Contribution to pharmacology education via Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists & Toxicologists (ASCEPT) Education Forum

I have been a member of the ASCEPT Special Interest Group since my appointment as a lecturer in pharmacology. It is the peak body in pharmacology and toxicology education in Australasia with a membership primarily of academics who teach pharmacology and toxicology in universities in this region. I have been contributing actively on various educational and pedagogical topics that are of national interest in higher education. During ASCEPT 2020 annual meeting, I attended the Education Forum workshop – “Defining the core concepts of pharmacology education”, focusing on refining big ideas in pharmacology discipline that are useful to solve problems, enduring and difficult for students to understand and apply. I led the subgroup discussions on refining top three concepts in pharmacology and identification of misconceptions. The outcome of the work is to establish a pharmacology concept inventory that inform teachers to develop assessments that test attainment of these concepts in student cohorts from different programs that pharmacology is taught in.

We recently started brainstorming ideas on possible topics for educational symposium and mid-year workshop for ASCEPT 2021. My ideas were well recognised by group leaders and colleagues from other universities. My discussion points have contributed to finalising the title for our mid-year education forum of ASCEPT 2021: A sustainable future for pharmacology and toxicology education. (Email thread of our discussions is available).

I contributed to Education Forum workshop about improving the quality of practicals in pharmacology teaching in 2019. In order to share our experience in the design and delivery of practical classes for pharmacology, one of the initiatives was to create a collective list of practicals that we are running in our own universities.  As such, I contributed my practicals on targeted cancer therapy to the final list of 15 practical classes shared by pharmacologists from six universities (Monash Uni, Sydney Uni, Bond Uni, Auckland Uni, Fiji National Uni and UNSW). The list of pharmacology practicals has been shared among the SIG members spanning across most universities in Australia and New Zealand.