Pharmacology is an integrated science of chemistry,biochemistry,physiology,anatomy,molecularbiology and pathology.Therefore,medical studentsare required to complete those premedical coursesbefore entering the pharmacology program.The goalof this course in our university is to enable the student to understand why,when and how drugs can beused to treat diseases.Since the number and categoryof therapeutic agents has increased continuouslyover the past decade,it is impossible to teach the students all pharmacological information.To increasethe efficiency of learning,group-based learningmode and integrated courses in pharmacology andother medical sciences(such as internal medicine,surgery)were adopted in 1992.In this program,therelative time schedules for teaching specific drugssuch as drugs acting on the cardiovascular system,were scheduled for the same week in which the relative clinical courses for treatment of those specificdiseases were provided.Through this arrangement,redundant content between courses in basic pharmacology and other medical sciences was reduced.Toprovide the students with more updated pharmacological information,eleven small group discussionson special therapeutic agents were tutored by the faculty of our department starting in 1997.In this”group discussion program”,a problem-based,student-centered self-study format was adopted.The efficiency of this teaching program was evaluated byquestionnaire from students and their success rate inpassing the qualification examination for their medical license.(Full text in Chinese)