Oh! Get Real!!
Everyone knows a pharmacist just stands behind a tall counter and pours
pills out of a big bottle into little ones...

I am applying to pharmacy school, and have been thinking in more
detail about what I want to do when I become a practicing pharmacist.

Currently, I volunteer in a hospital pharmacy, and get a little
exposure to what the pharmacists there do in their day to day jobs.
They get called on frequently to provide drug knowledge, and it seems
like, advice to the other staff (nurses/doctors).

It seems like pharmacy school curricula is highly intense. I would
think that pharmacists have SO much knowledge about drugs,
pharmacokinetics, and just an incredible amount of
chemical/physical/thermodynamic knowledge about how pharmaceuticals
work in the body. Yet it seems like they will never really get to
implement this knowledge day-to-day.

I would like to hear from others, both in retail, hospital, industry -
what do you think?

Do you use your education?

Are you consulted on by other healthcare peers as an expert?

Do you feel like you are called on, and needed, to provide your expert
advice?

To me, a pharmacist is a sort of a specialized doctor. Someone who can
be there to provide very specific and accurate information, and apply
that to a situation where lives are at stake, helping to save those
lives, and make them better. Do you feel this is the case in reality?