[Proposals for innovative pharmacology education from the perspective of several fields--in response to rapidly changing times].

The Japanese Pharmacological Society has not given a symposium to discuss the topic of overall pharmacology education since 1994 (the 67th Annual Meeting). Thereafter, we have been witnessing great changes in the environment surrounding pharmacology, where scientific advances in life science have made boundaries between the various life sciences ambiguous and have brought the following questions before us: what is pharmacology and what should it be? Considering the situation, the Committee of Education of the Society organized a symposium on pharmacology education at the 73rd Annual Meeting in 2000, which will discuss current problems encountered in pharmacology education today and what pharmacology education should be hereafter. The symposists consisted of five people with backgrounds in basic medicine (biochemistry), clinical medicine (internal medicine), hospital pharmacy, pharmaceutical industry and administration (the Ministry of Health and Welfare). They unanimously emphasized that education of pharmacology should be reformed profoundly so as to contribute to a greater degree to professional medical services and new drug development as well as to basic science and meet the needs of the new era. We hope this symposium will trigger a further discussion on pharmacology education for the future.