Pharmaceutic and Therapeutic Clinical Approach – Serbia (IFMSA-Serbia)

Name of the activity: Pharmaceutic and Therapeutic Clinical Approach

Country/NMO: Serbia (IFMSA-Serbia)

Program: Teaching Medical Skills

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Education

General description:

Pharmaceutic and Therapeutic Clinical Approach (PTCA) is an annual joint conference of medical and pharmacy students aimed to improve collaboration and communication. The team event of the PTCA provides the educational baseline on which relevant lectures, seminars and workshops are delivered. The central event is a solving of clinical cases by the joint teams of medical and pharmacy students, whose performances are judged by professors. The final debate summarizes all benefits of cooperation and emphases critical points of misunderstanding.

Focus area:

Diagnostic measures, Diagnostic tests interpretation, Therapy

Problem statement:

Medical and pharmacy students need to collaborate for the sake of patients’ well-being. Therapy, especially drug-based, is often prescribed by protocols neglecting the patients’ unique traits and circumstances. Therefore, views on the same therapeutic problem could be quite different regarding whom do you ask, medics or pharmacist. An early stage collaboration could be beneficial to both, and most importantly, to the patients.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

Target group are medical and pharmacy students, and long-termly the final beneficiaries are the recipients of the therapy – patients.

Objectives and indicators of success:

– collaboration between medical and pharmacy students
(solved clinical cases by the joint teams)
– education on the topic (performance of the teams, debates, QA)
– communication between medical and pharmacy students (debates’ quality)

Methodology:

To tackle the communication and collaboration between medical and pharmacy students, we are organizing the annual joint conferences with specific theme events. Depending on the LC, Pharmaceutic and Therapeutic Clinical Approach (PTCA) lasts 1 or 2 days. It encompasses lectures, seminars, workshops and debates on the theme event topic including the view of the both sides. Some of the topics are Arrhythmias, Depression, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Schizophrenia etc. Lectures and seminars provide the additional theoretic knowledge on the topics, while workshops give useful skills to diagnose and treat a patient with certain disease/condition. After obtaining all necessary skills, joint mixed teams of medical and pharmacy students are solving clinical cases. Their solutions are judged by professors of medicine and pharmacy and debated with all participants and spectators. The final debate summarizes all benefits of cooperation and emphases critical points of misunderstanding.

Plans for evaluation:

Solved clinical cases are evaluated by professors (given points).
Performance of the team is evaluated by the team members (query).
Educational purpose is evaluated by QA questionnaire (participants).