What aspects do medical students find important during medical school to develop basic prescribing skills

The process of acquiring prescribing skills starts in medical school, and recent research highlights that educational efforts are needed to make students sufficiently prepared for this professional task. In this study, we explored and quantified aspects that medical students find important during medical school to develop basic prescribing skills. Written text from 75 final-year students (median age: 25 years, 59% female) formed the data. At the end of an anonymous and voluntary test in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics, the students provided (i) information regarding key elements in medical school that had prepared them for prescribing and (ii) suggestions for facilitating their learning of pharmacotherapy. In a manifest content analysis, five themes emerged: workplace-based learning under supervision and taking responsibility for patients; theoretical knowledge base for prescribing; writing prescriptions and helpful resources; varied teaching methods with specific examinations; and continuity, repetition, and progression. The quantitative analysis revealed that workplace-based learning was the most frequently recurring key element for the learning process, and case seminars a preferred pedagogic format. Most suggestions to facilitate learning concerned the category pharmacotherapeutics theory. Categories of the theme continuity, repetition, and progression, as opposed to other themes, encompassed no key elements but only suggestions to facilitate learning. These themes and categories, summarising aspects that medical students find important in the process of acquiring basic prescribing skills essential for their professional life, could form a basis for further developments of pharmacotherapy in medical school.