Common Curriculum for Health Professional Education

Starting from August 2023, the Department of Pharmacy in collaboration with the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Faculty of Dentistry, Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, and Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, will implement a new interdisciplinary common curriculum. This new Common Curriculum for Healthcare Professional Education has been carefully crafted to ensure that the learning outcomes are aligned with the future vision of healthcare with focus on preventive healthcare and facilitating ageing in place through the use of technology and analytics.

First-year students from Pharmacy will first-year students from Dentistry, Medicine and Nursing and will be taking five specially designed courses together, and they will collaborate across the four healthcare disciplines as part of their learning journey. The common curriculum, which is to be completed in the first two years of their candidature, will complement the existing B. Pharm. (Hons.) programme.

This cross-disciplinary curriculum seeks to cultivate awareness of social issues, teamwork, communication, ethics and professionalism, digital literacy, and interprofessional education in the context of health and healthcare. In addition, the Common Curriculum aims to equip the students with collaborative skills to engage in population healthcare planning, delivery, and evaluation. Lessons are conducted through blended learning with a mix of online and in-person classes, which will be customised to feature group as well as individual learning sessions such as case-based discussions, fireside chats and self-reflections.

Students will also engage in interdisciplinary experiential learning through the Longitudinal Patient Experience, where teams of students from various healthcare disciplines will visit patients in their homes and living environment continually for one year. This immersive learning journey provides students with opportunities to apply the concepts learnt in class to provide holistic care for their patients, and at the same time fosters empathy and resilience in the students.

Professor Christina Chai (Head of the Department of Pharmacy) said, “The Common Curriculum for Health Professional Education gives our pharmacy students an invaluable opportunity to learn with, from, and about dental, medical and nursing students. This interdisciplinary approach will enable our future pharmacists to share their expertise as part of multidisciplinary team, assisting them with learning new technologies and gaining a deeper understanding of patient needs”.

Please refer to Annexe 1 for more information about the Common Curriculum.

Read more: NUS News