Is Pharmacy a meme? What do Pharmacists even do?

>>8418403
afaik they pull prescriptions off of shelves and hand them to customers

>>8418403
If you can, get an MD, do all the shit pharmacist do, but with more value. I'm mainly talking about general practitioner MDs.

>>8418419
OP here. That's what I plan to do.

I was just wondering because...well, why do Pharmacists need as much training as a Doctor?

>>8418421
Pharmacists are stereotyped to be Med school rejects. So yea, I would give up or take a loan and get into med school at all cost if local med didn't work out.

But there would be differing opinions here.

>>8418421
Med input here

>PharmD's spend 4 years studying just drugs and clinical applications of drugs
>MDs spend 2 years, less depending on the curricula
>MDs consult pharmacy, pharmacy will dose the medications and cover blood work (specifically for antibiotics)
>PharmD will dose inpatient anticoagulants
>PharmD will compound drugs if needed
>PharmD will make therapeutic substitutions
>they are the 1st "check" in the system, MD orders x, PharmD verifies x is of safe dose and appropriate, then PharmD and MD sign off the order
>several other roles I can't think of is completed by them

They're essential, they just run the behind the scenes shit that. Or a lot of people are aware of

I always thought they actually made the drugs. But that's some chemist's job isn't it? Do they really go through years of training to put pills in bottles and make phone calls to insurance companies? But then i see pharmacy technicians doing that. So wtf do they do?

>>8418403
pharmacists can tell you what a medicine does, which 50% of the time an MD has no idea about (let alone doses)

besides that we get samples and fancy pens, but I guess docs do as well

where I'm from it's basically a glorified salesman/drugdealer, ok I guess it's a meme

piss off now

>>8418534
Forgot to chime in that this is specific for inpatient pharmacists

Outpatient pharmacists just educate patients and take on a more public health aspect. Outpatient pharm is for suckers

a robot could do the Pharma's job.

>>8418536
But it takes 2 seconds to google it and 1 minute to find the answer

>>8418591
hence the salesman bit

desu the only good thing about it is to be able to buy sleeping pills without hassle

>>8418591
Nah kohai, definitely more complicated than that.

They dont just need to know what a drug does, but how big the dose to make given your entire medical history, how long to prescribe for based on medical history, how specific drugs react with one another (something not readily available online), how the drugs will interact with any recent surgeries or illness you have had, counting the pills...

>>8418598
>>8418601
My experience has been:
>see doctor
>doctor prescribes medication
>writes name and dose on paper
>I hand it to pharmacy technician
>either the pharmacist or technician counts the pills and puts them into a bottle
>I pay for them and leave

OP here.

So retail Pharmacy is the real meme here then?

>>8418634
there's no real science to it, if you want to be the one creating drugs, do organic/biochemistry instead, organic more than anything

So what I've taken from this thread is that that 20-30 minute wait time for my clap pills is solely to foster an illusion of work being done behind the counter.

>>8418601
>medical history

Has medical history had a nation-wide database yet from which to actually pull this info? Like my GP doctor is in one city, my dentist is in another, and my proctologist's office is across town. Prescriptions are filled at random pharmacies all over the state, depending on what location I'm at when receiving them and only 2 are the same store chain. None of the people writing the prescriptions have information from the others.

Oh, then I moved to another state and have all new doctors.

>>8418643
Pharmacy student here. You gotta learn about pharmacology, medicinal chemistry and pharmaceutical science in quite a bit of depth. Retail pharmacists never use this knowledge admittedly so I guess it is a meme

>>8418676
a robot could do your job though.

>>8418403

Besides making a ton of money?

>>8418429
Ouch. Well that hurts bro.

>>8418877
those are called pharmacy technicians

pharmacists are pharm technicians that have the added responsibility of giving the O-K at every step of drug preparation and sales in retail

enjoy standing up for 10 hours a day and feeling anxiety both of the 2 times you get the opportunity to go to the bathroom

while enjoying the company of the lowest common denominator of human being (people who use prescription medication)

>>8418888
you need to find a job to make a lot of money, and retail pharmacists make a lot more than hospital pharmacists

the pharmacist market is very saturated right now and a lot of these people don't have jobs - you could find out more about this with a google search

if you want to make $$$ as a pharmacist (aka getting a job as one), then you need to get your foot in the pharmacy of a retail chain (as a technician) such as at walgreens or CVS. get to know your district manager and let them know you're going to apply (and get accepted) into pharmacy school, and then it will only be a matter of being lucky, keeping in touch and then speaking with them when you receive your pharmD

having prior experience in a pharmacy is absolutely vital to finding a job as a pharmacist (which you can say about pretty much every job ever)