Incorporating problem-based learning concepts into a lecture-based pharmacoeconomics course

In recent years, pharmacoeconomics has increased its presence in the curric ula of professional Doctor of Pharmacy programs as well as traditional post -graduate programs in schools of pharmacy. Due to the unique and varied nat ure of the course material, students may have difficulties linking importan t concepts and methods to their own projects under a lecture-based, didacti c teaching approach. We felt that this problem could not be solved simply b e reorganizing the lecture material within the didactic model. Instead, we developed an innovative teaching method that applies the concepts of proble m-based learning (PBL) within the context of the standard lecture-based lea rning format in a graduate level pharmacoeconomics course. In this article, we introduce this novel approach and share our teaching experiences. Resul ts of our course evaluations show that more than 84 percent of the students found the new approach to be an interesting, useful, and stimulating way t o learn pharmacoeconomics.