Pharmacy Profession Overview

What Is a Pharmacist?

Pharmacists are medication experts who enhance patient care and promote wellness.  You will use your professional knowledge as a pharmacist to prepare and dispense prescriptions, ensure medicines and doses are correct, prevent harmful drug interactions, and counsel patients on the safe and appropriate use of their medications. 

As a pharmacist, you will have unique and specialized expertise about the composition of medicines, including their chemical, biological, and physical properties, as well as their manufacture and use. Other health care professionals will rely on you to select and administer medications that offer the best results and quality of life for a particular patient. As a pharmacist you may prepare personalized medications, participate in patient rounds at the hospital, reduce the spread of infections, conduct research or clinical trials, or focus on a specific patient population or disease state (e.g., diabetes, heart disease, asthma, HIV, and pain management).

From (https://www.aacp.org/resources/students/future)

 

Daily Activities of Pharmacists

• Patient Care: 
  • Collect information about a patient’s health, social history, and medications including prescriptions, over the counter (OTC) medications, herbal products, and dietary supplements. 
  • Assess a patient’s health, medications, risk factors, health literacy, and access to medications and other care. 
  • Administer immunizations for vaccine preventable conditions (e.g., flu shots). 
• Medication Expertise and Population Health
  • Use and share expertise about what the body does to a drug (pharmacokinetics) and how drugs affect the body (pharmacodynamics).  
  • Apply knowledge about how genes affect a person’s response to medications to develop and select drugs and doses that are tailored to a patient’s genetic makeup (pharmacogenomics). 
  • Promote the appropriate use of antibiotics to stop the spread of a disease in a patient or population (antibiotic stewardship)
• Pharmacy Management
  • Develop and maintain pharmacy procedures, protocols, inventories, and disaster response plans to ensure patients have access to the right medications at the right time
  • Supervise, train, and coordinate the activities of pharmacy technicians and other support staff. 
  • Teach and supervise student pharmacists and pharmacy residents to enhance their knowledge, skills, and understanding of the profession. 

From (https://pharmacyforme.org/learn-about-pharmacy/#1679951128918-b934694c-a22e)