How to become a Pharmacist 2024

Pharmacist Dispense drugs prescribed by physicians and other health practitioners and provide information to patients about medications and their use. May advise physicians and other health practitioners on the selection, dosage, interactions, and side effects of medications.

Pharmacist is Also Know as

In different settings, Pharmacist is titled as

Clinical Pharmacist
Hospital Pharmacist
Informatics Pharmacist
Pharm D (Pharmacy Doctor)
Pharmacist in Charge (PIC)
Pharmacy Coordinator
Pharmacy Informaticist
Pharmacy Services Clinical Coordinator
Registered Pharmacist
Retail Pharmacist

Education and Training of Pharmacist

Pharmacist is categorized in Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Pharmacist

Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.

Education Required for Pharmacist

Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).

Degrees Related to Pharmacist

Training Required for Pharmacist

Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Pharmacist in different industries are

What Do Pharmacist do?

Review prescriptions to assure accuracy, to ascertain the needed ingredients, and to evaluate their suitability.
Provide information and advice regarding drug interactions, side effects, dosage, and proper medication storage.
Analyze prescribing trends to monitor patient compliance and to prevent excessive usage or harmful interactions.
Order and purchase pharmaceutical supplies, medical supplies, or drugs, maintaining stock and storing and handling it properly.
Maintain records, such as pharmacy files, patient profiles, charge system files, inventories, control records for radioactive nuclei, or registries of poisons, narcotics, or controlled drugs.
Provide specialized services to help patients manage conditions, such as diabetes, asthma, smoking cessation, or high blood pressure.
Advise customers on the selection of medication brands, medical equipment, or healthcare supplies.
Collaborate with other health care professionals to plan, monitor, review, or evaluate the quality or effectiveness of drugs or drug regimens, providing advice on drug applications or characteristics.
Compound and dispense medications as prescribed by doctors and dentists, by calculating, weighing, measuring, and mixing ingredients, or oversee these activities.
Refer patients to other health professionals or agencies when appropriate.
Prepare sterile solutions or infusions for use in surgical procedures, emergency rooms, or patients' homes.
Plan, implement, or maintain procedures for mixing, packaging, or labeling pharmaceuticals, according to policy and legal requirements, to ensure quality, security, and proper disposal.
Assay radiopharmaceuticals, verify rates of disintegration, and calculate the volume required to produce the desired results, to ensure proper dosages.
Manage pharmacy operations, hiring or supervising staff, performing administrative duties, or buying or selling non-pharmaceutical merchandise.
Work in hospitals or clinics or for Health Management Organizations (HMOs), dispensing prescriptions, serving as a medical team consultant, or specializing in specific drug therapy areas, such as oncology or nuclear pharmacotherapy.
Assess the identity, strength, or purity of medications.
Teach pharmacy students serving as interns in preparation for their graduation or licensure.
Publish educational information for other pharmacists, doctors, or patients.
Offer health promotion or prevention activities, such as training people to use blood pressure devices or diabetes monitors.
Contact insurance companies to resolve billing issues.
Update or troubleshoot pharmacy information databases.

Qualities of Good Pharmacist

Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.

Tools Used by Pharmacist

Ampoule filling machines
Area survey meters
Automated drug dispensing equipment
Barcode scanning/prescription tracking systems
Binocular light compound microscopes
Capsule counters
Electronic blood pressure monitors
Electronic toploading balances
Filters for glass containers/ampoules
Geiger-Muller counters
Glucometers
Hemacytometers
Horizontal air flow laminar hoods
Hospital beds
Intravenous IV therapy equipment
Label-making machines
Laminar flow hoods
Lead shielded drawing stations
Lead transport shields
Manual blood pressure equipment
Medication pulling/dispensing systems
Metric graduates
Metric weights
Mortars
Multiple channel well scintillation counters
Needles
Ostomy products
Oxygen therapy equipment
Personal computers
Pestles
Radiation shields for syringes and vials
Radiochemical fume hood and filter systems
Radionucleide dose calibrators
Sealing machines
Single channel well scintillation counters
Syringes
Tablet computers
Torsion balances
Vertical air flow laminar hoods
Wheelchairs

Technology Skills required for Pharmacist

Computer records systems
eClinicalWorks EHR software
Epic Systems
Freedom MedTEACH
Healthprolink MedAtlas
Insurance claim processing software
Label-making software
MEDITECH software
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Office software
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft SharePoint
Microsoft Word
Multitask software
Pyxis MedStation software
Recordkeeping software
RxKinetics UD Labels for Windows
Spreadsheet software
TPNassist
TTP LabTech comPOUND
Web browser software
Word processing software

US Universities

How to become Pharmacist in 2024