When I first entered university, I liked to ask this question to my course mates, "Why do u choose pharmacy?" The answers vary- "I want to get rich", that's the most common answer; "I don't want to study medic but I like biology", second common; "Girls not suitable to be engineers, so choosing pharmacy instead, as I was studying physics", third common; other answers like friends influence, parents influence are available too. Then, after I graduated, I ask this question to the to-be pharmacists and pharmacists, "Do u really wanted to choose pharmacy in the first place?" Guess what? Most of the answers are "I was being cheated!!!" together with a sad and regretful face...
All these happens because we don't know the actual role of pharmacists and what kind of job a pharmacist really is. What we see is pharmacists outside there are rich, with big house and great car, relax life as they only open their shops at 10am. If choose based on subjects studied in pre-U, then pharmacy is the option if not choosing medic, thinking that pharmacy is just like medic without the surgery. Then the regret comes when we realized all of the view of pharmacists we have all the time is WRONG! This is not the job we want! This is not our interests! Then the struggle is stronger when being told that we have to do compulsory services and our working place have to reshuffle again after one year... What? We are not being told all of these before!!! Then here comes the statement, "If I know that earlier...." and so the regret adding more and more even until we become a pharmacist now.
People thought that pharmacist is a wonderful job dealing with doctors where everybody proud of... or pharmacist is those who open a shop and sitting there acting like a doctor; or just a person who sits at counter giving out medicine where a nurse can do it, so pharmacist is not needed at all...
No! Let me tell u who is a pharmacist...
There are pharmacists who deal with doctors and patients only - clinical pharmacist;
pharmacist who are 'rich and relax' - community or retail pharmacist;
pharmacist who deal with paper works, machine and quality of medicine - industrial pharmacist;
pharmacist who carries law books and do raiding - enforcement pharmacist;
pharmacists who deal with patients, nurses and medicines - outpatient and inpatient pharmacists;
pharmacists who deal with stocks and sales rep - store pharmacists;
pharmacists who handle chemotherapy (cancer) medicines - cytotoxic drug pharmacists;
pharmacists who deal with blood and reading - TDM pharmacist;
pharmacists who handle injectable nutritional solutions - TPN pharmacist;
pharmacists who deal with radioactive substances - radiopharmacist
what else I have not included yet?
The above are the kind of job a pharmacist can do... then let me tell u what do a hospital pharmacist do...
1) Answer telephone (info request, on-call, complaints, etc...)
2) Calling the ward and doctors, medicine companies and sales rep (also a telephone job)
3) Calling to other hospitals (borrowing medicines...)
4) Searching medicine information
5) Filling and dispense medicines
6) Finding doctor's errors (That's the reason doctors and pharmacists always in quarrel)
7) Check stock
8) Merchandising (first-in-first-out rule, just like in department store)
9) Copying patient bed tickets (instead of reviewing)
10) Mixing syrup (just like making coffee and milk)
11) Calculating (dose and TDM work)
12) Filling forms
13) Counselling patients
14) Decorating??? (For the 5S things)
15) Doing presentations and research
hmm.... Do I miss out anything? So, a pharmacist is a manager? a businessman? a telephone operator? a walking computer? a clerk? a store keeper? a counsellor? a researcher?
Sometimes even an entertainer? Because some patients like to scold pharmacists when they are waiting for too long, so its the chance for us to entertain the patients... We are not deal with medicines only, neither patients only. In short, a pharmacist is a multi-role job where I also can't find a word to define it.
How about the life of a pharmacist in government sector? Well, it is a "punch card" life... Every morning drag a reluctant soul to punch card before 8am then hoping don't have to meet any stubborn and 'aggressive' patients and doctors, waiting for 1pm to have lunch break, then waiting for 5pm to punch card again... During on-call time, praying for the phone not to ring, praying for a good sleep without disturbing of phone calls... haha... Quite boring and dry lifestyle huh...
But things will change. Try to put aside the regret and think. As we working, we acquire knowledge and collect experiences, as time goes by, we'll build up our confidence as a real multi-purpose pharmacist!
So, these are the truths that no outsiders will know except u work as a hospital pharmacists before... Therefore, to the students who wish to choose pharmacy, make sure u really interview a hospital pharmacist first; to the doctors, do understand us and not blame us all the time; to the public, do appreciate us after receiving your medicines as all the medicines u received are free of charge, so stop complaining!
