To the Editor. I was impressed with the research article “Pharmacy Students' Perceptions and Emotional Responses to Aggressive Incidents in Pharmacy,” because of its pioneering objective to explore and report pharmacy students' perceptions and emotions during these aggressive encounters. Currently, this is the first study to investigate this topic.1 While I agree with the authors that teaching pharmacy students techniques for handling patients' aggression needs to become part of pharmacy education, I believe the true priority should be helping pharmacy students recognize and develop their emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence is comprised of 2 skills, including personal competence (self-awareness and self-management), and social competence (social awareness and relationship management). People with higher emotional intelligence tend to be more successful in identifying and managing emotions because they understand the power of a response and have developed techniques for managing various emotions. Besides emotional intelligence (EQ), each person also possesses intelligence (IQ), and a personality. Of the 3, emotional intelligence is the quality that has the greatest capacity to change.2 Therefore, creating a curriculum that encourages the recognition and development of emotional intelligence will aid students during patient encounters. Emotional intelligence is a concept rarely discussed in pharmacy school, yet is such a vital tool for success as a pharmacist. I can attest to this gap in education as a recent 2010 pharmacy graduate.
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”3 Becoming aware of one's emotional intelligence is an important step in understanding how to manage one's behavior. In a world where there are increasing demands on pharmacists, colleges and schools of pharmacy need to develop educational programs that engage and teach strategies for the development of emotional intelligence.
Giavanna Russo-Alvarez, PharmD
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Saint Margaret
REFERENCES
- 1.Rahim H, Shah B. Pharmacy students' perceptions and emotional responses to aggressive incidents in pharmacy practice. Am J Pharm Educ. 2010;74(4) doi: 10.5688/aj740461. Article 61. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 2.Bradberry T, Greaves J. The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster; 2005. [Google Scholar]
- 3.Frankl V. Man's Search for Meaning. Boston, MA: Beacon Press; 2006. [Google Scholar]