A Profession: A Career As A Pharmacist

Currently, the pharmaceutical industry is one that is not just dictated by monetary gain, but by the thoughts and opinions of others. These opinions can come from anywhere including other medical professionals, peers, colleagues, family members and even patients. How people outside pharmacy perceive us greatly determines our influence on them and on society. It is important to understand how those within and outside our industry see us, because those perceptions are the difference between being a major medical influence and the field of pharmacy becoming a commodity of the past. To gather information on how the profession is viewed, I interviewed two individuals with varying knowledge of the medical field. My first interview, Dawn, is a family

The first set of questions referred to their knowledge about pharmacy school and what they though about pharmacy as a profession. For the most part, my grandmother knew how many years it takes to become a pharmacist, but Dawn thought it takes eight years and that all those years should be required for the extensive amount of information that a pharmacist needs to know. This can be due to her work in a hospital and viewing first hand the day to day activities of the profession. Both Dawn and Rose had a good grasp that pharmacists, once graduated, work in both retail and hospital settings. However, they did not know about smaller fields in pharmacy such as nuclear pharmacy. This fact makes sense to me because they both usually see pharmacists in only the retail and some hospital facilities. The first time that the two interviewees had different opinions was discussing the pros and cons of pharmacy. Dawn said, “Becoming a pharmacist is a privilege and they love their profession whole heartily”. I have discussed this subject at length with a few pharmacists I have worked with over the years. No one that I have met loves their job, especially in retail, 100% of the time. In fact, some pharmacists hate their job. I even got recommendations from one pharmacist to get out of the field, not at my fault, but due to the decrease in respect and over corporatization in the industry. Even though Rose had less experience in the medical fields, she had a better understanding of the pros and cons of pharmacy. She stated that the pros were more knowledge of medications and the medical industry in general. The cons, in her opinion, were the responsibility of having patients lives in your hands and many long hours on your feet. In my opinion, Rose had a more realistic view of pharmacy as a profession and this is more than likely because the most interaction