A Pharmacist is a healthcare professional who specializes in drugs. Pharmacists usually work by dispensing medicines to patients against prescriptions. They also give required advice regarding medicines, dosage regimens and expected adverse reactions. Pharmacy profession is one of the most respected and trusted professions in a community. But just like all other professions, the Pharmacy profession also has some advantages and disadvantages. Here we can discuss some important pros and cons of being a pharmacist.
Read more about what is a Pharmacist
Ok we can start with pros
pros of being a Pharmacist
- Salary:
As a pharmacist you will get an excellent salary and a good standard of living. This is the major factor most people are attracted to in this field. But this is not true in all countries. Most of the developing countries pharmacists only receive an average or below average salary. But in that case pharmacists after getting required experience, move to any developed country and enjoy a good salary and standard of living.
- Different career choices available:
If you completed your pharmacy course and registered as a Pharmacist there are different types of career options. You can be a Community pharmacist and work in any retail pharmacy outlets. You can be a hospital pharmacist or clinical pharmacist. If you are interested you can become an Industrial pharmacist or R&D pharmacist. And also there are many more options you can go for.
- Work atmosphere:
Even Though pharmacists are front line healthcare workers, they don’t need to directly mingle with patients and diseases. As a pharmacist your duty is to dispense medicines, provide required directions and advice and monitor drug interactions and adverse reactions. All this can be done through the pharmacy counter. Also pharmacists have no need to work outdoors like some other professions.
- Helping people:
If you are a person interested in helping people in achieving good health, then pharmacy is a good job for you. Usually customers in a pharmacy ask a lot of questions while dispensing medicine. Here you can give good advice and guidelines to achieve best results from medication and treatment. That gives a good feeling of satisfaction to you.
- Career stability:
Pharmacy is an ever growing profession. Modern people are more and more dependent on medicines and pharmaceuticals for their health. Because of the increase in the old age population and bad lifestyles there is also an increase in patients with multiple diseases that make drug treatment complex. In these cases there is an increased chance of drug interactions and unwanted reactions with drugs. Pharmacists can help in preparing personalized dosage regimens and effective monitoring. Also there is newer research and inventions are happening in the pharmacy field regularly.
- You can start your own business:
If you are interested in managing business you can start your own pharmacy. This will make you self employed and avoid a lot of disadvantages of working under other persons.
- Respect and trust:
As a pharmacist you will get a good amount of respect and trust from the community. People will be open to talk about their personal conditions to you and they will expect a solution from you. Also pharmacists have to ask patients about their lifestyles, food habits etc while dispensing medications.
Read more What is a Community pharmacy
Cons of being a pharmacist
- Course of study:
If you want to practice as a pharmacists you have to get some qualifications described by government authorities. It may vary from degree in pharmacy to Doctorate in Pharmacy. Pharmacy syllabus is one of the vast syllabus where you have to study most of the branches of science. After successfully completing this course you may have to face other written and oral exams for registration as a Pharmacist.
- Responsibilities:
Job of a Pharmacist is a highly responsible one. He has to be 100% accurate, there is no room for a single error. Pharmacist is the last person in between patient and drug treatment. If a patient has gone to a super-specialty hospital, carried out a costly diagnosis, received treatment with specialist doctors that all may be wasted when the pharmacist makes a mistake in dispensing or giving direction. So a pharmacist’s job is very stressful. Also the pharmacist is responsible for everything happening in the pharmacy including any mistakes made by other staff.
Another responsibility is that a pharmacist should keep his pharmacy and premises abide by the laws and regulations of the country and state. This includes keeping pharmacies neat and clean, making records for controlled medicines, handling expired or damaged medicines etc. any mistakes happening here also leads to big fines and actions from authorities.
- Personal life:
Pharmacies usually open for 12 to 24 hours and may be working in evening, late night and weekends. So pharmacists have to work most of their active times in a day. A pharmacy can only work when a pharmacist is there, so a pharmacist must be on duty until another pharmacist takes charge or the pharmacy closes. Sometimes pharmacists have to work on normal holidays and weekends and many times they cannot attend many family and friend joining functions. This will largely affect the personal life of pharmacists.
- Work ethics:
A pharmacy is a health care service and also a business. If there is no business then a pharmacy will not succeed. So even though you have good ethics in life, you may have to adjust to the business policies of the company. If you are strictly adhering to your ethical values,then that will decrease your job security. This is one of the major problems in Pharmacy life.
- Increased competition and work pressure:
Even though pharmacists are a very essential part of the community and receive good salary and respect, the number of pharmacists needed in a community or a hospital is comparatively less. This will increase competition to achieve good posts.
Also some companies laid down targets for pharmacists. Pharmacies are not like other businesses, customers of pharmacies are patients. One cannot increase the number of patients in a community and also cannot encourage a patient to buy more medicines. This will increase the work pressure and stress.
Disclaimer
So we discussed some important pros and cons of being pharmacist. but we have to consider some facts
The points I listed above will not be same in all conditions. Some may change depending on which country you are working and which company you are working for. For example in most developed countries pharmacists get a high salary but in many developing countries pharmacists receive only average wages.
Also some points become pro to someone and same become con to other one depending on the person’s attitude towards that. For example as a pharmacist you have to answer a lot of questions from customers. Some pharmacists are interested in answering such questions and clearing customers’ doubts, but some others find this annoying.
Read more What is a Community pharmacy
Conclusion
Pharmacists are the most accessible and trusted professionals. Even Though it is one of the good professions, there are a number of pros and cons of being a pharmacist. Pharmacists receive a good salary, working atmosphere, career stability and good respect and trust from the community. But there are still problems like increased responsibility and stress. They may sometimes have to adjust their personal life and professional ethics for their job security.
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