Career decision making

Part 1

A successful career is built on two things: good planning and good luck .

While one never knows precisely when certain unique opportunities may be available, the wide variety of pharmacy positions available in many different settings can accommodate many plans for advancement throughout a career.

without planning one will not be ready to seize the opportunities when they do arise.

Identifying a career option in pharmacy

Applying scientific knowledge Business management Pressure Work schedule Leisure/family time Job security Opportunity for advancement Community prestige Professional prestige income

Critical job factors for pharmacy careers

One of the best ways to determine if you like a certain part of pharmacys to work in that setting. Luckily, many possible options are available for doing that if you will look around and be willing to go where the job is.

Getting ready to pursue a career

You should remember that the time you spend searching for a job after you graduate is money lost- and your postgraduate salary will be many times greater than what you can make during school.

Taking a lower paying job during school to aid your career planning could be an important investment in your future.

Pharmacy school is designed to teach you much of the technical aspects of the profession , it touches only slightly on people and big picture skill.

Throughout your career people skills will be very important ; you must learn how to live, work, and communicate with others.

You can never stop learning and you should take advantage now of opportunities to advance your people skills

The best place to do that in pharmacy school is through involvement in student organizations, where you can learn about small-group decision making, conflict resolution, communication, teamwork, and goal setting.

Community independent pharmacy Community chain pharmacy Institutional pharmacy Consultant pharmacy Managed care or home care Pharmaceutical industry, government, and

associations

The major areas of practice within pharmacy

The independent pharmacy is where the profession began, and it is still in many ways the heart and soul of pharmacy

For independent pharmacists, pharmacists are uniquely able to practice their profession in the way they choose, and this means they can more quickly transition their practices into medication therapy management (MTM) if they choose to do so.

Community independent pharmacy

They are able to respond quickly to changing consumer needs and have a real and lasting impact in their community

Through independent pharmacy, each practitioner has the opportunity to succeed or to fail. Each practitioner has the privilege- and the risk that comes with it of settings the rules and determining the policies for the pharmacy.

While starting salaries in independent pharmacies are often a little lower than in chain pharmacies, the prospects for advancement are different, especially if there is a chance to buy the pharmacy or start one’s own pharmacy at some point.

The growth possibilities in these areas are limitless.

For pharmacists in entry-level positions in independent community pharmacy, much of the day is spent in drug-dispensing and patient counseling activities. Many community pharmacies have pharmacy technicians who assist the pharmacist with filling the prescriptions for checking and dispensing by the pharmacist.

Computers are tremendously important in today’s community pharmacy as they have enabled pharmacies to provide advanced services, such as keeping patient profiles, checking for drug interactions, and providing patient specific information for counseling, billing, drug use review, or insurance purpose.

As pharmaceutical care and MTM have become the norm and patient counseling is provided more universally in pharmacy, the pharmacist is spending increasing fractions of his or her time in direct patient contact.

This trend is making the pharmacist a source of primary care, making communication skills, patient-assessment techniques, and clinical knowledge all the more important.

Independent pharmacists deal directly with the public, and they some times complain about some of those interactions, especially patients criticisms about the increasing prices of prescription drugs.

Combined with the long hours of standing on one’s feet with few breaks to even go to the rest room , some pharmacist have experienced frustration in community independent pharmacy.

Community chain pharmacists practice in cities and towns of all sizes and shapes and in a variety of settings, including the traditional chain pharmacy, and supermarkets.

a chain pharmacist is part of a larger corporate structure that provides numerous personal growth and career-development opportunities.

Community chain pharmacy

More than one half of new pharmacy graduates enter chain practice each year. Reasons for this high proportion include job availability job availability in nearly any part of the country, excellent salary , store locations in areas of high population density, and the opportunity to interact with the public in a health care environment.

New Chain pharmacies are opening every day as they battle for market share in a competitive field.

Community chain pharmacies have led the pharmacy profession in developing the computer technology needed to keep up with the growing number of medications being used by patients each year.

sophisticated software programs have been developed by chains to maintain each patients complete medication profile record and detect any potential drug interactions that could occur when a new drug is added to that profile.

Inventory control and pricing accuracy also are greatly enhanced by this heavy reliance upon computers.

Countless chain pharmacists actively support the educational programs of nearby pharmacy schools by serving as preceptors of student externs.

The frustrations of patients complaining about prescription prices is worse in chains.

Pharmacists are sometimes frustrated by non-pharmacist managers of a store, who may interfere with the pharmacist’s professional obligations to the patient.

Institutional pharmacy, traditionally practiced in hospitals and other ”organized” health care settings, offers a diverse field of possibilities to the new pharmacy graduate.

Dispensing-only jobs require little contact with patients or other professionals outside the pharmacy, other than via telephone.

Clinical pharmacy was born in hospitals, and positions with full-time clinical responsibilities are available on patient-care units where interactions with physicians, nurses, and the rest of the health care team go on continuously.

Institutional pharmacy

Jobs in hospital pharmacy are easy to find, but one needs to consider carefully what terminal position is desired.

In 1963, hospital pharmacy began accrediting residencies, and today many jobs-especially management positions in the pharmacy-require that applicants have completed such a residency.

if one wants to leap from the pharmacy into hospital administration, an appropriate masters degree(e.g.in business or hospital administration) would likely be needed.

Large hospitals are often affiliated with schools of medicine or pharmacy, and most clinical positions require a pharm D degree plus postgraduate residencies and/or fellowships.

One’s career in hospital pharmacy, particularly larger institutions, can thus be greatly affected by decisions made as a student or young practitioner.

Salaries in hospital pharmacy have historically been somewhat lower than in community pharmacy, especially in chain pharmacies. That may be true to some degree still, but the gap has been largely closed as a result of pharmacist shortages in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The possibilities for advancement are strong in this field, and more than a few hospital pharmacy directors have been promoted into hospital executive positions.

For the pharmacist whose responsibilities are centered around drug distribution, the daily mission is to get the right drugs to the right patient at the right time.

Clinical pharmacists in the hospital are involved in more patient care and drug information activities. Some pharmacists “round” with the healthcare team, which comprises physicians, nurses, respiratory therapist, social workers, and other therapists.

Other pharmacists provide care to patients who need specialized pharmacy services, such as pharmacokinetics monitoring or nutrition support.

Some larger institutions have drug information centers, where pharmacists answer questions from health care professionals or the public about drugs, poisonings, and medication use.

In pharmacy school, hospital pharmacy is sometimes glorified because of the important role it has played in creating the clinical pharmacy and pharmaceutical care movements, which led to the establishment of MTM in community pharmacies.

The possibilities for professional growth in hospital pharmacy have been very good.

With a concentration of well-trained health care professionals, the hospital provides an stimulating atmosphere devoid of many of the frustrations one finds in community practice.

Disappointments in hospital pharmacy are: feelings of isolation if limited to a basement pharmacy for drug distribution; lack of face to face patient contact for those without clinical responsibilities.

Institutional pharmacy practice continues to be a very exciting, dynamic area of practice. Virtually every kind of pharmacy practice can be found in hospitals somewhere : outpatient (ambulatory) pharmacy, acute care, emergency care, nuclear pharmacy, long term care, and home care.