Life advice from Arnie

Every year I read at least one autobiographical self help book. You never know where you will find inspiration or advice to make your life better. This year, I picked up Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life by Arnold Schwarzenegger. There is a soft spot within my cold heart for Arnie. What’s not to like; he followed his passion and with hard work he went from a life of simple means in Austria to movie star to the 38th Governor of California. But does the Terminator have any practical advice for pharmacists? Oddly, he does.This is not going to be a book review. I hate to poke fun at the publishing world, but a lot of self-help/motivational books kinda sound the same. You find your goal, make a plan, follow the plan in small incremental steps and don’t take advice/criticism that is not positive or helpful. Add a few personal inspiring stories and there you go. (Just saved you $37.99, you are welcome!) But we should still read the odd one, because they can give us inspiration and focus. It is highly unlikely that any of us will star in a movie or be the Premier of our province. But any tangential tips to help us be better people and pharmacists are welcome. In this book, Arnie talks a lot about having a clear goal and dreaming big. Why not dream big about where we want our practice to be? Let's say you want to be an asthma educator and spend your days seeing patients with asthma/COPD and helping them live better? Seems like a big dream. Pharmacists are all about making care plans, why not make a care plan for yourself? Set your small incremental goals and follow that plan. What could go wrong?Actually, lots can go wrong. The Governator is all about going “all out” and not having a Plan B. That is not what pharmacists do, we always have a Plan B. After many years of COVID-19 challenges and drug/staff shortages, we are really good at having a second option. But isn’t all change risky? Well yes, but risk is relative and not real. You can’t hold it or touch it and it is very hard to quantify. The pain from hard work is temporary but things will be good in the long run. So what happens when things go wrong or you fail? You can always redeem yourself from failure. This is something pharmacists know well. We all make mistakes, but we learn from them. We acknowledge, apologize, make changes and carry on. We will be better from our failures. In this case you apologize to yourself. In the case of the asthma educator plan, if you fail to meet your goal; at least you learned plenty about asthma care. You also got plenty of tax deductible CE credits. That is not so bad. He is also big on the idea of “Sell, sell, sell.” This does not have to be the recommendation of an OTC or vitamin to offset the side effect of a drug. Sometimes you have to sell ideas to yourself, your patients or your manager. Explain the need to yourself, then to others. I have attended many Pharmacy U sessions that focus on finding the pathways to motivate patients about the need to change their health. Why not use that same technique on yourself? There is much talk in his book about “breaking the mirror.” I think this is metaphorical. What he means is, stop looking inwards at what you need and shift your gaze outwards to find what others need. At times we might lose sight of the fact that the people we see are struggling with their health and present themselves to us looking for help. It is a great privilege to be able to help them. We can help in so many ways big and small. I once had a coworker say, “I did not go to school for five years to help you find shampoo.” Why not shift gears and turn that into a positive? Being selfless towards helping others can also help yourself. The last thing Arnie says is “shut your mouth and open your mind.” This is very much along the same lines as asking the open-ended question and listening fully to the answer. Information can come from anywhere. If you are not curious, then you might be missing out. Read and be curious about ideas from a variety of sources (perhaps like this book)… But especially be curious about your patients. Whenever I have a student I tell this story about mouth ulcers. We often get asked for a recommendation to help treat mouth ulcers. Typically such a query might lead us to the dental aisle to recommend an anesthetic or barrier product for oral mucosa. If you are in a province with pharmacist prescribing, you might prescribe topical glucocorticoid and call it a day. But why not be curious and ask why? At least once a year I find someone who ate too much raw pineapple or papaya. That could certainly cause mouth ulcers. Or perhaps ask them if they are vegan or don’t eat a lot of red meat. A lack of vitamin B12 can be a cause of recurring mouth ulcers.1 The bottom line? Be like Arnie: be a sponge and learn from other people. Like perhaps the other bloggers on CanadianHealthcareNetwork. ReferencesVolkov I, Rudoy I, Abu-Rabia U, Masalha T, Masalha R. Case report: Recurrent aphthous stomatitis responds to vitamin B12 treatment. Can Fam Physician. 2005 Jun;51(6):844-5. PMID: 15986941; PMCID: PMC1479540.

Life advice from Arnie

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Ian Lloyd

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