I have no idea. But I’m thinking of changing my preferences for uni next year and pharmacy seems to be the course favoured by everyone who wants to do something obscure but is too chicken shit. I looked it up but all I got was some incomprehensible rubbish about tackling problems with creative solutions so I think I will turn to the SDMB in search of a real answer: what does a pharmacist do, really? Or maybe this question would work better as: what does one do with a degree in pharmacy? Would I need another degree to go with it? What do you need for the job? Will there be time to do other things on the side? I eagerly await your response.
A pharmacist’s job is to decipher really bad handwriting, take pills from large bottles and put them in small bottles, and charge you a great deal of money for doing so.
For the US, the Occupational Outlook Handbook is usually a good place to go for “what does this job do”.
That’s the beauty of them. They don’t do anything.
If I had it to do again, I would consider Pharmacy School. It seems that in the US (or parts of the US) you cannot open a pharmacy without a Pharmacist on duty. It seems that they are minor rock stars, prima donnas.
It is inside work, no heavy lifting. I presume it pays well.
Yeah, you try dealing with cranky old people, insurance problems, unresponsive doctors, all in a fast paced environment in which everybody excepts you to have all the answers for one day, then tell me they don’t do anything.
Attitudes like that make me sick.
Expects. :smack:
For what it’s worth, the world of medical publishing and advertising (in the US, anyway) is chock-full of PharmD’s who may never have spent a second behind the counter at a pharmacy.
You might not think they do much, but if your doctor has a brain cramp and prescribes a medication that interacts extremely unfavorably with your other regular medications, that “do-nothing” pharmacist just might save your life. I consider them a line of defense against prescription mistakes.
This is neither accurate nor particularly helpful.
csharpmajor, Lsura’s link is spot-on, based on my observations of my pharmacist friends. A pharmacist in the US who works retail has significant patient interaction, and many people get a quite a bit of their medical advice from pharmacists, everything from blood pressure and flu shots to drug interactions and how to deal with a cold. There is also hospital based pharmacy, and we’re seeing a rise in home pharmacy as the population ages.
Pharmacists know more about drugs than doctors do, and so when your doctor prescribes a lethal dose, it’s your pharmacist who will correct the error and consult with your doctor to suggest an appropriate medication.
In the US, a pharmacist takes four years of pharmacy school after getting a four-year college degree, so you can see why comparisons to medical school are apt. The pay is good, too.
Reminds me of the old joke:-
Today all the city doctors went on strike and marched through the town. They were holding placards they had written themselves. The only person who could read these was a passing pharmacist who told them to come back in twenty minutes .
Guys, I think this was a joke. It’s a line from a movie/tv show that no one can remember. There was a really long thread about it a while back. The actual line in questions was “That’s the beauty of it, it doesn’t do anything.”
In other words, what you’re saying is that I’ve once again revealed myself as fundamentally humorless with an added twist of unhip.
Good to know.
In most pharmacies it’s the techs and clerks that deal with the routine customers and counting the pills. It’s the pharmacist that does the management and more technical work, plus dealing with the non-run-of-the-mill inquiries from patients and medical providers, such as is described in Campion’s post. And, of course, that’s just in a retail pharmacy. Pharmacists can be employed by hospitals and infusion/home health companies, too. They also compound drugs and prepare IV infusions - more so in the hospital and home-health fields, but some retail pharmacies also offer compounding. Plus, like mentioned, there’s the teaching and publishing fields, too.
And right now there is a shortage of pharmacists due to the aging population and drug companies churning out their so-called “new” drugs hand over fist. I wish I had gone into pharmacology. I remember that geek in college who we all snickered at every time he mentioned he wanted to be a pharmacist. He can probably buy and sell all of us now! :smack:
I have a friend who is a pharmacologist working in several hospitals. His area of specialty is oncology. He works very closely with doctors on developing medication plans for patients. It is a far from trivial job
In some states. Missouri law does not allow pharmacy techs to do schedule II through schedule IV drugs, IIRC. Some pharmacies are more lenient, but they could get in trouble with the law for allowing techs to handle these drugs. Some states (Like Kansas, I THINK), require techs to not handle drugs. Missouri law also prohibits techs from giving out any sort of medical information. Several times I got in trouble because I recommened a sleep aid (Sominex) brand, after the customer was already planning on buying it. Pharmacists must give consultations for even the minor over the counter drugs. Of course this is by law, and in practice many techs give out information.
My experience was that at the first sign of trouble of a customer, the number one thing to do was get the pharmacist. Only he/she was able to make decisions involving drugs or prices, and only they could resolve the customers problems. Typically the pharmacist had to deal with the worst customers, because the techs were not equipped to deal with them.
It is a pretty demanding job, physically and mentally. I have worked in factories and such, and while working as a tech was no comparison, standing and moving around all day isn’t the same as an office job. If you are used to cushy jobs, it will seem like work. It is fast paced as well. A pharmacist has a lot of paperwork and prescription filling to be done, as well as writing schedules, doing inventory, and dealing with all the new laws and policy changes- not to mention keeping track of new drugs, and changes in strengths and the likes. Often times seeing a pharmacist sitting down reading a magazine isn’t what it looks like. He is not goofing off, he is keeping up with the new stuff. Also, counting while getting constantly interrupted by customers at the counter asking for tampons and the like are regular, oftentimes one right after another. Being interrupted and then starting back where you left off is an invaluable skill, not getting irritated when it happens is even more important.
Of course all this is my experience, and is a bit biased, as working in a pharmacy for a year made me decide it wasn’t for me, and I switched to biochemistry, so that I could do research into drug development instead.
Yanno, that sounds a lot less boring than I thought but also a lot less cushy. I suppose I won’t have enough time to freelance then?
Bingo. If I had known people would take it in the manner they did, I would never have said it.
Well, I thought it was funny. Especially since my thread title was a semi-reference to the unknown film.
I’m not trying to rag on pharmD’s but a computer program could easily do this faster and more accurately then any human.