News Briefs: Training on adverse drug reactions found lacking
Only a small percentage of the curriculum at many U.S. medical schools is dedicated to recognizing and reporting adverse drug reactions, says a study conducted at Georgetown University Medical Center and published in the January 2002 issue of Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics.
Researchers surveyed the responses of 79 directors of third-year internal medicine clerkships and the directors of 200 internal medicine residency programs and found that 53% of the medical schools did not have clinical rotations that included clinical pharmacology or adverse drug reactions training. Of the schools that did offer clinical pharmacology and adverse drug reactions curriculum during clinical training years, only 8% of these rotations were mandatory; the others were elective programs that offered 11 hours of didactic lectures.
In addition, 29% of inpatient and 55% of ambulatory programs provided residents with little or no opportunity for contact with clinical pharmacists. Sixty percent of responding programs did not have hospital or clinic electronic systems designed to detect drug interactions. Twenty-five percent of program directors have never reported an adverse drug reaction; 23% believed it was difficult to report; and 18% of programs did not review adverse drug reactions that occurred in the hospital during mortality and morbidity conferences.
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