Pharmacist | Kids Work!

What is a Pharmacist?

Pharmacists mix, measure and dispense drugs prescribed by doctors. They advise the medical team and provide information to the patients about their medications. Pharmacists calculate the amount of medicine a patient receives based on a person’s height and weight. They also must know the chemical and physical properties of drugs and any possible interactions between them. Pharmacists are required by law to keep precise records of the prescriptions they fill. Accuracy is very important in all aspects of the job.

Real People Profile

Real People Q&A

Advice for students interested in my job: 
Study hard, be involved in community and organizations

What subjects in school will students need to do my job?
Mathematics and science

What I like most about my job? 
The patients are definitely the best part of the job because we get to talk to them and teach them, and have a lot of interaction with them, so that's my favorite part of the job.

What is the biggest challenge in my job? 
The biggest challenge is probably my favorite part of my job too-it's the patients. Many times they are very young and they don't understand, so that's a big challenge. Dealing with the doctors is also a big challenge because they are sometimes students too, and they are trying to learn and sometimes it's hard for them to understand.

How do you get a job like mine? 
First thing you need to do is to study hard because to be a pharmacist, you have to go to a special pharmacy school and it's very hard to get into pharmacy school. When you go to college you have to study and get good grades because you have to apply to pharmacy school and you can't get in if you have bad grades. It's also good to get involved in the community and in organizations because you have to have a good personality, too, so you can interact with the patients.

Standards

• 1 Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
  • 1.d Evaluate the success of an approach to solve a problem and refine it if necessary.