Prescribing skills for undergraduate Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 2013;3 (3): 260-261 Copyright © 2013 CEA&INEA Published online by NepJOL-INASP www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE Prescribing skills for undergraduate medical students: Time to redress the neglect? Shankar PR 1 1 Professor, Xavier University School of Medicine, Aruba, Kingdom of the Netherlands Chief Editor Dr. Indrajit Banerjee Technical Editor Dr. Nishida Chandrasekharan Formatting Editor Dr. Indrajit Banerjee Editorial Medical schools have a major challenge of preparing undergraduate students to choose and prescribe safe and cost-effective treatments. Problem-based learning in pharmacology based on national essential medicine lists and standard treatment guidelines has been recommended as a key intervention to improve prescribing 1 . Recognizing the fact that traditional pharmacology teaching concentrates on memorizing information about medicines a number of initiatives have been introduced to improve teaching-learning of rational therapeutics. Recognizing the vital importance of the subject, the World Health Organization (WHO) has developed four publications dealing with teaching rational use of medicines (RUM). These are ‘Guide to good prescribing’ (http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/1994/who_dap_94.11.pdf), ‘Ethical criteria for medicinal drug promotion’ (http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/documents/whozip08e/ whozip08e.pdf), ‘How to investigate drug use in health facilities’ http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/en/d/Js2289e/) and a book for teachers titled ‘Teacher’s guide to good prescribing’(http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/en/m/abstr act/Js2292e/). ‘Guide to good prescribing’ was used to conduct rational pharmacotherapy training for fourth year medical students in a medical school in Turkey 2 . Case-based teaching was used to impart rational pharmacotherapy skills to students in India 3 and developing and using a personal formulary was found to be effective in schools following both a traditional and a problem-based curriculum 4 . In a medical school in Lalitpur, Nepal students learn about various aspects of RUM during small group pharmacology learning sessions 5 . Personal (P) drug selection using objective criteria and unbiased sources of medicine information is an important exercise in pharmacology. At present in Nepal the exercise is being conducted at Manipal College of Medical Sciences, Institute of Medicine and KIST Medical College 6 . The P-drug selection process uses a logical deductive process, using accurate and objective information, to adopt strict criteria (efficacy, safety, convenience and cost, on selecting drugs and writing a complete prescription 7 . In a medical school in Brazil students liked the methodology and the opportunity to reflect on various factors involved in the prescribing process but could not use it much in practice due to lack of stimulation and not being allowed to do so by older residents and senior doctors 7 . In the United Kingdom initiatives to improve prescribing have recently been carried out 8 . Prescribe, a repository of e- learning materials to support education in clinical pharmacology and prescribing has been created, and the Prescribing Skills Assessment, a national online assessment designed to allow medical students to Corresponding Author: Dr. P Ravi Shankar MD Xavier University School of Medicine Aruba, Kingdom of the Netherlands E-mail: ravi.dr.shankar@gmail.com