Living Well In the Life of a Pharmacist

is that pharmacists prepare medications and technicians simply deliver them. This view of their job is both accurate and inaccurate.

What do you want to do with your life? It is a question that almost everyone asks high school and college students, but for many, it is a dreaded question that is difficult to answer. For me, that wasn’t the case, as ever since my sophomore year of high school, my answer has been to become a pharmacist. My passion for pharmacy stemmed out of the opportunity to shadow a pharmacist who showed me a wide variety of career possibilities within pharmacy. I was intrigued by all the options that began on the foundation of learning science, understanding medications, and caring for patients.

Pharmacists are highly educated in the form, uses, and interactions of certain medicines and also in how those medicines affect normal body functions. They keep thorough patient medication records, which contain

when you think about the fact that a pharmacist’s job is to protect the patient by making sure the medication is appropriate and

As a clinician in a hospital, the pharmacist becomes a member of a professional healthcare team. In their clinical practice, pharmacists are directly involved in ensuring optimal medical therapy for patients by devising therapeutic regimens specific to individual patients. They also staff the Drug Information and Poison Centers whose task is to provide information to other healthcare professionals to assist with therapeutic decision making (uq, 2012).

“Becoming a pharmacist requires years of education and training to obtain the necessary knowledge, skills and certifications. Aspiring pharmacists can spend anywhere between six years to thirteen years completing pre-requisites”(Learn how to become.org) “Pharmacists must have a doctor of pharmacy (pharm. D.) a 4-year professional degree. They must also be licensed.” To be licensed you are required to pass two exams. (bls.gov) Which one is called NAPLEX. “The NAPLEX measures a candidate's knowledge of the practice of pharmacy.” The NAPLEX exams determine whether a potential pharmacist can identify practice standards for safe and effective pharmacotherapy and optimize therapeutic outcomes in patients. This also determines whether a certain person can identify and determine safe and accurate methods to prepare and dispense medications. They must also be able to provide and imply health care information to promote optimal health

I have worked at Walgreens as a pharmacist technician, but never had an experience working in a hospital pharmacy before. During my rotation, I noted that nearly everyone admitted into hospital have an acute condition that justifies the admission. The conditions also tend to be more severe or unusual, which leads to a greater variety of medicines being used. Also, in the hospital a doctor or nurse is not hesitant to contact a pharmacist when they need advice and pharmacists are accessible.

Over the past century the practice of pharmacy has evolved from a field with few specialties typically focused on compounding and filling prescriptions to modern pharmacy practice which has many different specialties. Due to the many opportunities in the field of pharmacy one assignment I completed was the APhA Career Pathway Evaluation Program to see which specialties I hay have the most interest in based on a series of questions I answered. In the following paper, I will list and discuss these results, point out some of the positive and negative attributes to each career choice, and will make an assessment on which careers may be the best form me and some of the options I disagree with.

Said people will have questions about the nature of their medications that will affect their well being. A good pharmacist needs to have the patience to take the time and answer customers’ questions.

When most people hear Pharmacist, they think of a drug store like Walgreens or CVS. However, a Pharmacist is capable of more than just working in a drug store. Pharmacists play a major role in healthcare today with many job opportunities. There are many different fields and career paths that a Pharmacist can choose. This essay will explore three different pharmacy careers that was examined through data collected by a survey on the internet. The three career pathways are Ambulatory Care Pharmacy, Chain Community Pharmacy, and Community Health Center Pharmacy.

There are other pharmacy staff who also have roles in relation to the safe dispensing of medicines. A pharmacist is responsible for: Overall checking of a prescription to make sure that it is legal and written by a person qualified to do so, dispensing the right quantity of the correct medicine, ensuring that medicines are correctly labelled with the person’s name, the name of the medicine and the dosage, providing advice and treatment for minor illnesses, injuries and health concerns, providing a repeat prescription service in co-operation with GP

There are pharmacists that work in totally different fields and their tasks require them to be specialized in different areas of pharmacy. Some of the different types of pharmacists are, Pharmaceutical technicians and Pharmaceutical scientists. Both share a general relation with each other, but they both have major differences according to what they do on a daily basis. Pharmaceutical scientists usually specialize in one aspect of the drug development process. They design new drug remedies using natural or man made ingredients, they study how disease affects the body and what causes some people to develop certain types of disease, study how the human body responds to medications so scientists can develop more efficient, safer drugs,they uncover new ways to use existing drugs to treat different types of disease, they Test drugs on animals and humans to ensure safety and efficiency, determine the most effective formulation and dosage for a specific drug, and advise corporations or government agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, on issues related to pharmaceutical development.(Explore) To become a pharmaceutical scientist, you must have a strong interest in mathematics, biology, and chemistry. In college, you can major in the pharmaceutical sciences, pharmacy, chemistry, biology, engineering, medicine or a related field.(Explore) Pharmacy Technicians work the same hours as pharmacists. This may include evenings, nights, weekends, and holidays. Because some hospital and retail pharmacies are open 24 hours a day, technicians may work varying shifts. As their experience increases, pharmacy technicians often have increased control over the hours they work. There are many opportunities for part-time work in both retail and hospital environments.

Pharmacists have a lot of qualifications they must meet in order to obtain a job. Many hospitals require a Doctor of Pharmacy degree. A Bachelors Degree is accepted for

Today in the 21st century the roles of pharmacist have expanded tremendously. Before pharmacist had the role of solely dispensing drugs. Pharmacists were limited to only being regulatory or clinical pharmacist. Back then they were called medical purveyors who were much like today’s regulatory pharmacist and hospital pharmacist who are similar to hospital pharmacist. Now pharmacists carry many roles in healthcare. Pharmacist can play roles in public health, community, health systems, state, and federal government.

This career goes unnoticed because many do not see the importance of it. Without this field, the balance in the medical community would be disrupted due to patients not receiving their medication to sustain their life. Although this career may seem easy, there are important characteristics one must hold in order to be a successful pharmacist.