“[Whole-person care is] simply caring for a person and not just their pills. It's making sure that we're focusing on medications as tools to help people live better, healthier lives, and not as the focus of their lives,” Kashelle Lockman, PharmD, MA, clinical assistant professor and clinical pharmacy specialist at the University of Iowa, said in the 2024 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Annual Meeting. Image Credit: Production Perig - stock.
adobe.com Lockman, along with co-presenters Maria Lowry, PharmD, BCPS, BCGP, assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, and Rabia Atayee, PharmD BCPS, Aph, FAAHPM, associate dean for admissions and outreach and professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of California San Diego, addressed the gaps in pharmacy education around whole-person care. Whole-person care is a holistic care approached that addresses multiple aspects of a patient, including physical, behavioral, spiritual, and socioeconomic well-being, specifically defined by individuals, families, and communities and not by guidelines, Lockman said.
She added that her students view whole-person health as a gap in curriculum, adding that one student said they only received lessons in an elective. Gaps in literature were also identified, with cases in teaching often including “disembodied” patients, defined as patients who have undifferentiated race, binary gender, heteronormative sexual orientation, traditional relationships, and the absence of disa.