About the curriculum
Prescribing a medicine is the most common patient-facing healthcare intervention, and the process of prescribing a medicine is complex. This curriculum outlines core knowledge and skills that will provide graduating doctors with a foundation for safe and effective prescribing throughout their careers. The curriculum does not provide guidance on the delivery of its content. Individual medical schools are best placed to decide how it should/could be used in delivering clinical pharmacology and therapeutics learning within their degree. There is no ‘right’ way to teach the discipline. This curriculum provides a supportive framework that could be used to map learning and provide assurance that a medical degree delivers the required learning.
The curriculum is divided into four distinct sections (I–IV). Principles of clinical pharmacology (section I) covers learning that broadly might be expected to be learned early in the medical degree to provide a foundation for future clinical application. Section II is a suggestion for a ‘student formulary’ – a core list of drugs that a graduating doctor should be familiar with in relative depth. Therapeutics (section III) provides a list of clinical conditions and their pharmacological treatment, which is essential for a graduating medical student and prescribing and related skills are outlined in section IV. Each section is then divided into topic areas, sub-headings and bullet-pointed learning objectives.
The current curriculum was updated and produced in 2025 through a modified Delphi process involving experts with a broad experience of clinical pharmacology education from across the United Kingdom. It has been overseen by a steering committee of expert educators in the field. It builds on previous publications from the society over the past 30 years and reflects evolution in medicines and prescribing practice in the United Kingdom.
Steering committee for the curriculum project
- Dr Dagan Lonsdale, Vice President (Clinical), British Pharmacological Society
- Professor Clare Guilding, Vice President (Academic Development), British Pharmacological Society
- Dr Jennifer Koenig, Associate Professor, British Pharmacological Society Education and Training Committee
- Professor Michael Okorie, Professor of Clinical Pharmacology
- Professor Reecha Sofat, Professor of Clinical Pharmacology
- Professor Simon Maxwell, Professor of Clinical Pharmacology
