Why Pharmacy

Pharmacy is a rigorous, challenging, and exciting discipline within the health sciences. As a pharmacist or a pharmaceutical scientist, your basic goal is to improve the quality of life through the expertly informed use of medications.

Pharmacists are professionally qualified to prepare and dispense medical drugs, but their responsibilities go far beyond that. Today, patients and physicians alike have come to depend on the pharmacist as a health care and information resource of the highest caliber. A pharmacist's responsibilities may include:

  • understanding the effects of any given drug and how it will work within the body
  • ensuring drug strength and purity
  • assuring the safety and suitability of the drug therapies prescribed by physicians
  • delivering health education and advice on the use of medications to patients and communities
  • maintaining and monitoring records for their patients
  • referring patients to other sources of care when necessary
  • consulting with physicians and other healthcare providers to help deliver optimal patient outcomes

Other roles for Pharmacy Graduates

Not all pharmacy students become pharmacists, however. Some become pharmaceutical scientists, pursuing careers with government agencies or in academic or corporate environments - including:

  • investigating how disease impacts the human body
  • creating new drug therapies
  • studying the human body’s response to medications
  • discovering new ways to employ known drugs in the treatment of other diseases or dysfunctions
  • testing drugs on animals and humans to ensure safety and efficacy
  • developing better methods of manufacturing drugs
  • providing counsel on pharmaceutical development to government agencies and corporations