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Team-based learning (TBL) is an active learning method which has been designed to help students solve problems both by themselves and as a team. In this study, TBL was introduced in the journal club (gathering to read and discuss medical papers) for pharmacists, and its effectiveness was compared with that of a traditional lecture. The subjects, 29 pharmacists at Kobe University Hospital, were randomly allocated to the lecture group and TBL group. The pre-test was conducted two months before the journal club, and the post-tests were conducted immediately and one month after the journal club. There was no significant difference in the background data of the pharmacists between the lecture group and the TBL group. The score differences between the pre-test and the post-test immediately after the journal club were not significant (11.4 ± 2.3 points (mean ± SD) in the TBL group, 8.8 ± 4.2 points in the lecture group, P = 0.14). The post-test scores immediately after the journal club in the TBL group (19.6 ± 0.5 points) were significantly higher compared with those in the lecture group (17.8 ± 1.5 points) (P < 0.01), and the learning effect provided by TBL tended to be maintained one month after the TBL. In conclusion, TBL was an alternative method of the ordinal lecture and may be a useful learning method for pharmacists to read medical papers critically compared with the ordinal lecture.