Pharmacy is essential in ensuring good healthcare for the population at large. As a pharmacist, you will be at the forefront of designing and establishing treatments and prescription medicines and helping patients with several healthcare solutions.
If that’s not good enough, becoming a pharmacist also has lofty financial benefits. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average pharmacist salary in the United States is roughly $128,500. In short, being a pharmacist is incredibly rewarding.
But like any other profession, one must have specific skills, abilities, and characteristics to succeed in this field. Keep scrolling, as this article discusses several signs you should pursue a pharmaceutical career and how you can become one. So, let’s get started.
You pay close attention to detail
Attention to detail is more than a catchy phrase in the pharmaceutical industry. In fact, it can be a matter of life and death since pharmacists are accountable for doling out prescriptions and ensuring accuracy in doses and medications.
After all, providing the wrong amount of medication can result in severe health issues. As a pharmacist, you are expected to dispense medication quickly and error-free. Whether it’s reading the physician’s terrible handwriting or measuring ingredients precisely, the importance of accuracy in pharmacy is too hard to ignore.
Being detail-oriented ensures precision while detecting potential issues before they occur. This way, pharmacists can get the most desired result without unwanted surprises.
You have excellent communication skills
A pharmaceutical career might be a great career path if you are excellent at listening carefully and speaking clearly. Most often, pharmacists have to juggle between frustrated patients and doctors who dislike being questioned.
As a pharmacist, you must communicate clearly to the patient when and how they should take their medication and confirm their understanding. Besides that, you may also explain why a patient is receiving a specific drug and the side effects of taking it.
By communicating effectively, you can acquire the information you need to make educated decisions for a patient. Moreover, excellent communication skills are essential in following directions and interacting with patients and their loved ones to explain complex medical concepts and procedures.
You like working in a fast-paced environment
A fast-paced environment is not for everyone, but being a pharmacist could be on your career horizon if you thrive under pressure. Like it or not, customers want quick and error-free service.
Recent data shows that 90% of customers consider immediate response as essential or higher on the priority list when communicating with a business. As a pharmacist, you will manage customer questions, handle medications and monitor inventory.
Moreover, pharmacists should also provide immunizations and other medical services, such as checking blood sugar levels, measuring temperature, and taking blood pressure. This can generate a lot of pressure, but if the thought excites you, taking up pharmacy can open excellent opportunities to excel quickly and achieve a rewarding career.
You are well-organized and can multi-task
By now, you have a definitive idea that pharmacists have several roles and responsibilities, regardless of the work setting. Being able to perform these tasks requires you to be organized and detail-oriented to prevent errors.
Some roles you need to multitask with include answering calls and responding to emails from other departments, serving customers, checking medication to ensure it’s not required, restocking drugs, and updating specific records. If you can handle multiple tasks effectively, it is a good sign that you could be an excellent fit for this rewarding profession.
When you are well-organized, you can solve problems quickly and significantly impact the patient’s overall health. This, in turn, allows you to determine solutions that could be a matter of life and death.
You want to make a difference
Do you wonder if you can make a difference in the world? Are you still figuring out how to make a difference by helping people? If so, then a pharmaceutical career is something that you should consider.
As a pharmacist, you will play a critical role in improving healthcare access and closing the gap between the potential benefit of medicines and their actual value. You will provide patients with optimal medication management for chronic diseases, such as hypertension, asthma, and diabetes.
In other words, the pharmacist’s job isn’t only limited to filling prescriptions. Instead, it’s about helping everyone live healthier lives and ensuring treatments prioritize the patient’s health and well-being.
How to become a pharmacist?
Now that you know the signs of a fruitful pharmaceutical career, you might wonder where to begin and how to become a pharmacist. Employers usually require pharmacists to possess an undergraduate degree at a minimum, although an advanced degree will set you up for better career advancement opportunities.
That said, taking an online Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) program in a prestigious academic institution, such as the University of Findlay, will provide you with practical experience in a professional setting. While completing a doctoral degree, you will learn topics about managing prescriptions, ethics, pharmacy law, toxicology, and biopharmaceuticals.
If you decide to take up an online doctoral degree, consider the pharmaceutical accreditations of your chosen academic institution. Like it or not, most employers will conduct thorough research on whether the degree you’ve earned is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE).
ACPE is a specialized accrediting organization recognized by the US Secretary of Education and the Council of Higher Education Accreditation. It is responsible for accrediting Doctor of Pharmacy programs offered by colleges and universities in the US and select non-US locations.
After earning your doctoral degree, you will need to get licensed. Unlike other professions, there are two different licensure examinations for pharmacists. These are the Multistate Pharmacy Jurisprudence Examination and the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination.
Depending on the type of program you choose, the road to becoming a pharmacist can take up to eight years. Some pharmacy schools require a four-year bachelor’s degree for admission, while others only require two years of undergraduate pre-pharmacy preparatory classes.
