The Effects of Utilizing an Innovative Method to Mimic a Prescription, named “Prescomime”, on Medical Students’ Learning and clinical Skills Development in Pharmacology Course

Introduction: Pharmacology is an extremely practical course and at the same time hard to learn. Utilizing practical and innovative methods facilitates learning of theoretical courses. Therefore, this research aimed to investigate the effects of an innovative role-based method named “Prescomime” on medical students’ learning and clinical skills development in pharmacology course. Methods: This single-group post-test study was performed in the first and second semesters of 2012-2013 academic years among medical students in pharmacology course (all students: 22 in the first and 24 in the second semester) in North Khorasan University of Medical Sciences. The term Prescomime is derived from the words prescription and mimic and means mimic of a prescription. Participants were divided into two groups. The explorer group asked one of the participants in the same group, as a hypothetical middle class patient (without medical information), about her or his disease to get information about the medication that she or he had consumed in order to find that medication. Data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire in order to evaluate the method. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics (ANOVA and T-test). Results: The mean scores for the idea of implementation of this method were 4.09±0.05 in the first semester and 4.09±0.09 (out of 5) in the second semester which did not show a significant difference (p=0.9, t=0.19) however, a significant difference (p<0.0001, t=3.48) was found between the mean scores for the method of implementation in the first semester (3.02±0.87) and the second semester (4.05±0.17). Conclusion: Findings showed that utilizing Prescomime in the form of role playing enhanced students’ motivation, self-confidence, and concentration on practical aspects of the course. Since there is no access to patients in theoretical courses, a combination of this method with theoretical courses might be the best solution to improve learning of pharmacology.