Position Paper
Inclusion of Soft Skills in the Pharmacy curricula
EUROPEAN PHARMACEUTICAL STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATION DECEMBER 2016
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Executive Summary To ensure that future pharmacists are enabled to provide patient-centred care, the skills that have proven to be its foundation must be equally taught to all pharmacy students. Patient-centred care is not only about professional and technical skills of diጜerent healthcare professionals, but also about human relationships and the ability for these professionals to interact eጜectively and harmoniously with patients. These are deጄned as soft skills. Soft skills should be part of the knowledge transmitted by higher education institutions, allowing a structured approach and ensuring the best outcome for both students and healthcare systems, as they have proven to be essential for the achievement of successful outcomes in the former. EPSA therefore calls on educational institutions for: 1.
Recognition of soft skills as a key component in patient-centred care
2.
Implementation of soft skills in pharmacy curricula, equally across Europe
3.
Involvement of student associations in the discussion and implementation of soft skills in the pharmacy curricula
Contents Introduction
3
Key issues
4
Conclusion
5
Recommendations
6
About EPSA
7
About the EPSA Training Project
7
References
8
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Introduction Patient-centred care is a widely used concept in the healthcare lexicon. Patients are seen as individuals, informed, respected and listened to regarding the decisions that inጜuence their health1. The advantages of the patient-centred care are well known1 and this concept may be comprehensively described by its interrelated components: (1) exploring both the disease and the illness experience; (2) understanding the whole person; (3) ጄnding common ground regarding management of problems; (4) incorporating prevention and health promotion; (5) enhancing the doctor–patient relationship and (6) ‘being realistic’ about personal limitations and issues, such as the availability of time and resources2. Patient-centred care is not only about the professional skills of diጜerent healthcare professionals, but mostly about human relationships and the ability of these professionals to create empathy with patients. It is, therefore, of uttermost importance that future healthcare professionals are educated towards a health system increasingly focused on the patient and that their curriculum properly reጜects the needs of their profession3. Amongst the skills needed for the implementation of a patient-centred care, there are communication skills, emotional intelligence (as the ability to establish empathy), teamwork (cooperation and partnership with both patients and other healthcare professionals), critical thinking and problem solving1,3. Moreover, the International Federation of Pharmacists (FIP) described in its Global Competency Framework for pharmacists a similar skill set that can serve as a complement to the above mentioned. This Framework’s skill set includes communication, with a special focus on building rapport and being culturally aware, leadership, and time and project management4. All of these skills can be generally addressed as soft skills, these being deጄned as ‘personal attributes that enable someone to interact eጜectively and harmoniously with other people’ by the Oxford Online Dictionary5. Despite their known importance, soft skills are underrepresented in pharmacy curricula in Europe.
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The PHARMINE6 study in 2011 revealed that education on generic skills, including soft skills, only contributed to an average of 7.1% of the total contact hours in pharmacy curricula across Europe, with the majority of this time being dedicated to traineeships, with a very large variation between the diጜerent countries7. The follow-up study, PHAR-QA8, focused on competences and quality assurance in the education and training of European pharmacists. The results of this European wide study, where both students, professionals from diጜerent ጄelds in pharmacy, and academics were involved, showed almost unanimous consensus on several concrete examples of soft skills (ability to work eጜectively as part of a team, a professional approach to tasks and human relations, etc.) as being core competencies for pharmacists9. Leadership10,11, critical thinking12 and communication13 courses have previously shown that the outcomes of pharmacy education can be improved by including soft skills in the curricula. Also, the involvement of students in the learning process has proven to increase their satisfaction without compromising the results obtained14. To bridge the gap between the students’ needs for training on soft skills and its general absence in pharmacy curricula, EPSA developed the EPSA Training Project, which has been providing soft skills training opportunities to pharmacy students since 2009. This project has been developed based on peer-to-peer learning, with internal quality assurance standards. The EPSA Training Project oጜers complementary training to European students that engage with EPSA and, therefore, cannot cover all European Pharmacy students. Key Issues To ensure that all future pharmacists in Europe are enabled to provide high quality patient-centred care, the skills that have proven to be its foundation must be equally taught to all students of pharmacy. EPSA strongly believes in a harmonised education towards soft skills in order to ensure consistent high standards across
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Europe, while taking into account the heterogeneity of pharmacy curricula across Europe. Therefore, all pharmacy students in Europe should have equal access to speciጄc training on soft skills, in order to potentiate their development as healthcare professionals and positively contribute to the improvement of healthcare systems across Europe. As the main source of knowledge for future pharmacists, the pharmacy curricula should strive to keep up to date with the changes in the profession. Being soft skills at the core of patient-centred care and being Universities the main responsible entities for educating future pharmacists, the symbiosis between both is not only needed, but also predicted as extremely beneጄcial. Conclusion Soft skills, as deጄned above, should be considered as a crucial part of the professional development of the pharmacist and the other healthcare professionals. They have proven to be essential for the achievement of successful outcomes in health and healthcare systems, particularly concerning patient-centred care. Ultimately, if pharmacists do not develop these skills as an essential part of their training, they will struggle with clinical practice and pharmaceutical care, missing the opportunity to greatly improve patients’ outcomes13. For all the abovementioned motives, EPSA calls for the inclusion of soft skills in the pharmacy curricula, prospecting that this measure will not only complement the professional development of community or hospital pharmacists, but also industrial pharmacists, pharmaceutical scientists, academics and pharmacists that follow alternative career paths. EPSA also considers soft skills to be essential to the personal development of pharmacy students. As such, soft skills inclusion in the pharmacy curricula caters for the vision of the European Higher Education Area, following the Bologna Process that states that ‘Higher Education will prepare
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students for their future careers and for life as active citizens in democratic societies, and support their personal development’. Having a long experience transmitting knowledge regarding soft skills through its Training Project, EPSA strongly believes that after taking soft skills training, pharmacy students experience a positive change both in their professional and personal development. Bearing this in mind, EPSA makes itself available to participate, stimulate and drive the process of inclusion of soft skills in the pharmacy curricula in Europe. Recommendations
EPSA calls on educational institutions for: 1. Recognition of soft skills as a key component in patient-centred care: Soft Skills are crucial to ensure an eጜective patient-centred care. 2. Implementation of soft skills in pharmacy curricula, equally across Europe: To ensure pharmacy students have equal access to soft skills training across European countries, such training should be equally provided as part of the pharmacy curricula. 3. Involvement
of
student
associations in the discussion and
implementation of soft skills in the pharmacy curricula: EPSA has a wide experience on providing soft skills training to pharmacy students and is fully available to actively participate in the discussion and implementation of the modiጄcations necessary in the current curricula, essential for the implementation of this measure.
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About EPSA The European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association (EPSA) is the umbrella association representing 160,000 pharmacy students within 43 member associations from 35 countries across Europe. EPSA is actively engaged on both student and professional levels, bringing pharmacy, knowledge and students together and encouraging personal development of its members. EPSA facilitates discussion between member associations, by being a platform for sharing knowledge and best practices. EPSA also acts as the voice of pharmacy students in Europe and advocates their interests. By organising events on a European level, EPSA ensures knowledge transfer as well as social and cultural exchange. About EPSA Training Project The EPSA Training Project was founded in 2009 with the goal of providing soft skills training to pharmacy students across Europe and to advocate for the incorporation of soft skills in the pharmacy curricula. Today, the EPSA Training Project relies on more than 60 active Trainers in 20 European countries that are capacitated to deliver high quality Training sessions at both local and international level. As main activities, the EPSA Training Project has its Training New Trainers (TNT) and Train the Trainers (TtT) events, dedicated to internal capacity building, and Trainers on Tour (ToT) and Training Week (TW), dedicated to bringing soft skills training to pharmacy students across Europe. Moreover, the EPSA Annual Congress and Autumn Assembly always oጜer an event-long Training programme for the participants attending. The EPSA Training Project has an internal quality assurance system that guarantees the quality of the Training Sessions delivered by EPSA Trainers. Feedback is collected for all training sessions and reports for speciጄc sessions and activities are made. Also, every new Trainer is assigned a more experienced Trainer as a mentor who acts as a guide and supporter for the newer, less experienced Trainers.
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References 1.
Epstein, R. M. & Street, R. L. The Values and Value of Patient-Centered Care.
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FIP Pharmacy Education Taskforce. A Global Competency Framework for
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Oxford University Press. Oxford Online Dictionary. Available at:
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/deጄnition/soft_skills. (Accessed: 5th December 2016) 6. Atkinson, J. & Rombaut, B. The 2011 PHARMINE report on pharmacy and pharmacy education in the European Union. Pharmacy Practice. 2011;9(4):169-187. 7. Atkinson, J. Heterogeneity of Pharmacy Education in Europe. Pharmacy 2014, 2, 231-243 8. PHAR-QA Quality Assurance in European Pharmacy Education and Training: http://www.phar-qa.eu/ 9. Atkinson J. et al. The Second Round of the PHAR-QA Survey of Competences for Pharmacy Practice. Pharmacy 2016, 4(3), 27; 10.
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