what do pharmacist do anyway? Every time I go to the pharmacy, I see a lineup of people behind the counter doing something I’m sure they’re counting up pills, but did they do anything else?
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There is a number of drugs and ointments where parts of, or even the whole preparation and mixing process takes place on site. Especially for ointments, but also for stuff like antibiotics etc.
Source: just sitting next to a pharmacist friend atm
They make sure you get the right pills. Also, when the GP makes a mistake, they will try to call him to be sure you get the right medication and ammount. There is a reason the 2 practices are separate, pharmacists know more about medications itself, while doctors know more about which symptoms match which diseases.
I had a new blood pressure med prescribed. Went to the pharmacy to get it filled; the pharmacist asked me if I was still taking the old one. Sure I was. Well, the two in combination might kill me. Certainly the doctor told me to discontinue the old one. No, he did not.
I’m a big fan of pharmacists.
Oh, boy, here we go.
They are medicine experts and know much about medicines and their potential side effects and interactions. They’re supposed to check the prescriptions in order to catch said interactions and side effects should they be harmful.
ICU doctor here.
I agree with most of the descriptions already said, but I want to emphasize a few things that haven’t been mentioned.
Pharmacists also work at hospitals, and one of the biggest things they do is help with treatment decisions. They advise me on medications like chemotherapy, and antibiotics. They save the hospital and patient money by selecting cheaper and better medications. They improve patient care by reminding me that a patient might benefit from stress ulcer prophylaxis, or that a certain medication might work better. They adjust doses of medications for patients receiving dialysis and ECMO. Just like when I consult a neurologist for when a patient has a stroke, I think of a pharmacist as a medication expert, and every patient I treat receives medication. I don’t make any major inpatient medication decisions without pharmacist involvement.
They catch mistakes, and they do it better than any other allied health professional.
In my observation, in the [Swiss cheese model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model), the pharmacist is the slice with the fewest holes. I think they save more lives in the hospital than anyone else, and they get almost no credit for this. Many patients have no idea how much they owe to their pharmacist, and many hospital administrators don’t understand their value.
Too few hospitals include a clinical pharmacist on rounds, and many only relegate their pharmacists to central supply, where they verify orders. Having a pharmacist on rounds makes me a better doctor, and allows me to efficiently manage several more patients. Our hospital system is nationally recognized for high outcomes in quality, and a key reason for that is our use of clinical pharmacists.
So, if there are any pharmacists reading this, please know that you have my sincere respect and thanks.
I don’t work in a “classic” pharmacy, but I am a pharmacist. Essentially I make sure doctors and nurses are treating infectious diseases in an appropriate manner to make sure we don’t have another pandemic on our hands from drug resistant bacteria.
It’s called antimicrobial stewardship, in 10-15 years I expect most people will know about it. By 2050 resistant infections are expected to kill more people than cancer.
Hi! Canadian clinical pharmacist here.
Ultimately it boils down to the pharmacist (along with other healthcare providers) must ensure the 5 “rights’ of medication.
These are:
The right medication
At the right time
At the right dose
Via the right route (way to take it)
To the right person.
This will include the making sure the medication must be correctly indicated (why the drug is being taken), will be effective, will be safe, and that it is taken correctly.
In my province and a couple more provinces we have extended privileges granted including prescribing medications and changing prescriptions in order to not kill you or to make sure it is effective.
I’ll just mention this reason pharmacists exist as well. There is an ultimate conflict of interest when doctors also sell you the medication you need. Meaning that the doctor will benefit more if he/she prescribed you more and more medication regardless of side effects and other issues. Being a separate profession, this risk is mitigated.
It is all a team effort, the pharmacist is a redundancy to making sure you get the best care you should. Often the last chance to catch mistakes before it gets to you, the end user.
( On mobile, hopefully formatting is ok)
Board Certified Oncology Pharmacist here.
As a clinical pharmacist, I review patients with my providers, discuss treatment options for various malignancies, build treatment plans, teach patients prior to them receiving treatment, manage chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting, electrolyte abnormalities, and run an anticoagulation clinic for those with benign heme conditions. I also help train physician assistant and pharmacy residents.
My oncologists heavily rely on my drug knowledge and I have a lot of input on treatment trajectory.
The top comment is a UK. Pharmacist. I’ll give the US answer. I’m assuming that you’re asking about a retail site like CVS or Walgreens.
When I worked retail pharmacy, my 2 big tasks were:
1. Making sure my techs didn’t make mistakes.
1a. This means ensuring that info from a prescription was correctly inputted into our system and sent to insurance. When paper prescriptions were more common, this was more essential than today with lots of computerized systems. Most humans can make a mistake and the pharmacist is the person responsible for double checking things.
1b. Most stores I worked at, I’d catch a couple tech errors per hour. Let’s say 2-5% of orders.
2. Making sure a catastrophic event will not occur with the order. We were the last line of a medical double check before a patient takes a medicine so if we didn’t catch it, the catastrophe would occur.
2a. I think that this is what most of the public thinks that a pharmacist does. I’d look for things like med interactions, duplication of meds, inappropriate therapies based on age or weight. Retail pharmacists usually don’t have enough info to optimize therapy for a patient, but we could catch those really bad events.
2b. It was really rare to catch one of these. I’d say every once a week or two. Let’s say 1 per 10,000 orders.
3. Troubleshooting odd orders. This can be getting insurance to cover a weird dosage. It could be calling a doc to let them know about drug shortages and discussing alternatives.
3a. These took up significant amount of our time with little direct benefit. You can imagine that it’s hard to get a doc on the phone to make a drug change. I’ve definitely known some colleagues who will just tell a patient that they don’t have a med and shop elsewhere rather than try and solve the issue.
So to summarize, when you are asking for what pharmacists do, we are mostly looking for a needle in a haystack of orders and addressing changes if anything needs to be addressed.
However, it sounds like you are really asking: why does it take so long to get a prescription? Mainly business requirements and throughput rate. Techs handle the majority of orders. They input data into their computer system and send a claim to insurance. Then count the pills and ring up the order at the register. The pharmacist confirms it all looks correct. This all takes time. In a perfect world, each step could be 10-60 seconds, and maybe 5 minutes total. In the real world, the techs and pharmacist are not sitting and waiting to do your specific task right away. There’s other tasks that need to be completed first. There’s a constant stream of orders. There’s calls that interrupt things and alerts that need addressing.
When you ask why there’s a lineup of people, the answer is because there’s a lineup of people. It takes time to do any task, and the more business that comes your way, the longer it will take to work on any individual within the line.
I would also like to point out that pharmacists can also have what are called collaborative practice agreements with providers, often involving a common type of patient, which allows the pharmacist to borrow their authority in a way. This is often limited but can allow us to essentially take over the practitioners role in certain uncomplicated disease states. Most often I see it used for diabetes and warfarin clinics for pharmacists to be allowed to order labs and prescribe the necessary medicine or dose adjust without a doctor’s involvement unless needed.
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