Should pharmacists set a healthy example to patients?

Ideally it would be great if all pharmacists had healthy lifestyles. But it's unrealistic to expect that. Yes, I should exercise more and eat more healthily, but I am aware of the effects that my choices have on my health. The same is not true of all my patients. It's important that everyone makes an informed choice about their own lifestyle, then they can make a decision about changes to make. They need information so they can make those decision. I feel our job as pharmacists is to give the patients up to date advice that is appropriate for their health and medical conditions, and offer them support to help them achieve any changes they decide to make, whether it be stopping smoking, cutting back on alcohol, eating healthily, exercising more... We can help our patients without being ultra healthy ourselves, or being judgmental, by listening to them, giving them the information they need, and supporting them in their efforts to improve their lifestyle. Karen Baker

We should be encouraging everybody to lead a healthier lifestyle and our first patient should be ourselves! In truth trying to lead a healthier lifestyle will help us relate to our patients difficulties and maybe if we all have our own improving health stories, then we can pass that onto our patients and the wider community.

Funnily enough I started this debate in the RPS student group last week, but I will say a similar thing here.

There are pharmacists I know who smoke or are overweight and admittantly as a patient I would not take their advice on board if they were visibly being hypocritical, for example: Looked overweight or smelt of cigarette smoke. This is because, I would feel they do not know what they are talking about.

However, a pharmacist that has conquered being overweight or smoking, could use their experience to help patients and this could be more beneficial than just a healthy pharmacist who hasn't gone through the same problems. The pharmacist would be able to build more rapport with the patient, since they can identify with one another. But either way, presenting yourself as having a healthy lifestyle, I think is what patients need to feel comfortable the advice they are being given is good.

Surely we should do everything we can to help a patient and if statistics actually showed; not being visibly hipocritical caused an increase in patient compliance, isn't it our responsibility to be healthy part of our duty of care? After all, the first principle of pharmacy is to make patients your first concern, by being visibly hipocritical, aren't we effectively negativitly influencing patient choice? Aren't we encouraging patients to ignore us?

Read the blog that inspired the poll.

Andy Walsh believes some healthcare professionals are hypocrites if they do not practise what they preach about a healthy lifestyle.

Ayshe Ismail (PJ Online team)

There is a big difference between offering yourself as a role model of an idea and offering professional advice. The advice I give is information I have learnt through study or experience -I sometimes might empathise, but this is not a prerequisite for good advice. We are going down a messy road to suggest you can only give advice on things you have personally experienced or practise yourself. Can only ex-smokers give advice on giving up? Our midwife had never had children - it never occured to me that her advice or professionalism was comprimised by this...