Shyamala Narayanaswamy

Ms Shyamala Narayanaswamy
Senior Principal Pharmacist, Pharmacy
Singapore General Hospital

Shyam's passions are fostering joy and removing barriers, and pursuit of the perfect cappuccino. Her work in staff wellness began in earnest in 2021, where she is the Pharmacy Division’s wellness and engagement team’s advisor. She also an active member of SGH’s Peer Support and Mental Health Committees.

A core component of fostering joy is empowerment & skills to handle everyday situations. Disgruntled patients often vent their frustrations at the last stop on their visit to a healthcare institution – which is the Pharmacy. Shyam’s team developed a range of programmes and tools for the Pharmacy profession, the latest being a 360degree immersive training experience in Virtual Reality.

Shyam is a member of SingHealth’s Staff Protection Council, and is an appointed teaching faculty at IPSQ and SDMHI. She would be happy to speak with you over a cappuccino.

Presentation Synopsis

HM 10 Pharmacist, not Harmacist

Pharmacy is the last stop on a patient’s journey, and unfortunately where pent-up frustrations are often vented. No healthcare worker expects to be abused, and we found that our staff were not confident in establishing and communicating boundaries during challenging patients for fear of worsening the interaction. We developed a training programme, anchored by pharmacy-specific Virtual Reality immersive experiences, to train new staff to:

• Detect potentially difficult patient encounters
• Manage their emotions and responses to challenging patient encounters
• Understand & correctly apply the institution's escalation processes (including verbal de-escalation and warnings), and
• To utilise appropriate tools for recovery after the encounter.

A pilot study (n=46) found significant improvements in quiz scores (p<0.001), with enhanced empathic perceptions after VR training. Fully 100% of learners found the VR training interactive & engaging, and 98% found it immersive & realistic.

In this seminar, a live demonstration of the VR training will be conducted.

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