Congratulations to David Brinkman from the Department of Internal Medicine at the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam who has won 2019 EACPT Scientific Award for the best scientific paper on a clinical pharmacology or therapeutic theme in the previous 2 years.
His winning paper on “Key Learning Outcomes for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Education in Europe: A Modified Delphi Study” was published in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics [2018;104:317-325]. Dr Brinkman will receive the EACPT Scientific Award on Tuesday 2nd July during the 14th biennial EACPT Congress in Stockholm.
David Brinkman was the first author of the report, which he co-authored with international colleagues from the Education Working Group of the European Association for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (EACPT) and its affiliated Network of Teachers in Pharmacotherapy.
Recent studies had reported both that the prescribing competencies of final-year medical students in Europe were poor, which if happening in clinical practice could result in potentially harmful prescribing errors; and that there is marked variation in CPT education within and between European countries.
In the paper, key learning outcomes were identified for teaching and assessing CPT in undergraduate medical curricula in Europe.
A large European expert panel reached consensus on 252 key learning outcomes that should be included in undergraduate CPT curricula to ensure that European graduates are able to prescribe safely and effectively. The panel also provided a blueprint of a European core curriculum in CPT, including key learning outcomes and how they might be taught and assessed during undergraduate medical training.
The paper concluded that a European core curriculum in CPT might help to harmonize CPT education and improve the prescribing competencies of future European doctors and thereby patient safety.