Job Description
When people have been diagnosed with an illness or if they are feeling sick, they may require medications to help them feel better or recover or prevent the condition from becoming worse. Someone may come into the pharmacy looking for an over the counter medication to help with their symptoms and the pharmacist may be required to offer the medication after assesing the person's condition.
Or they will come in with a prescription that the doctor wrote and the pharmacist will have to verify the prescription and check to see that the medication prescribed is for the correct indication (reason), at the correct dose for the indication and if there are any drug interactions with the patient's other medications. The pharmacist will then have to counsel the patient on the correct way to store the medication and the correct way to take the medication.
Pharmacists also give intramuscular and subcutaneous injections, such as flu shots and travel vaccines. The pharmacist also recommends non medication interventions to help a patient feel better. These are things a pharmacist who works in community (retail) pharmacy does.
In a hospital pharmacy, things work differently. The pharmacist has to work together with the doctors and nurses and with the help of journal articles and studies, the pharmacist helps determine the best medication to use. So the pharmacist does a lot more reading and research.
Relevant School Subjects
- Arts
- Health and Physical Education
- Mathematics
- Science
Areas of Expertise
- Healthcare
Career Story
For me personally, I moved to South Africa after high school. I became a dental hygienist. I moved back to Canada and wrote exams here and worked as a hygienist here. However, I was only getting paid per patient. No patients, no pay.
I moved back to South Africa and decided that I didn't want to work as a hygienist and I applied to the school of pharmacy. I got in as a mature student. The other students thought I was a Prof.
When we moved back to Canada 7 years ago, I had to write the same exams those who study in Canada have to write. We do a multiple choice exam and a practical exam called an OSCE.