A GROWTH MINDSET IN PHARMACY What does it take to be a growth-oriented pharmacy professional?
What is Mindset and what does it have to do with my training? While motivational speakers have popularized this concept over time, mindset is actually a psychological construct that has been extensively studied. The foundational elements of research on mindset comes from the work of Dr. Carol Dweck, a psychologist and professor at Stanford. Her research bridges aspects of developmental, social and personality) psychology in order to understand the selfconcepts (mindsets) that drive our behaviors and our motivations for success.
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s someone with the good fortune of being trained in a pharmacy school and then a medical school, I can tell you the difference in training and associated mindset is huge. Like night and day.
A growth mindset: which approaches intelligence as malleable; Something that can be improved with deliberate effort and practice.
The central premise of Dr Dweck’s work is that the concept of intelligence can be Why is Mindset So approached from two Important? different mindsets. Mindset is important because it feeds into attitude.And attitude is the bridge THE MINDSETS between aptitude and measurable and improved A fixed mindset: ability. which presupposes that our talents and aptitudes are If we define intelligence as inborn and cannot be the ability to acquire and changed, or that we are born apply knowledge and skills or a certain way with certain as a being with the forecapabilities and that’s the mentioned ability, then we total sum of it. quickly realize that we are all as intelligent as can be.
As a human being, you and I are born intelligent. In terms of capacity, some may be born with a greater innate capacity to acquire and apply knowledge but no one is beyond the realm of improving on this ability. A growth mindset therefore, is one that allows us to work on that ability known as intelligence.A mindset that allows us to take failures along the learning path as a part of the journey and not a one-time catastrophic event that cannot be recovered from. Which can be summed up as having the right attitude.
One key differentiator has to do with confidence.With medicine, the confidence that after you received the full breadth of training and been tested for actualized aptitude and ability, you then go ahead and own your outcomes. In pharmacy, on the other hand, I have observed over the years a type of confidence gap that if not appropriately mitigated, widens over time and tends to lock people in a fixed mindset regarding their abilities and their career trajectories.
A growth mindset allows us to work on our intelligence and make room for failures along the learning path. Article continues on next page
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