In the fourth of a series of articles on communication skills, community pharmacist Reena Barai explains why empathy is such an important attribute when dealing with the public.

The thing I love most about being a community pharmacist is the patient contact. I get a real buzz from not knowing who is going to walk through the door next. I don’t think you can really work in community pharmacy if you don’t like talking to patients.

Admittedly over the past few years the amount of patient contact we have has definitely increased and the depth of our consultations with patients has dramatically changed as well. Community pharmacy is a team effort and without a good team of support staff, meaningful interactions with patients would be impossible.

Difficult situation

Recently we had one of the most difficult situations my team and I have ever had to face. A regular customer of mine came in to collect her usual medications. About half-an-hour later she came back and asked to speak to me.

She admitted that she had taken an overdose of the medication I had just supplied. I rang for an ambulance while my staff sat with my patient. I kept talking to her to keep her awake and alert until the ambulance arrived. What do you say to someone who wants to die and has tried to do something about it?

That was the hardest conversation I have ever had with anyone in my life. I remember thinking to myself: they never taught me how to handle a situation like this at university. If you think about it, many of the consultation skills we exhibit are not actually taught.

We are human beings at the end of the day, as are our patients, and so sometimes we actually end up talking to our patients as we would a friend or relative, using our own innate style. The reason we sometimes do this is because as healthcare professionals we are naturally empathic.

Core attribute

I believe one of the core attributes we need to be patient centred is empathy because it is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. It is often confused with sympathy, which is feelings of pity and sorrow for someone’s misfortune.

I have always lived by the motto “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” until I learnt more about empathy. In my experience, if you are empathetic, your genuine care and compassion comes across and you are able to have a far more meaningful interaction with your patient.

Nature or nurture?

There is considerable debate about whether we can learn to be more empathetic or if, in fact, it is a natural trait that you either have or you don’t. Within the NHS, as we know, there has also been a big push towards patient centred and compassionate care. I know, as my eyes opened to the power of empathy, it made me look at my team and think about ways in which I could support them to be more empathetic.

Here are my two top tips for your teams:

Make sure all the members of your team are Alzheimer’s Society dementia friends

If you are already a dementia friend you will know exactly what I am talking about. The Alzheimer’s Society created the ‘dementia friends’ campaign to try to get more people in the UK to have a better understanding about what it is like to live with dementia and how everyone can support people living with dementia to live well.

My team are all dementia champions and I’ve noticed a massive change in the way they communicate with older people as a result and how they are more empathetic to some of our patients with dementia. Get in touch with your local Alzheimer’s Society branch to find out about a dementia information session near you.

‘Hello my name is ....’.

This is a campaign started by a young doctor named Kate Granger who had cancer and noticed that many of the healthcare professionals she came across never introduced themselves to her. When they did, she had a much more positive experience. I showed my staff the video of a presentation that Dr Granger had given at the NHS Confederation conference (which you can find on the internet).

I would highly recommend you share this with your team. It made us all stop and think about how we introduce ourselves to our patients in the pharmacy and how we could make our interactions more personal. These two campaigns have really got my team thinking about their consultations skills and helped me to realise that being patient centred is a real team effort.

They never taught me how to handle a situation like this at university