News Release

Educating health care professionals to prescribe drugs objectively

Grant and Award Announcement

University of Kentucky

Lexington, Ky. − The University of Kentucky College of Medicine Department of Family and Community Medicine has been awarded a $362,000 grant to develop a specialized prescription drug curriculum for health care professionals.

The Attorney General Consumer and Prescriber Grant Program funds projects designed to provide health care professionals and consumers with information on prescription drugs, including marketing practices. The first round of grants will focus on prescriber education. The goal of the grant program is to positively impact prescribing behavior and consumer health by teaching health care professionals to understand the drug development and approval process, to evaluate drug marketing practices, and to find sources of unbiased information on drugs. The ultimate goal is that health care professionals will prescribe drugs objectively.

"At times, more cost-effective drugs may be overlooked, partially due to pharmaceutical marketing," said Dr. Paul Dassow, assistant dean for Continuing Medical Education for the UK College of Medicine and principal investigator on the grant. "We're optimistic that this curriculum will improve the prescriber's ability to evaluate and prescribe medicine in the most cost-effective manner." The curriculum consists of five modules and will be taught both online and in the classroom. It will be tailored for medical students, physician assistant students and practicing clinicians. The program will be evaluated for its impact on the attitudes and behaviors of prescribers.

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The Attorney General Consumer and Prescriber Grant Program is part of a settlement with Warner-Lambert, a division of Pfizer, Inc. The program is administered by a special committee of state attorneys general.

In striving to become a Top 20 public research institution, the University of Kentucky is a catalyst for a new Commonwealth – a Kentucky that is healthier, better educated, and positioned to compete in a global and changing economy. For more information about UK's efforts to become a Top 20 university, please go to http://www.uky.edu/OPBPA/Top20.html


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