Baby Steps

I am currently enrolled in a class called, ‘Social Aspects of Pharmacy Care’. At the beginning of the semester, we were assigned to work on a health behavior, which we could design ourselves. The goal was to continue to work towards the health behavior at least four times each week for the remainder of the semester. Not long after the challenge had been assigned, I found it increasingly more difficult to maintain my health behavior. While speaking with other students in the class, it was clear that most people had failed, either due to lofty goals or the distractions of everyday life.

Although this may feel like an abstract application to pharmacy students, I was able to draw from the experience and I feel it will help me to understand and be compassionate for the challenges that my future patients will face when making health changes. Pharmacists hand out copious amounts of health advice on a daily basis, but I believe it is important for us to understand the implications of this advice on the patients. Clearly, any advice to increase activity level or monitor diet is done with the hopes of improving the patient’s health overtime. It is important for us to understand the challenges of actually carrying out these behaviors and how they will fit into the lifestyle of our patients.

Perhaps the most important advice I learned from the experience was to counsel patients to work up to a goal, gradually, overtime. Additionally, it is important for us to be very specific in our recommendations. The more specific the recommendation, the more the patients can visualize themselves carrying out the task and the more empowered they will feel. Overall, promote healthy activities to your patients, but understand there are significant challenges and lifestyle changes that need to be managed to allow these changes to take effect. Even small changes are better than perpetuating an unhealthy lifestyle.