Personal formulary for anxiety disorder developed by post graduates of pharmacology

Selection of a drug for disease requires proper skill. Physicians select drug for a disease on the basis of efficacy, safety, cost and availability of medicine. Unfortunately, selection is not always done carefully as it is often based on previous experience or promotional campaigns by pharmaceutical companies. Personal drug concept deals with selection of drugs for disease. Undergraduate medical students are the future doctors, who require proper training to develop personal formulary for disease. In 2001, 'Teachers' Guide to Good Prescribing' was developed as a companion volume to help medical teacher for teaching undergraduate medical students. Students are taught to develop a standard treatment for common disorders and a set of firstchoice drugs called Personal or P-drugs or personal formulary. Students develop their set of P-drugs using National and International treatment guidelines, formularies, textbooks and other sources of drug information. It is a method of orienting students towards therapeutics and to expose them to a sequential decision-making process for developing prescribing skills. The faculty of department of Pharmacology of Kasturba Medical College took initiative to teach post graduate (PG) students regarding the development of personal formulary. The ultimate aim is to expand this exercise further to teach undergraduate medical students to develop their own personal formulary. This paper describes the teaching of development of personal formulary for anxiety disorders, which demonstrates the usefulness of P drug concept approach, relevance in understanding a particular topic and rational drug prescription.