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Abstract

Purpose: Pharmacists play a significant role in toxicology from research to clinical practice. Adequate toxicology content coverage is expected in the curricula of US PharmD programs. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the status of toxicology education in the professional PharmD programs in US schools and colleges of pharmacy.

Method: The websites of 142 pharmacy programs were visited. Pages with PharmD curriculum, course catalog, student handbook were identified and retrieved. The toxicology course titles and catalog descriptions were compiled and uploaded into the qualitative data analysis software, NVivo® 12. A word cloud analysis of the toxicology course descriptions was conducted. Standard data coding strategies were employed for the thematic analysis of the course descriptions.

Results: Toxicology content integrated with other biomedical sciences was found in 108 (78%) pharmacy programs. Standalone toxicology required courses and didactic elective courses were identified in 21 and 34 programs, respectively. The number of semester hours dedicated to the stand-alone toxicology courses varied from 1.0 to 4.0 (median=2.5, mode=3.0, mean=2.73). The thematic dimensions related to toxicology in the titles and the course descriptions included acute and chronic toxicity of drugs, drug overdoses, drug-adverse reactions, poisons, diverse types of toxicants, toxicological manifestations, detection of toxicants/clinical assessments, and prevention/ management of poisoning.

Conclusion: Most of the pharmacy programs integrate toxicology within biomedical science courses while a smaller proportion offer standalone courses either as required or elective courses. Our study may be a useful guide for pharmacy schools/colleges to review toxicology content offerings.

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