning: The Impact on Medical Students' Prescribing Competency

Abstract

Clinical pharmacology (CP) is an essential component of medical students’ safe and effective prescribing. Lecture-based teaching has traditionally been based on memorization rather than real-world scenarios. Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centred approach combining pharmacology with clinical cases for active learning and critical thinking. The impact of integrating CP into PBL on students' prescribing competency is discussed in this paper. The literature search was performed through PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar using keywords such as clinical pharmacology, problem-based learning, and prescribing competency in studies which were published between 2014 and 2024. PBL's impact on knowledge retention and clinical preparedness was selected as the topic of some of the studies. Findings revealed that PBL improves understanding of pharmacological concepts, improves knowledge retention and improves prescribing competency. Challenges, such as faculty resistance and case development, remain, but students who engage in PBL show increased confidence in managing complex prescribing scenarios. Hence, CP integration to PBL fills gaps in traditional education, and improves prescribing skills, and should be prioritized in the medical curricula.