[Medical schools: opportunities to improve drug prescription].

This paper reviews different strategies to improve medical prescription. Medical schools, responsible for the education and updating of physicians, should strengthen educative strategies, both curricular and extracurricular. They must also support managerial and regulatory strategies in collaboration with institutions that provide health services and governmental health ministries. Some characteristics of rational and irrational medicinal prescription are listed. Some educational strategies are described, such as a decrease in the number of drugs reviewed during pharmacology courses, the inclusion of the concept of essential medicines, the use of sources of information about drugs, and problem-based learning. Some managerial strategies are mentioned, such as a research on medicine use and the production of therapeutic guidelines that require the involvement of health services providers and that might be supported by medical schools. This paper also points out the need for continuing medical education and explains some related experiences that have been successful in improving drug prescription practices in other countries.