Course Description
The skills to effectively communicate with, teach, and counsel patients about their medications and health are taught. Effective inter-professional communication strategies and skills are presented, focusing on teamwork, roles and responsibilities, and ethics. Students are challenged to incorporate these skills into their own counseling and communication styles with patients and other health care professionals. Innovative technology is employed to promote interactive patient counseling.
Athena Title
Pharmacy Intercommunications
Prerequisite
Doctor of Pharmacy student or permission of major
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
The overall goal is to increase student awareness, knowledge, and experience with basic communication skills and patient counseling techniques. Specific Goals: 1) Understand the basic interpersonal communication model 2) Develop basic communication skills 3) Apply basic communication skills to patient counseling 4) Demonstrate the ability to provide interactive patient counseling 5) Discuss patient and disease factors that influence drug selection (e.g., allergy, disease state, or medication history) 6) Describe the components of an effective patient/caregiver interview 7) Identify the verbal and nonverbal components of a total communication 8) Identify the cognitive and affective information conveyed in the verbal portion of a communication 9) Describe the characteristics of an empathic response 10) Be able to differentiate empathic from nonempathic response 11) Describe ways to organize verbal and written information 12) Use the rules of grammar, punctuation, and spelling to prepare written communications 13) Discuss the ethical principles that govern the practice of pharmacy 14) Identify and practice through simulation opportunities for inter-professional communications emphasizing working as a part of the health care team (teamwork), understanding inter- professional roles and responsibilities, and how ethical principles guide these interactions
Topical Outline
Lectures 1 & 2: Course Introduction - Basic Communication Skills Lectures 3-4: Basic and Non-verbal Communication Lectures 5-6: Clinical Application/Counseling with the Prime Questions/Interactive Patient Counseling Lectures 7: Clinical Applications of the Prime Questions Lectures 8-10: Counseling Patients in Challenging Situations Lecture 11: Assertiveness and Persuasion Lecture 12: Midterm Exam Lectures 13-14: Counseling to Enhance Medication Adherence Lectures 15-16: Clinical Applications: Motivational Interviewing and Behavior Change Lecture 17-18: Inter-Professional Communication and Collaboration Lecture 19: Clinical Application of Counseling and Communication Skills Lecture 20: Ethical Issues in Patient and Provider Communications
Syllabus