What does it take to be a pharmacist? Pharmacy involves more than just handing out drugs, otherwise anyone could do it. “A pharmacist is a health professional who follows instruction from physicians regarding the amount of education to distribute” (“Pharmacy requirements”). The pharmacy profession requires a lot of education, demands patience and attentive work, provides good pay, and offers a satisfying job. A pharmacist’s education can consist up to eight years of high level education. To start pharmacists must earn a degree at a pharmacy school.
Pharmacy hopefuls must already have at least two years of college education, to even have a chance of acceptance into a pharmacy school. Another requirement to get into a pharmacy school is to complete a PharmD. “A PharmD is a Doctor of Pharmacy Degree” (“Pharmacy Requirements”). “Pharmacy programs take about four years to complete and provide instruction in subjects such as drug therapy, communicating with patients, professional ethics, and developing and managing medication distribution systems” (“cruising”). An optional thing to do to further your education is to complete a one to two year internship.
Once finished with the PharmD program, a license is required by the state. If a PharmD degree is acquired then the pharmacist must pass a test given by the “National Association of Boards of Pharmacy” If a pharmacist, who inspires to run his or her own pharmacy then they would have to acquire a Master’s Degree in Business Administration or MBA. “When in high school it is wise to take a lot of math and science courses. Some of the science courses that should be taken are biology, chemistry, physics, anatomy, and physiology” (“Cruising”).
The math courses that benefit the hopeful pharmacist include algebra one and two, geometry, pre calculus, statistics, and calculus (“Cruising”). There are other qualifications a pharmacist should have and the first quality is pharmacists should have strong communication skills because they need to make sure the patient knows what to do with the prescription given. “Another quality a pharmacist should have is patience” (“Cruising”) because most people may not understand the procedure behind this job in the medicine field.
Said people will have questions about the nature of their medications hat will affect their well being. A good pharmacist needs to have the patience to take the time and answer customers’ questions. Pharmacists work environment of pharmacists is usually in retail places, hospitals and research facilities. The most common retail places pharmacists work are CVS, Rite Aid, and Walgreens. In Pennsylvania alone the average amount of annual openings is 400. In Pennsylvania alone, the employment number of “pharmacists is expected to grow by seventeen percent between 2008 and 2018” (“Outlook”).
The employment number increase for pharmacists is higher than any other occupation. The reason that pharmacist job prospects are high is because employers have problems attracting pharmacists because of the limited number of PharmD programs” (“Outlook”). The average entry wage of a pharmacist is $42. 49 and hour and that comes out to be $88,380 annually. The average wage for a worker with average experience is $48, 27 an hour and that comes out to be $100,390 a year. The average wage for an experienced worker is $53. 93 an hour and that equals $112,170 a year (“Salary”). At CVS the retail pharmacist would earn $55. 00 an hour and a little $100,000 annually.
The pharmacist in charge would earn around $115,000 dollars a year. The retail pharmacist at Rite Aid gets paid $110,000 a year. The head pharmacist at Rite Aid earns $119,000 a year. In the pharmacy occupation, if given the choice to work in a hospital or retail, work in the retail because the highest paying job at a pharmacy in a hospital is the director of pharmacy and there is only one of them. The director of pharmacy makes around ninety one thousand dollars a year. That is less than just a regular pharmacist at CVS or Rite Aid (“Salary”).
All in all the salary for pharmacists is “the middle 50% earn between $105,000 and $117,000 per year, but the top 10 percent earn one $122,000 dollars or more per year” (“pharmacist”). The pharmacy profession requires a lot of education, demands patience and attentive work, provides good pay, and offers a satisfying job. Education for a pharmacist consists of a long and challenging process, requiring of years of school. Not all skills required of pharmacists come from education. Skills like patience and communication skills have to come naturally. However, all the work involved makes the end result makes it worthwhile.
For example, one who does well with his or her education will more likely get paid well. The opportunity for a high salary and a good work environment make pharmacy a highly sought-after profession. The work environment is nice and commonly found throughout the world. Additionally, on average a pharmacist has a good salary, with the average generally ranging from “between $105,000 and $117,000” (“pharmacist”). Over all the field of pharmacy offers many good opportunities despite all of the hard work it involves. Therefore, because of all it requires of a person, not just anyone can make it in pharmacy.