Developing Resilience: A Reflective Essay for Pharmacy Students

This reflective essay delves into the experiences of a pharmacy student grappling with the concept of resilience in professional practice. The essay recounts a challenging encounter with a patient suffering from schizophrenia, highlighting the emotional and physical toll it took on the student. Using Rolfe’s reflective framework, the student analyzes the impact of the incident, recognizing a personal deficit in resilience. The experience prompted the student to seek therapy and engage in professional development programs focused on resilience-building, incorporating mindfulness, yoga, and reflective practices. The essay concludes by emphasizing the crucial role of resilience in healthcare and the importance of developing coping mechanisms to navigate challenging situations and provide optimal patient care. Desklib offers similar resources and solved assignments for students.

Running head: REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Reflective essay
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Introduction:
As a pharmacy student, we all are associated with the need for resilience for the us to
be able to complete their professional responsibilities effective and successfully, without
letting the impact of the challenges, hardships, and overall burnout affect the care delivery
nature and approach at all (Thomas and Revell 2016). Although theoretically ideal, the
concept of resilience is a very important yet very difficult to attain, and is even more
challenging to master. As an aspiring pharmacy student myself, I have personally
experienced resilience to be one core competence of practice which had been very
challenging and complicated for me to obtain and master (Thomas and Asselin 2018). This
essay will be a reflective account of one of the most notable professional encounters which
helped me understand the acute need for resilience in practice and helped me recognize it as a
weakness which I needed to work upon.
Discussion:
In my short journey till now, I have been faced with a situation where I had to handle
a patient with acute and chronic health adversities which in turn had been very difficult for
me to navigate through given my own very emotional state. I have been taking the assistance
of the Rolfe’s reflective framework to illustrate the experience in detail.
What happened?
As a pharmacy student, we often have to face challenging behaviour, rage and
frustration of many patients suffering from critical acute illnesses. Although, as pharmacy
student, I have encountered that the challenging behaviour, agitation or frustration of the
patients is not as complicated and overwhelming as to curb our will and dedication to the
noble profession. However, soon enough my overconfidence was destroyed by a tragic
experience I shared with a sweet woman I had been caring for. I had the opportunity to
connect with Samantha a sweet middle aged woman who had been suffered from

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REFLECTIVE ESSAY
schizophrenia, a very critical and life altering disorder. I was introduced to her to provide her
with assistance, as she had been unable to care for her due to the impact of the disease. I had
been extremely cautious to approach her in the beginning, and was almost always
accompanied by her husband. Her husband had been extremely patient and assisted me every
step of the way, for which I would be always grateful for. Although, slowly but steadily, I
had been able to gain her trust and developed a mutually respectful relationship with her
where she was beginning to share her worries and thoughts with me as well, which is a great
achievement for a schizophrenic patient (Caqueo-Urízar et al. 2016).
However, one day when I visited her husband had be away on an unavoidable
emergency trip and I was the only person accountable for Samantha. All the while, she had
been very sweet and composed, suddenly she started a tantrum to speak to her husband on the
phone. I will admit that I got scared and tried calling her husband multiple times but could
not get him to answer the phone and Samantha got exceedingly agitated with every passing
minute. While I was trying to prepare lunch for her, she suddenly lunged at me and tried to
choke me screaming profanities at me and accusing me of kidnaping her. I was completely
taken aback and it took me a few seconds to regain composure and be able to fight her off of
me. I was also terrified at the animosity and rage I had seen and felt in her expressions and
nature, and soon I had to scream as high as I could all the while trying to fight her off.
However, within a few minutes my screams gathered the neighbours and they helped me
restrain her and saved me from her attack. Even then I had multiple scratch marks on my
neck and my hands, and had a bruise around my neck to remind me of the horrific incident.
So what?
Challenging behaviour undoubtedly is a very common aspect of health care, and not
just for patients with mental disorders, for patients with long term or acute disorders or those
suffering from acute or chronic pain can also be exhibiting challenging behaviour (Caqueo-

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REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Urízar et al. 2016). Although, in this case, the experience helped me understand the impact a
mentally unstable patient with unprecedented challenging behaviour can have on both
physical and psychosocial health of the professionals. In this case, the physical impact and
most importantly the terror has the most crucial effect on me, which led to having a severe
stress. I had to even enrol myself for therapy to be able to sleep peacefully at nights due to the
many dreadful and frightening nightmares I had been suffering from (Rushton et al. 2015).
Lastly, I had been so terrified from the experience I even considered changing my
professional domain for a few frightful days before my psychotherapist helped me focus on
the issue at hand. He helped me understand the impact of resilience, and helped me recognize
the fact that even though I had all the theoretical knowledge, I lacked resilience on the
practical skills with respect to professional and emotional resilience (Aburn, Gott and Hoare
2016).
Now what?
After the realization that I did not have enough resilience that a pharmacy student
must have to continue professional practice had been both a shock and a disappointment for
me. Although the distress was short-lived and with the help of my therapist and my
professional guide and advisor, I quickly joined an available professional course for the
resilience building and professional development programs which not only broadened my
threshold for coping with challenging situation, but helped me build the ability to bounce
back from any difficult situation (Amagai, Takahashi and Amagai 2016). Yoga, meditation
and mindfulness based therapies helped me the most to overcome stress, burnout and
challenging behaviour (Bahadir-Yilmaz and Oz 2015). Along with that, I also began my
personal research and reflective practice which helped me understand my own strengths and
weaknesses, and helped me track my own progress (Rushton, Schoonover-Shoffner and
Kennedy 2017).

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REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Conclusion:
On a concluding note, this experience had been an excellent opportunity for me to
understand the impact of resilience in practice and its utmost importance in the health care
sector. This experience helped me understand the how resilience can help me withstand any
challenging situation while providing care and it also helped me understand how it can help
me bounce back from any challenging situation, so that when I am faced with a similar
situation again I do not repeat same errors and provide optimal care.

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REFLECTIVE ESSAY
References:
Aburn, G., Gott, M. and Hoare, K., 2016. What is resilience? An integrative review of the
empirical literature. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 72(5), pp.980-1000.
Amagai, M., Takahashi, M. and Amagai, F., 2016. Qualitative study of resilience of family
caregivers for patients with schizophrenia in Japan. Age (Years), 63(4.9), pp.55-74.
Bahadir-Yilmaz, E. and Oz, F., 2015. The Resilience Levels Of Fırst-Year Medıcal,
Dentıstry, Pharmacy and Health Scıences Students. International Journal of Caring
Sciences, 8(2), p.385.
Caqueo-Urízar, A., Fond, G., Urzúa, A., Boyer, L. and Williams, D.R., 2016. Violent
behavior and aggression in schizophrenia: prevalence and risk factors. A multicentric study
from three Latin-America countries. Schizophrenia research, 178(1-3), pp.23-28.
Rushton, C.H., Batcheller, J., Schroeder, K. and Donohue, P., 2015. Burnout and resilience
among nurses practicing in high-intensity settings. American Journal of Critical Care, 24(5),
pp.412-420.
Rushton, C.H., Schoonover-Shoffner, K. and Kennedy, M.S., 2017. A collaborative state of
the science initiative: transforming moral distress into moral resilience in nursing. AJN The
American Journal of Nursing, 117(2), pp.S2-S6.
Thomas, L.J. and Asselin, M., 2018. Promoting resilience among nursing students in clinical
education. Nurse education in practice, 28, pp.231-234.
Thomas, L.J. and Revell, S.H., 2016. Resilience in nursing students: An integrative
review. Nurse education today, 36, pp.457-462.