How Do You Learn to Care When Caring Is Your Job?
Samford University’s McWhorter School of Pharmacy integrates cultural and structural humility into its curriculum to teach students whole-person care, requiring them to engage with diverse communities through immersive assignments like the 'other culture' task. The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education mandates such training to address psychosocial and environmental factors affecting patient health, ensuring graduates can navigate biases like environmental racism or anti-fat bias in treatment plans.
Samford University’s McWhorter School of Pharmacy in Birmingham, Alabama, has developed a curriculum to teach pharmacy students how to provide whole-person care, addressing psychosocial, cultural, and environmental factors that influence health. The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) requires accredited programs to prepare students for integrated care, emphasizing skills like cultural humility, advocacy, and interprofessional collaboration. Students must learn to actively engage with patients, recognizing how structural forces such as environmental racism or anti-fat bias impact health outcomes. Assistant Dean Jonathan Thigpen designed the 'other culture' assignment to encourage first-year students to step outside their comfort zones. The task requires students to visit a cultural event or site unfamiliar to them, stay immersed for at least one hour without distractions like phones or notes, and later write a reflection connecting their experience to classroom discussions. Thigpen observed an increasing reluctance among students to take risks, which he deemed critical for healthcare providers to overcome. The assignment’s success lies in its focus on individual, unguided experiences, forcing students to engage authentically rather than superficially. Many students at Samford, a private Christian university, use the opportunity to explore new faith communities or cultural practices. The goal is to foster empathy and adaptability, ensuring graduates can tailor treatment plans to diverse patient needs. Whole-person care, as defined by the World Health Organization, requires providers to consider biomedical, psychosocial, and environmental factors in patient treatment. The McWhorter School’s approach aligns with ACPE standards, which mandate that pharmacy programs prepare students to mitigate health disparities by navigating cultural and structural barriers. Thigpen’s curriculum ensures students graduate with the interpersonal skills needed to deliver compassionate, comprehensive care.
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