Pharmaceutical Industry Careers
A Pharmacist is a person that has been trained in dispensing medications to patients. They possess the knowledge of compounds, ingredients and medicines as well as the effects that these can have on the body and the interaction with other medicines.
Computerized confidential records are kept by pharmacies of all the drug therapies for patients to enable the pharmacist to prevent harmful drug interactions when they need to dispense additional or new medication to a patient. A pharmacist is responsible for many things the first of which is the accuracy of every prescription that is filled. They manage the technicians and pharmacy aides, assisting them when required in the dispensing process. They also frequently supervise pharmacy students who are serving as interns. Another of their responsibilities is to delegate administrative and prescription filling tasks and to supervise the completion of these tasks.
Career Options
Retail
Pharmacists who work within the retail pharmacy dispense medications, advise physicians about the medication therapy of a patient and counsel patients on the use of both prescription and over-the-counter medications. They can also advise and assist patients in regards to the common health topics and exercise as well as stress reduction. There are a number of medical related supplies that are also carried by many pharmacies and therefore the pharmacist is there as a healthcare professional who is able to give advice on the purchase and use of medical equipment.
Healthcare
Pharmacists play an important role in the healthcare system. Within each hospital, clinic and nursing home there will be pharmacists who will devise a medicine schedule for treatment after taking the doctors prescription. IN hospitals you will find that there will be a number of pharmacists who will prescribe medications and organise the daily doses for each patient.
Pharmacists are also required by insurance and benefit companies to check prescriptions and treatments for the purpose of reimbursement. Pharmacists are also responsible for the creation of medicinal schedules and the establishment of processes and procedures for the review and approval of treatments.
Pharmaceutical
Most of the modern pharmaceutical companies in the world were founded by pharmacists and other related scientists. At the beginning, in earlier times, medicines were mixed in the store for individual people. As the amount of people who were suffering from the same ailment and the types of mixtures increased pharmacists started companies that manufactured the medicines in larger quantities to allow the sale to a wider number of people. These companies became the first pharmaceutical companies over time.
Today pharmacists are employed in the pharmaceutical industry not only for research and development but for the education of the consumers' of the medicines. These consumers would include retail pharmacy chains, doctors and insurance companies.
Other fields
Increasingly, pharmacists are pursuing careers in many other fields. Pharmacists now work for the government, managed care organizations, public health care services, veterinary medicine, the armed services, or pharmacy associations. There are even pharmacists who are also employed full or part time within a school, teaching classes or performing research in a wide range of areas.
