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Tanner Cleverly

Ms. Amanda Tibbitts

Language Arts 12

8 March 2019

Pharmacist

My teacher, Ms. Tibbitts asked what I knew about the career I wanted to do. I didn’t

know much so now I have plenty of research in this paper for a bunch of your pharmacy

questions. In this essay you will find out how pay has increased over the years, What the job

outlook is like, What roles you would have as a pharmacist, and many other things. So come

with me to find out exactly what your friendly pharmacist does.

The world needs more pharmacists. According to Nancy Saffer in,

“Pharmacy Technicians and Assistants” Salaries for clinical and commercial pharmacies are

rising, with pharmacists pocketing an average of $6000 more than last year. There is a higher

need for pharmacists, so people are willing to pay more money to hire a pharmacist. The reason

this matters is, Someone like me. Who doesn’t know if he really wants to go into pharmacy or

not is now intrigued to go into pharmacy because they just got a huge pay increase. As sad as it

is to say, money is one of the biggest factors when looking for a job. So seeing that there is a

bigger need for pharmacists will make this career a lot more popular, because everyone is after

more money. Think of what you could do with an extra six thousand dollars a year. That is

plenty of money to go on a new family vacation every year. Or you could put that six thousand

into savings, after only four years you can afford a new car. Not only are you looking for how

much money you will be making, but you also want to check on what the job outlook is like.
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Jan Greene says that she will be,”Expanding the number of facilities, and pharmacists

they put in those facilities.” The job outlook is growing at a steady rate instead of decreasing.

Not only is it growing in numbers, but in locations too. Pharmacies are spreading out, so there is

a perfect location for everyone to work. More companies wanting more pharmacists means job

stability gets stronger and stronger this is a big deal for someone wanting to be a pharmacist.

Not only do people want more pharmacists, but they also want their roles to change as well.

Roles of pharmacy have changed, advocating for pharmacy change is not enough

(Melissa Murer 4). What this means for pharmacists is, instead of just handing out prescriptions

we must do a little bit more now. A few things have been added to the daily role of a pharmacist,

one of those being you must do a checkup on the patient you gave medicine to, you must see

how they are doing and make sure they are taking the medication properly. This new information

is important because, the more job duties you have the more people expect you to do them, and if

you are fulfilling them then people start to trust you more and more. Roles are important to learn,

now that you have them, it is important to know how many hours you will be using them.

Lisa Sukin reminds us that “Most Pharmacists work a normal forty hour week.” When I

was researching this career one of my main questions was if a pharmacist worked random hours

that nobody would want to work. I was indeed wrong, pharmacists work the same amount of

hours as any other worker in America. You don’t have to worry about getting out of touch with

friends, because you can all hangout on the weekend. It’s not only about the hours you work but

also how much you will be making is a big deal.

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Ashok Selvam also researched that, Pay ranged from $5.15-$6.50 in 2001. It is important

to know where your job started so you can see if it has been doing well or doing bad. It is smart

for you to focus on job outlook and which direction your money making is moving. This is

important to watch for, because we all know it would be silly to get a job that is losing money.

After learning about the money you’ll be making it’s time to checkout the condition of work you

will be in.

Ashok Selvam talks about, Employment and working conditions When pharmacy first

became a job they were not strict at all when it came to procedures, or working conditions. That

is all changing now, Workers must wear a clean lab coat while working. The environment in

which they work must always be clean. Must wash your hands very frequently. This information

simply means, Pharmacy companies are just trying to keep everyone safe, for their job they work

with sick individuals so not staying clean and washing is just asking for everyone in your

building to get sick. The reason this is important is, If you wanted to be a pharmacist as your

career, and you were researching companies to work for, would you want the one that says “eh”

when it comes to cleanliness or the one that cared for your safety and well being so they made

you wash your hands and clean often so that nobody around you got sick. Not only do your

hands have to be clean, but so does your past…

“Background checks required.” Nancy Saffer tells us the Qualifications, Training, and

Certification we need to become a Pharmacist. In order to be a pharmacist you must have gone to

school for the following, math, health education, and chemistry. As well as that, on your record

you are not allowed to have a charge for substance abuse at all or you cannot get a pharmacy job.

Be careful with what you do in high school and college, because it could come back and bite you
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in the butt by ruining your career. What you choose to do right now can affect your life way

down the road without you even knowing. If they didn’t have this qualification for pharmacists,

you could have a drug addict working in your pharmacy. It’s nice to have a peace of mind

knowing I don’t have a maniac providing my medications.

After doing all this research the most important thing I learned was, pharmacists work a

regular forty hour week, This is my most important thing because I would hate to work the

graveyard shift every night.. Before ever doing research I just thought they had random hard

hours, which was driving me away from this career. This research has affected my opinion about

being a pharmacist in a positive way, I now want this as my career even more. A question that

never got answered for me was, do pharmacist enjoy the work they do for a living? Not

answering this question has shown me that there is always further research we can be doing

about the career we want to go into.

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Works Cited

Eder, Rob. “Customer Service + Pharmacist = Success.” Drug Store News, vol. 19, no. 10, June

1997, p. 141. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=9707076693&site=ehost-liv

Lebovitz, Lisa. "Help Wanted: Trends in the Pharmacist Workforce and Pharmacy Education."

AJPE. 2019. 15 Feb. 2019 <https://www.ajpe.org/doi/abs/10.5688/ajpe7051>.

Saffer, Nancy. “Pharmacy Technicians and Assistants.” ​Occupational Outlook Quarterly,​ vol.

43, no. 1, Jan. 1999, pp. 34–37. ​EBSCOhost​,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ580956&site=ehost-live.

Selvam, Ashok. “Growth Industry.” ​H&HN: Hospitals & Health Networks​, vol. 75, no. 10, Oct.

2001, p. 28. ​EBSCOhost​,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=5344580&site=ehost-live.