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PHARMACIST SOFT SKILL

Suwaida Aden

Department Of English, Community College of Baltimore

ENGL 101: College Composition

Professor Alyssa Simms Clark

December 14,2021
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PHARMACIST SOFT SKILL

Pharmacists are important to patient care, they don’t only dispense

medication to patients, but they also advise them on how to get better

results. Hard skills are mostly gained through education or special training

with specific job knowledge that employees require in order to get hired

while soft skills are described as personal talents that mostly person aren’t

taught but natural traits that they have. Soft skills are most important

because it improves person’s ability to work with others and have positive

influence through your career. Problem solving, empathy, communication

skills and conflict resolution skills will help me excel in my career as a

pharmacist.

To begin with problem solving will help me become outstanding in

my career as a pharmacist. According to one article “Ninety-seven percent

of employers surveyed said that soft skills were either as important or more

important than hard skills. However, 46 percent of new employees fail

within 18 months and of these, 89 percent fail because of a lack of soft

skills, such as professionalism or the ability to get along with others.”

(Janove,2020) The author reports that soft skills are more advantageous than

hard skills, according to the survey most people who are ineffective than

those who did have soft skills. As a pharmacist problem solving skill is

important for example it can happen while describing the medication or

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billing for the prescribed medicine with patient so having problem solving

skill would help solve and having right solution without conflict and patient

having not to be treated. Therefore, soft skills make you valuable to specific

jobs because most employees expect people to have some traits that doesn’t

need much education or training.

Second soft skill that I have that will empower me to excel my career

as a pharmacist is empathy. According to Eileen Oldfield, editor of

Pharmacy times says that “the ability to understand a patient’s feelings could

be the key to ensuring high-quality interactions; known as clinical empathy,

this involves communicating with patients to understand their perspective on

their disease, medication, and overall health”(Eileen,2015).The author is

basically saying that understanding patient’s emotion is the best way to

ensure strong empathy which can be done having conversation with patient

to know their viewpoint of their medicine and diseases. I firmly agree with

this author’s statement because showing empathy to the patient’s will help

pharmacist to have strong relationship with their patients in many ways

which is understanding their concerns, most of them are afraid of their health

issues thus listening and showing them empathy could make them talk about

their feelings about the medication or ask any questions they had. In my

career as a pharmacist, this soft skill is necessary because the patient might
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see that you do not care about their feeling and think that their medication is

connected to unimportant person, the pharmacist, who is supposed to care

for them which may lead the patient to act carelessly about their health too.

According to this journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice gives further

insight and how important it is to every individual in this career field needs,

“Low empathy levels were significantly associated with factors such as age,

practice experience, and mental and physical work fatigue, all of which

impact the practice, as the accepted model of pharmacy practice requires

that pharmacists establish effective communication and use interpersonal

skills”(Hobeika et al, 2020).Which basically means it a soft skill that can be

improved through practicing. I am hoping to secure a position at hospital

pharmacy, and when I do, I plan to use the soft skill of empathy because it

will help me build respect and better outcomes on my future patients. Thus,

having empathy with patients as a pharmacist can help to give better health

results.

As previously mentioned, communication is key to success as

pharmacist to interact with diversity patients and it is through interpersonal

skills which can nonverbal and verbal that you can communicate with

different people. According to competent communicator Prezi quote

“Indeed, many poor communicators are easy to spot their limited range of
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responses” (Adler et al.,2017, p.23). It means that if you do not

communicate affectively, it can low the credibility to respond on something

important. I agree with the author’s statement because communication is

important soft skill not only patients even doctors, physician and nurses

because poor communication will result patient’s health at risk. Clearly, by

utilizing my soft skill of communication will make me successful as a

pharmacist.

Finally, conflict resolution will help me excel in my future career as a

pharmacist. According to presentation titled conflict resolution methods

Prezi quote “Unlike lose-lose outcomes, a compromise gives both parties at

least some of what they want, though both sacrifice part of their goals.

People usually settle for compromises when they see partial satisfaction as

the best they can hope for” (Adler et al., 2017, p. 235). Here, the author is

basically saying that comprising improves resolving the conflict and its

necessary that Pharmacist might have to compromise in most cases when

working with physicians, doctors and nurses because first; both sides have

one common goal which is to give best accurate treatment to the patient. By

achieving that goal pharmacist are required to compromise for instance

when doctors want to change the prescribed medicine, or the pharmacist had

change the medicine based on patients feedback and between both of them;
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there will be a conflict; for them to achieve better outcome for patients they

have to compromise and solve the issue by understanding the patient’s

needs.

Thus, soft skills are important because Pharmacist with good soft

skills make a good and strong health team members in the society and save a

lot of lives. Having strong soft skill as a pharmacist its important step

achieving my career goals. Problem solving, empathy, communication skills

and conflict resolution are four soft skills that everyone should have if you

want to be successful in every career that exists. As previously mentioned,

soft skills the most weakness that I have is conflict resolution skill. My plan

for turning this soft skill weakness into a strength is first understanding that I

want my future patients to get best treatment, I must learn to be patience

because most of the time I lose patience and practicing how to collaborate

with my colleagues to solve the problem together. Clearly by having strong

soft skills as pharmacist will make successful in my future.

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References

Adler, R. B., Rodman, G. R., & Dupré, A. (2017). 

          Understanding human communication (Thirteenth  

          edition, Instructor's edition.). Oxford University Press.

Hard skills vs. soft skills. Indeed, Career Guide. (n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2021, from

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/resumes-cover-letters/hard-skills-vs-soft-skills.

Jathan Janove, J. D. (2021, July 7). Leaders and employees need soft skills now more than ever. SHRM.

Retrieved November 23, 2021, from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-

relations/humanity-into-hr/pages/covid-19-soft-skills-at-work.aspx.

Job search and networking: Hard skills vs. soft skills. GCFGlobal.org. (n.d.). Retrieved November 23,

2021, from https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/jobsearchandnetworking/hard-skills-vs-soft-skills/1/.

The Importance of Good Communication Skills. (2013, April 12). Rachelecholsenglish2089;

rachelecholsenglish2089. https://rachelecholsenglish2089.wordpress.com/the-pharmacy-

discourse-community/the-importance-of-good-communication-skills/

7 characteristics of competent communicators. prezi.com. (n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2021, from

https://prezi.com/p/ssytdjnlrthu/7-characteristics-of-competent-communicators/.

5 Ways Pharmacists Can Show Empathy. (n.d.). Pharmacy Times.

https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/5-ways-pharmacists-can-show-empathy
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