PRACTICES OF TOXICOLOGY AT UNIVERSITY

At present the teaching of Toxicology takes place in the Degrees of Health Sciences. According to build the European Higher Education Area the changes to their respective title of degrees, the different toxicology-related subjects have been adapted or transformed. The subject of toxicology is included in advanced courses of the degrees programs such as Pharmacy, Veterinary Medicine, Human Nutrition and Dietetics. It is necessary to require the students specific prerequisites of study such as biology, chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology, physiology, etc. for academic training. In our opinion, an effective toxicology lesson must include seven parts: Objectives, Concepts, General aspects, Development of the topics, Conclusion, Practices and Seminars. In order to follow this scheme it is necessary about two or three hours to impart a lesson.

In toxicology we work with two types of practices:
1) laboratory practices in which students develop laboratory skills and they can face case studies simulating real intoxicating situations
2) normative and legislation practices with which students should familiarize.

In the laboratory, students work in the determination of different contaminants in water, food and feed, and toxicants in biological samples such as blood and urine in addition to the identification of toxic plants. This type of activity is done in small groups of students, with no more than 20 students per group. Moreover, to carry out these practices it is necessary in the university laboratories and specific areas as well as material resources, reagents and equipment for use in the laboratory. On the other hand, normative and legislation practices dealing with European normative related with toxicological studies and other toxicological areas such as classification and labelling of chemicals, risk assessment and environmental toxicology. In these practice the teacher shows students the sources of information and established calculation models and guide them in resolving cases trying to teach them how important are the decisions must be made by the toxicologist. In these cases, the group of students in the classroom may increase. This type of practice lessons are taught in classrooms where students have a computer and internet connection for their access databases and other information toxicological sources.