Team: Johnson Liu, Marty Le Nedelec, Matthew Perry, Nicola Smith (School of Biomedical Sciences)

The innovation central to this nomination is the integrated curriculum design of the course PHAR3921 Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynamics and Pharmacogenomics, introduced in Term 1, 2025 for Year 3 pharmacy students as a new core course.

Rapid advances in pharmacogenomics (PGx) and pharmacotherapy present ongoing challenge for pharmacy education. While pharmacists are well positioned to implement PGx services in clinical care, Pharmacokinetics (PK), Pharmacodynamics (PD), and PGx are often taught as separate units. This traditional approach leads to fragmented understanding and limits students’ ability to apply concepts holistically in clinical decision-making (Khurshid et al., 2023). Integrated curricula have been shown to enhance conceptual understanding and clinical reasoning (Nezhad et al., 2024), helping future pharmacists appreciate how PK, PD and PGx intersect to influence therapeutic outcomes (Papadopoulou, 2023). Although PGx content is now incorporated into most Australian pharmacy programs, much of it remains at a foundational level rather than application of advanced PK-based PGx skills (Venugopal 2022). Our course represents a significant pedagogical shift by combining these three critical areas into a cohesive, conceptually connected learning experience that reflects the evolving landscape of precision medicine and personalized therapeutics.

The course was designed in consultation with practicing pharmacists, serving as clinical experts, to enable students to synthesize knowledge across these relevant domains and apply it to clinical context. The curriculum was structured around core concepts and clinical scenarios, ensuring horizontal integration of knowledge and alignment with professional competencies. Key pedagogical strategies included:

• Problem-based learning (PBL): Realistic clinical cases requiring application of PK, PD and PGx principles fostered higher-order thinking and contextual learning.
• Scaffolded assessments: Progressive, structured tasks with timely feedback supported incremental knowledge building and management of conceptual complexity across PK, PD and PGx.
• Experiential Learning: Real-world drug examples and pharmacogenomic data enhanced clinical relevance, bridging theory and practice.

Assessments were carefully aligned with integrated learning outcomes, incorporating case-based analyses, data interpretation exercises, and reflective components. Feedback loops were embedded in assessment tasks to reinforce conceptual connections and transition of learning between these domains.

The course has demonstrated measurable success:

• Academic performance: Class mean of 79.2, a +4.2 WAM uplift compared to the cohort average.
• Student satisfaction: myExperience score of 5.42/6, with 97.2% agreement—both exceeding School and Faculty means.
• Qualitative feedback: Students praised the integrated structure, clarity of delivery, and clinical relevance. Comments include:
  • ‘The course content felt relevant and the application in the workshops helped apply the content into a more realistic real life conditions’
  • ‘Content was interesting, well-delivered and relevant to us studying pharmacy’
  • ‘Helpful workshops with real case studies’

Further endorsement came from the Pharmacy Student Representatives on the School of Health Sciences Board:

• ‘Overall, the cohort believed this was one of the best courses they were taught in the degree as it is related to pharmacy and was taught in an excellent manner’

PHAR3921 exemplifies educational innovation through interdisciplinary integration, evidence-informed design, and measurable impact on learning outcomes. It established a new standard for pharmacology education within the pharmacy program. The project demonstrates leadership in curriculum innovation and provides a scalable, transferable model for other health disciplines seeking to embed translational pharmacogenomics and integrated pharmacology into clinical education.