Application of PBL Method in the Experimental Teaching of Clinical Pharmacology

Clinical pharmacology is the study of the interaction of drug with the human body and clinical pharmacology experiment is an essential part of clinical pharmacology course. PBL method is problem-centered, closely linked to the course content, and can make students participate in the whole teaching process. In this study, PBL method was applied in the experiment teaching of clinical pharmacology for improving the quality of experiment teaching in clinical pharmacology. The results showed that most of the students believed that the application of PBL in the clinical pharmacology experiment could improve their learning methods, cultivate their innovative thinking, problem-posing, problem-analyzing and problem-solving capacity, language expression and interpersonal communication capacity, strengthen their team assistance spirit, make the relationship between teachers and students more harmonious and the class atmosphere more active, and improve their understanding on the experiment content and their experiment skills significantly, which may lay a foundation for the students' future work in clinical pharmacy. Clinical pharmacology is the study dealing with the interaction law between drugs and the human body. Contents of clinical pharmacology primarily include pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, the nature and mechanisms of drug adverse reactions, and the law of drug interaction, which are important components of clinical drug trials. Clinical pharmacology experiment is an essential part of clinical pharmacology courses, and through series of clinical pharmacology experiment, students can know well and understand basic knowledge of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, and basic methods used for the research on pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, which can lay a foundation for their future work in the drug clinical trial and therapeutic drug monitoring [(1-3)]. Especially in the individualized medication and individualized treatment widely concerned, in line with the precision medicine recently declared by National Health and Family Planning Commission and Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China, it is even more required that future clinical pharmacists and clinical pharmacy researchers understand the related research thinking and experiment techniques, so that how to improve the teaching quality of clinical pharmacologyexperiment has become an important issue that we educators responsible for the education of clinical pharmacy should consider. Problem-based learning (PBL) mode is a type of learning based on problems, also known as question type learning, proposed first by Barrows, a neurology professor from the United States, at McMaster University in Canada in 1969, and has now been adopted by many medical colleges and university, and become a teaching mode of medical courses all over the world. In the application of PBL, a problem is focused on and the course content is made associated with the problem, and the students participate in the whole process. The problem is the start of teaching activities and the main thread throughout the teaching process, and also the end of teaching activities. The problem is not only a prerequisite to arouse students ' curiosity, but also a prerequisite for students to understand and absorb the knowledge. During the process of problem solving, students can not only learn the necessary knowledge, but also understand the correct scientific thinking and reasoning methods, and cultivate their self-study capability. In PBL, the course taking a subject as the basis is replaced by a integrated course, the teaching focused on the knowledge is replaced by a teaching focused on students' capacity training, and the traditional classroom teaching is replaced by a method of teacher guidance combined with group discussion, to inspire students' interest in the experimental course, improve their learning initiative, and cultivate their scientific thinking, and innovative, hands-on and the self-study capacities, so that their integrated quality can be improved. Therefore PBL teaching mode is considered to be a bridge linking the theory and practice[(4-5)]. Due to the reasons described above, teachers at department of clinical pharmacology in our college have made some attempts in the teaching of pharmacology with PBL method based on the teaching reform and practice in our university, and achieved initial results. Here, our thinking and practice in the application of PBL in the experimental teaching of clinical pharmacology are discussed from following aspects.