Prepharmacy
Planning a Career in Pharmacy
If you have a sincere interest in people and health, modern pharmacy offers outstanding opportunities for professional service and personal achievement. Pharmacists find opportunities in many areas: retail pharmacy, hospital pharmacy and in research with governmental agencies or industrial pharmacy. Many pharmacists pursue careers in operations and management with chain pharmacies. Others choose hospital pharmacies and are involved in dispensing drugs for patients, monitoring for drug interactions and allergies, and a host of other clinically oriented roles.
The U.S. Public Health Service is employing increasing numbers of pharmacists to work in agencies that fall under its jurisdiction and pharmacists also work as consumer safety officers for the Food and Drug Administration. Additionally, pharmaceutical manufacturers often utilize pharmacists as sales representatives or in research and development.
Curriculum
For you to become a pharmacist, your education following high school will normally consist of a minimum of two years as a prepharmacy student, though increasingly students finishing their Bachelor's degree are being admitted into pharmacy programs. After two or more years you will then apply to a school of pharmacy for an additional four years of training. The Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) is awarded upon successful completion of this nominal six-year degree program. This degree is well suited for jobs in clinical research and certain areas of hospital pharmacy.
Any courses that satisfy the Core Curriculum requirements for Areas A-E are acceptable in the prepharmacy curriculum. Math courses including Calculus and Statistics are required. In the sciences one year of biology, one year of general chemistry, and one year of organic chemistry are required.
Prepharmacy requirements may vary from one school of pharmacy to another, so students are cautioned to check carefully with the admissions counselors of the pharmacy school that they wish to attend.
Admission
To be admitted to a professional program in a college of pharmacy, a student must complete at least two years of prepharmacy education and must take the Pharmacy College Admissions Test (PCAT). The process for selection of candidates utilizes the PCAT scores, the grade point average and recommendations from the pre-pharmacy adviser and other professionals.
