What is it like being a pharmacist?

Dear Tashina,

I am pharmacist and graduated in 2010. Pharmacists work in a variety of settings including retail pharmacies, hospital pharmacies, pharmaceutical industries, and other nontraditional career fields. The majority of pharmacists are not directly involved in the process of drug manufacturing/making.

In the retail setting (e.g. CVS, Walgreens), pharmacists dispense prescription medications to patients and provide advice on the safe use of medications. Pharmacists utilize their drug knowledge to screen prescription medications for appropriate dose, absence of drug interactions, drug allergies, compliance with the law, etc.. Some pharmacists also provide flu vaccines.

In the hospital setting, pharmacists examine each medication order for the appropriateness of use and checks the dose, schedule (timing), potential for drug interactions/allergies, etc.. Pharmacists also provide answers to questions regarding drug information from other healthcare professionals. There are also clinical pharmacists who specialize in specific medical fields (e.g. infectious disease, ambulatory care, oncology, etc.) and work hand-in-hand with physicians to provide a wide range of clinical services that optimize medication-use.

The question of salary depends on the location. In general, jobs are more abundant in smaller cities/towns. Some general statistics can be found on http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Healthcare/Pharmacists.htm

Each pharmacy school has school-specific prerequisites required for applicants. It is best to visit the websites of individual pharmacy schools and determine the specific class/activity requirements. Some of the common class requirements include Biology, Biochemistry, Statistics, Chemistry, Physics, etc. As an example, you can see requirements for University of Michigan at http://pharmacy.umich.edu/pharmacy/pre-pharmacy_curriculum

Many school will require taking the Pharmacy College Admission Test (PCAT), see http://www.pcatweb.info/

When it is finally time to apply, you will be using a centralized online system known as PharmCAS (http://www.pharmcas.org/)

Perhaps one of the best way to figure out whether pharmacy is the right career for you is to volunteer or apply for a job as a pharmacy technician at a retail pharmacy or at a hospital. This will expand your understanding of the role of a pharmacist and also looks great on your applications to pharmacy schools!

Best of luck on finding a career!

Hi Tashina! Good for you in finding what you want to pursue! That is great. And it is great to see that you picked a career that is in hot demand.

I am not a pharmacist, but I think I might be able to help you nonetheless. First let us recap what pharmacists usually do. It's unlikely that you're going to be making pills. Usually pharmacists work in retail stores like pharmacies, dispensing prescriptions. So instead of making and shipping pills, you would be in the store giving the pills to the customer based on a prescription they have. You will have to have a very robust knowledge of all of the different medications the patients use and be able to identify when a particular medication may negatively interact with other medications they take or health conditions they have. You will be in a managerial role - that means you will be overseeing technicians, managing pill inventory, and so on. (There are some other things you can do in the Pharmacy field, like doing research, working for a Pharmaco, or being a pharmacist at a hospital, but they are much less common than Retail Pharmacy, so I won't share more on those right now.)

The job prospects for pharmacists are pretty good. Right now there is about 1 pharmacist for every thousand Americans. You can find the population of your city and divide by 1,000 to figure out roughly how many pharmacist jobs there might be in the city you live in. It's a growing field, which is good, and the compensation is high (about $100,000 per year). You will definitely need to be in school for several years: usually you want a bachelor's degree (which is 4 years), and then a degree as a Doctor of Pharmacy of Pharm.D (which is 3-4 years). Then you have to get licensed to practice, which means passing a couple of tests to show that you really know your stuff. You will need to take biology, chemistry, anatomy, and so on. Do you enjoy science class? Hopefully you take your science classes seriously, because it's going to be very important for you in your career. Definitely prepare well for the cost of this education. Apply for scholarships every chance you can get, save your money to help reduce the cost, and take a side job during college if you need to. It's pretty common to take out some student loans in order to pay for school, but then you need to prepare for having debt when you leave school, and paying that off for a few years after getting your Pharm.D.

I hope this is helpful.