Jeroen van de Pol

166 Chapter 6 Skills and knowledge of community pharmacists As described, community pharmacists sometimes experience a lack of confidence regarding the provision of CPS. Community pharmacists need to possess a wide variety of knowledge and skills, such as in the field of pharmacotherapy and clinical reasoning, as well as communication and consultation skills. This lack of confidence may be related to a lack of appropriate skills and knowledge [16, 17]. In addition, by adopting these skills, community pharmacists share the language of physicians, which can boost interprofessional collaboration. A lack of collaboration can seriously hamper the community pharmacist’s focus on CPS provision. Previous research has found that patient-centered communication is key within community pharmacy practice, especially with respect to the provision of CPS [16]. Historically, pharmacists received little academic training in patient-centered communication. Although this lack has been improved in the past decade, patient communication needs continuous training among both pre- and postgraduates [33, 34]. Communication is not just important for patient education and counseling; community pharmacists also need consultation skills to identify underlying health problems and facilitate shared decision making with patients [15]. Clinical reasoning as a skill also plays an important part in this regard. Therefore, fully implementing clinical reasoning in both pre- and postgraduate education and training is essential. Furthermore, education of community pharmacists must focus on topics such as (preventing) chronic illnesses and minor ailments [35, 36]. To achieve this focus, community pharmacists also need to be trained in clinical reasoning [15], similar to physicians. Curricula fromthe threeuniversities intheNetherlands thatprovidepharmaceutical sciences education has been changed to focus more on the provision of CPS. The CanMEDS model has been used especially for the redesign of internships [37, 38]. Some examples of the developments within the curricula are experiential learning, offering internships earlier to students [37], and serious gaming [39]. These developments contribute to improving capabilities of future community pharmacists and, therefore, increase motivation to provide CPS. However, postgraduate education and training should also be offered to community pharmacists because they should be able to teach pharmacy students how to act like professional community pharmacists. In the end, experiential learning loses its effect when the tutor is unable to fulfill the need for quality CPS provision. Moreover, further steps can bemade regarding joint education between pharmacy and medical students. Through these steps, pharmacy and medical students