Pharmacist

Pharmacists spend the vast majority of their time in local pharmacies conversing and dealing with local customers.

A Pharmacist a person that is trained to distribute prescription medication to people who need them. They also spend time consulting patients on the use of those medications. Depending on specific specializations, some pharmacists help patients with more specific drugs such as diabetes or obesity.

Educational Requirements

The training and education required to become an accredited pharmacist is very similar to that of other careers within the field of medicine. In the United States educational training is required to work as a pharmacist. For a long time the degree that was required was a Bachelor of Pharmacy. However, the required degree has been changed to a Pharm.D. degree . Most courses in pharmacy are similar but not necessarily uniform. This degree requires two years of undergraduate and four years of profession post-graduate study.Courses that are usually found within the first two years of undergraduate study include mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology. Most courses also involve classes in English, psychology, and sociology. Similar to most other medical fields, post-graduate study involves both residency and graduate study .

Job Description/Outlook

The mortar and pestle is the symbol of pharmacology.

The primary responsibility of a pharmacist is to distribute pharmaceuticals to those that need them. Contrary to popular belief, most pharmacists do not spend very much time actually creating the drugs. This is because most drugs come preprepared from distributors. Most pharmacists work out of a community drug store. Along with dispensing the drugs, pharmacists also spend time counseling patients. They help individuals understand the what the drug they will be using does to their body. They also must understand other factors that come with pharmaceutical medication such as side effects and proper dosages. Some pharmacists are more specialized for assisting patients with problems such as diabetes, asthma, smoking cessation, or high blood pressure. Working in pharmacy requires a great deal of knowledge and being able to work comfortably with many different types of people.

Job Outlook

Job prospects are being projected to be excellent over the next ten years or so. The pharmacy field is predicted to have an increase of 17% between 2008 and 2018, making opportunities for employment open and easily accessible. Increasing amounts of middle aged and elderly people will create a great need for pharmacists because of their increased need for prescription medication. Additionally, new scientific developments will create a need for new workers that can explain these developments and help to make these new products more accessible to the general public. However, the pharmacy field does not only need an increase simply in numbers, but also an increase in the amount of high quality individuals. Due to the increase of complexity of new prescription medication and the fact that many people use a multitude of different medications introduces a greater risk of dangerous mixtures of medications. New pharmacists must be able to carefully examine each case they are involved in to be able to avoid creating any unnecessary problems for patients.

Types of Pharmacy Specialization

While many pharmacists choose to become community or hospital pharmacists, many specializations do exist within the field of pharmacy. Specialists focus on a specific type of patient drug needs. Three of the most common specializations include nuclear pharmacy, consultant pharmacy, and clinical pharmacy specialist .

Consultant Pharmacy

Most pharmaceutical medicine comes in the form of pills or capsules like these.

The responsibilities of consultant pharmacists encompass a great deal more than most pharmacists. Consultant pharmacy originated within the setting of Nursing Homes, or Long Term Care centers. Thus, consultant pharmacy is a specialty that is very informational. These pharmacists must know exactly what each different situation requires and be ready to explain to the patient exactly why they need to take the medicine they do. Along with the informational aspect of consultant pharmacy, these pharmacists are very hands on. This branch has only come into existence within the last thirty years, therefore many active practitioners have been in the field for the extent of its history. This factor provides a great deal of evidence for the effectiveness of the hands on approach to pharmacy. Consultant pharmacy has quickly become one of the most valuable branches that pharmacy has to offer .

Nuclear Pharmacy

Nuclear medicine also involves using radiation to project images such as those produced by xrays or CT scans

The primary responsibility of a nuclear pharmacist is to develop and dispense radioactive materials into a usable form for medicinal purposes. By utilizing particle accelerators, nuclear pharmacists can force stable atoms to become unstable. This causes the particles to begin to emit radiation. The next step is to determine what kind of radiation is being emitted and discerning whether it will be useful or not. They then use the new radioactive materials to produce a drug. Much like other conventional Pharmacies, nuclear pharmacies simply dispense the drugs that the pharmacists create. However there are a few minor differences between the two. While conventional pharmacies measure in milligrams, nuclear pharmacies measure in millicurie activity units. Additionally, while most conventional pharmacies dispense most materials in either tablet or capsule form, nuclear pharmacies work primarily with capsules or liquids. A final difference is that most traditional pharmacies will give the prescription to the patient, nuclear pharmacies will give the prescribed substance to the hospital or clinic directly .

Clinical Pharmacy

Clinical pharmacists focus primarily on developing pharmaceuticals to be produced for use within a clinic setting. Along with helping patients with health needs, including disease prevention, they are expected to provide some form of research. Most clinical pharmacists have specialized knowledge in not only pharmaceutical science, but also in biomedical, sociobehavioral (a branch of social science), and clinical sciences. Due to the constant evolution of technology and science, clinical pharmacists are required to keep up to date with new developments in the field of pharmacy in order to ensure the best possible care for their patients .