Pharmacy

What are the most difficult challenge pharmacists will face in the future? What would you do to overcome this challenge? Why would you want to go to the two-year pharmacy school in California?

The central challenge of every pharmacist is to ensure that the correct medication for each and every patient who walks through the door of the pharmacy is dispensed in the appropriate manner, and that the patient leaves the pharmacy with the confidence that he or she is receiving quality care. With the increasingly bureaucratic nature of modern medicine, this mission of modern pharmacy has become more and more difficult.

Patients, depending on their health insurance plans, may be prescribed generic rather than brand name drugs, and not understand if these drugs are better or worse for their bodies. Hospitals and doctors are understaffed and have less and less time to explain how to take prescribed medicines correctly to their patients. A medicine taken incorrectly can be just as bad, if not worse, than a medication that is not taken at all. Also, the more impersonal nature of doctor patient relationships means that patients may forget to tell doctors prescribing medications about what other drugs they are taking, including over-the-counter medications, which can result in dangerous interactions.

The solution to this is that a pharmacist must be patient, listen to the patient, and talk with the patient before sending the patient out into the world, clutching his or her bottle of medication. For example, if an elderly person comes in to fill a prescription, the pharmacist must be aware if the medication might have potential interactions with aspirin, an over the counter medication many older people take as protection against heart disease. The pharmacist must use compassion and common sense in dealing with different types of patients, young and old.

I wish to go to California, for a two-year's program in pharmacy because I believe my undergraduate education has given me a sound grounding in science, and I seek further training in the methodology of pharmaceutical practice and patient relations in a state that I love, and whose patients I seek to help, both with the dispensing of medicine, and with the dispensing of my time as a pharmacist.