Effective communication

Effective communication is essential in every professional setting. A pharmacist must communicate effectively with her patients, other members of the healthcare team (doctors, nurses, third party payers, etc.) and other pharmacists. In each of these settings, the pharmacist must gear the information towards the audience. For example, she must use laymen’s terms with patients, and may use more advance medical terminology with doctors, but somewhere in between with nurses and medical assistants. Also, even though the pharmacist may be conversing with a doctor, she must not assume that the doctor knows all the drug information that she knows. When conversing with patients, it is also important to remember not to overwhelm the patient (even in laymen’s terms) with everything all at once, or else the patient will soon tune out all the pharmacist is saying. And recently, in Evidence-based Pharmacy Practice, we learned with researching drug information, to keep in mind with whom we are dispensing our drug information to while we are researching and preparing our reports.
This example is not a good one. Take ownership!!!

?    Create your own definition for all the questions (at least one
Paragraph)

?    USE FIRST PERSON! Take ownership
Examples: I, me, myself, mine, my
Examples: we, us, ourselves, our, ours
?    BE TRANSPARENT! Start definition with…
“The curricular outcome (name) means…”

?    Question 1. Demonstrate professionalism
A. Maintain professional responsibility and advocate such action in others
B. Demonstrate professional behavior in all interactions with patients, caregivers, and other healthcare professionals
C. Represent and advance the profession of pharmacy

?    QUESTION 2.  Demonstrate critical thinking and problem solving skills
A. Examine problems systematically and completely
B. Demonstrate rational and reflective consideration of current knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs necessary to formulate an informed decision
C. Develop strategies to solve problems
D. Create and implement the recommendation or solution appropriate for a given patient or situation
E. Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the solution implemented, revising as appropriate

?    Question 3. Communicate effectively
A. Obtain relevant information necessary to facilitate healthcare decision-making
B. Convey appropriate information by verbal and/or non-verbal means to the target audience
C. Develop professionally written communication strategies to meet the target audience’s needs
D. Evaluate the effectiveness of any communication encounter, modifying as necessary