A cardiovascular pharmacotherapy elective course to enhance pharmacy students' literature evaluation skills and ability to apply clinical evidence.

OBJECTIVES: To design and implement a cardiovascular pharmacotherapy elective course to enhance pharmacy students' ability to evaluate medical literature and apply clinical evidence.
DESIGN: In weekly class sessions, students were provided an overview of the important literature supporting therapeutic guidelines for the management of major cardiovascular diseases. Students worked in groups to complete outside-of-class assignments involving a patient case and then discussed the case in class. During the semester, each student also independently completed a literature search on an assigned topic, summarized the studies found in table format, and presented 1 of the studies to the class. ASSESSMENT: Students' grades on weekly patient case assignments steadily increased over the semester. Also, the average grade on the final examination was higher than the grade on the midterm take-home examination. On the course evaluation, students rated the course favorably in terms of improvement of confidence in evaluating the primary literature and applying it to practice.
CONCLUSION: Completion of the cardiovascular pharmacotherapy elective increased pharmacy students' level of confidence in evaluating literature and applying clinical evidence in making patient care decisions.