Therapeutics, taught to 180 students, incorporates the principles of pharmaceutical care and problembased learning. Two strategies, use of integrated patient cases and sharing of real patient experiences in the classroom, can enhance students' ability to integrate and apply therapeutic information. Integrated cases are developed to include drug-related problems from multiple therapeutic areas and are incorporated periodically through the course. To effectively work through these cases, students

more »

... are expected to integrate previously learned information with new information. For other cases, real patients are invited to the classroom to share their illness experience. A detailed description of a real patient work-up, which also serves as an "integrated cardiology case," is described in detail. Students indicate a high rate of satisfaction with these strategies, which allow them to integrate information from multiple therapeutic areas while creating authenticity to their learning within a large group, problem-based learning environment.