TOWARDS AN INTERNATIONAL, STANDARDIZED MODEL PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY CURRICULUM FOR PSYCHIATRY RESIDENCY TRAINING: A COMPETENCY-BASED FRAMEWORK FOR IMPLEMENTATION

Psychopharmacology remains a crucial element of psychiatric practice. Nonetheless, considerable variation exists in its teaching and supervision across residency programs within the United States and internationally. This inconsistency results in divergent prescribing practices, varying practitioner competency levels, and gaps in evidence-based treatment. Such variability can ultimately affect patient care. This underscores the responsibility of the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology (ASCP) to promote and lead standardization of psychopharmacology education worldwide, thereby enhancing clinical education, clinical practice, and patient outcomes. In response to these gaps, we have developed a comprehensive, competency-based psychopharmacology curriculum for implementation in residency programs worldwide. The curriculum encompasses fundamental neurobiology of disease, medication-specific knowledge, including mechanism of action, clinical decision-making, and principles of practice-based learning. It aligns with ACGME milestones, uses contemporary instructional methods such as educational technology, casebased learning, and algorithm-guided prescribing. The product also emphasizes cultural humility, patient safety, rational polypharmacy, and deprescribing strategies. This presentation outlines the curriculum’s development process, content domains, assessment strategies, and implementation pathways. Furthermore, we aim to update and engage leaders, ASCP members, and other essential stakeholders on the ongoing development, adoption, and use of the model psychopharmacology curriculum. As an update from the previous year, this workshop will: a) Briefly review the history of the ASCP model curriculum. Dr. Ira Glick and colleagues developed the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) Model Psychopharmacology Curriculum in the 1980s to enhance national education in psychopharmacology. Over eleven editions, with the latest in 2021, it was transformed for digital learners. b) Revisit the needs of modern learners and understand how the curriculum can meet the same. Modern learners differ in that they expect highly interactive, technology-integrated, ondemand educational experiences that are personalized, fast, visually driven, and immediately applicable to real-world clinical decision-making. c) Present and discuss the revised curriculum, which now exists as an online, dynamic “living” textbook. The term “living” signifies that the curriculum can be accessed by learners at any time, updated in real time, and integrated with emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The AI component is designed to assist learners in locating literature references and completing board-style review questions. The product is composed of three sections tailored to different training levels: a brief course for PG1 residents and early learners, a fundamental course for PG2 residents and mid-level trainees, and an advanced course for PG3 residents and beyond, including fellows and early-career psychiatrists preparing for board exams. We expect this workshop to again play a vital role in assessing whether the ongoing development of the curriculum aligns with the needs of key stakeholders including teachers an end user. Audience engagement, including feedback on attitudes, perceived gaps, and educational needs, will be solicited through focused discussions and responses to product demonstrations. While AI’s integration into education remains nascent and not yet standard practice, the next-generation curriculum should incorporate emerging AI technologies to explore how they can support learners of tomorrow.

References

Silberman EK, Pinderhughes CA, Cleveland EC, et al. Training psychiatrists in psychopharmacology: A national survey of psychiatry residencies. Academic Psychiatry. 2018;42(6):747-752. Yager J, Greden JF, Riba MB. Educating the psychiatrists of the future: A report from the APA Task Force on Competency-Based Education. Academic Psychiatry. 2004;28(2):83-91.