Patient Education:

When attempting to counsel patient's, I had a tendency to launch into a giant speech regarding their medication. I'll go over dosage, side-effect profiles, mechanism of action, the whole nine-yards in an attempt to better educate the patient about their own health needs. When launching into a speech was my only counseling technique, I would notice that it wouldn't take long for patients to assume a glazed-eye look, and to nod their way through the rest of our conversation.  


Now, however, I try a different approach:

1. I ask the patient to explain to me what they know about the medication. Most patient's are happy to volunteer what information they've previously heard and from there-on, my job is to gently fix any mis-conceptions or review any key-points.

2. I see if I have a physical object available that the patient can touch, or look at. One of the best tool's I've seen used was a piece of spare-tubing that the pharmacist I was rotating with  would use to explain how blood flows through heart vessels to patients. 

3. Diagrams. This was perhaps the best tool I had at my disposal while rotating through IHS, a giant white-board that sat in the counseling room with a black dry-erase marker for our patients to use. I went back to this white-board numerous times to illustrate a point, or to explain complicated dosing regimens. 

4. Lastly, I would ask my patients to explain to me what they had learned after our session. Simply asking if they had any questions is often useless; most patient's are busy with their own lives and are worried that responding with a "Yes" will lead into another series of lectures.

As I continue to develop into a Pharmacist, I hope to learn from the techniques of my peers and superiors so that by the end of my Clerkships, I am ready to engage my patients in the manner most beneficial to them.