A syllabus for a one semester chemistry course for health professions: Report of the Task Force on Chemical Education for Health Professions

A syllabus for a one semester chemistry course for health professions: Report of the Task Force on Chemical Education for Health Professions

Mordecai Treblow, John M. Daly, and Jerry L. Sarquis

Journal of Chemical Education 1984 61 (7), 620

DOI: 10.1021/ed061p620

This very short (and old) article was a report by the task force on creating a one-semester course syllabus for health professions.  I looked up this article because it was cited in one of the other articles I read.  In this article, they give a suggested list of topics to constitute a one-semester general, organic, and biological chemistry course.  It was noted by the task force that this was created with no input from people in the health professions due to lack of response.  The previous article I presented on Views of Nursing Profession was a delayed response to this call for communication.  As far as I know, there was not a follow-up report on how to integrate the responses and views by the nursing and nursing education community into a revised model. Nevertheless, this was an interesting read as it gave me some history on the current structure of the one-semester GOB course (which I have taught many times) and the two-semester version.

It is also interesting to note that the authors and members of the task force put together this list with the goal of establishing “the chemical foundations for microbiology, physiology, nutrition, and pharmacology”.  In contrast, the participants in the Bridging Cultures study were asked about chemistry as it is useful for nursing clinical applications.  Personally, I have struggled with this and this just reinforces to me that we need to have both goals in mind (what the chemistry course is a pre-requisite for and how it may help students in their nursing clinical experience).  This dichotomy presents some level of conflict because, in my opinion, if the goal of the course is as a pre-requisite for courses in physiology, microbiology, etc, then it warrants a more foundational approach to the topics rather than directly applied.  One has to find a good compromise between the two despite the limited time we have in teaching this course even in a 2-semester mode.

This list of topics given seem overwhelming for a one-semester course.  It is notable that most texts still use this organization and selection of topics.

The authors do give a good list of advice, most of which still apply today (see article).