And why pharmacists make so much money? And why do they have to go to school for so long?
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A lot of medications are common and they can be stocked like grocery staples. This lets pharmacies predict, to an extent, the demand for medications and have them on hand.
According to [The (U.S.) Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/pharmacists.htm), pharmacists have a median income of $128,570 per per year. That’s factoring in different areas and costs of living, as well as first year and thirtieth year pharmacists, so the range is more $75,000 to $150,000+. Depending on where you live, $75,000 is pretty good, or just decent. It’s not going to go as far in New York or California as it will in Georgia or Michigan or somewhere else. Whether that’s “so much money” is going to vary based on one’s own perspectives of course.
They spend a lot of years in school, as being a pharmacist is generally a doctoral degree, implying 8+ years of secondary education — and all the school debt to go with it. If you didn’t pay them well, nobody would want to do it.
They spend all those years in school because among other things, people come in with multiple prescriptions from different doctors. The pharmacist needs to make sure one doctor’s prescription won’t kill you or have other adverse effects when it interacts with another. The pharmacist may also be working in clinical setting such as hospital or outpatient treatment program to help the doctor choose appropriate medications based on the patient’s goals — and again, what combinations of drugs might or might not be safe or effective together.
One doctor doesn’t necessarily know what another doctor has prescribed you, so even at your local pharmacy, the pharmacist has to be aware of these things. Yes, they have computer programs that can check on this, but you still need a person to understand the reports and explain it to the layperson.
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