Do you want to be a pharmacist? 

With roles in patient care, research and drug development, there are many career paths in the pharmacy profession. 

By Brandon Hansknecht, Pharmacy Student at UIC College of Pharmacy, Rockford

The University of Illinois Chicago College of Pharmacy, Rockford Campus, has been a regular exhibitor at STEM Fest and we’re excited to have them back this year! In celebration of World Pharmacist Day (Sept. 25), we asked third year pharmacy student Brandon Hansknecht to share a little bit about the pharmacy profession. Keep reading to the end for a pharmacy research activity for high schoolers or older students!

The pharmaceutical side of healthcare has played a major role in healing ever since humans discovered they could use products from their environment (namely plants) to enhance the outcomes of the sick. Pharmacy as we know it today started taking shape around the Industrial Revolution, when medications began being produced in mass quantity. There were already ‘druggists’, or apothecaries, at the time, and it seemed intuitive to leave the drug experts in charge of all the manufactured medications. Eventually, this pushed the pharmacy profession to become specialists in medication dispensing and compounding, which is still very much a part of the profession today.

Around the early 1920s, the desire to advance the pharmacy profession by advancing the education requirement was becoming a popular idea among pharmacists. A group known as the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) developed a pharmaceutical curriculum which included courses like chemistry, biology, physics, physiology, pharmacology, and botany with miscellaneous courses like pharmaceutical manufacturing and retail sales operations. Then, in the 1930s, another group called the American Council of Pharmaceutical Education (ACPE) created a standardized four-year curriculum that became nationally adopted. Moving into the 1940s, the curriculum was recommended to be lengthened to six years, and graduates would be awarded a Doctorate of Pharmacy, or PharmD, instead of a bachelor’s degree. This change would allow pharmacists to be directly involved with patient care, with the goal of optimizing safety and efficacy in medication therapy. Then, in the 1980s the American Pharmaceutical Association (APhA) proposed that the PharmD degree become the bare minimum educational requirement for pharmacists. This proposal was eventually widely accepted, and along with the new education requirements came new roles, responsibilities, and opportunities for pharmacists to involve themselves in patient care.

Currently, outside of retail pharmacy, pharmacists have the opportunity to obtain clinical residencies in order to practice in many different areas of healthcare, including the emergency department, critical care department, oncology department, transplant department, anticoagulation department, mental health department, etc. These clinical positions allow pharmacists to actively reconcile all medications that patients take and make recommendations that address potential interactions, improve compliance, ensure safety, and hopefully improve patient outcomes. Having a medication expert on the medical team is useful for everyone because it allows pharmacists to worry about medication therapy, and other healthcare professionals to improve patient care in their own respective areas, ultimately leading to better patient outcomes all around.

Pharmacists can also find jobs in the pharmaceutical industry within areas like medical affairs, regulatory affairs, clinical development, research, etc. There are many moving parts in the drug development process, and pharmacists have skills that can make this process efficient, cost effective, and safe for the patient. Industry jobs usually require a fellowship after graduating pharmacy school and these usually last about one or two years, similar to a residency. One major differentiating factor of an industry job is that you are helping patients at a macroscopic level, as opposed to the personal level of a clinical or retail position. However, should a pharmacist not be interested in either the clinical or industry route, there are also careers in academia, business, insurance, and of course, the traditional setting of a community pharmacy.

Pharmacy Activity

Try this at home or in the classroom! This activity requires some understanding of chemical structures and is recommended for high school students or adult learners – especially in a chemistry class. It’s a great example of how chemistry impacts everyday life.

1. Pick a class of medications. (There are numerous classes of medications, but a few common ones are listed below for convenience)

• Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs)
• HMG-CoA Reductase Inhibitors (‘statins’)
• Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme (ACE Inhibitors)
• Beta-Blockers
• Corticosteroids

2. After you choose a class of medication, pick two or three medications within that class to do this activity.

• NSAIDs
  • Ibuprofen
  • Naproxen
  • Diclofenac

3. Search the chemical structure of that medication

• Type “xxx chemical structure” in the search bar

4. Once you have pulled up the chemical structure for two or three different medications, look for similarities and differences in their structures. How medication works in the body is all dependent upon their structure, and simple structural differences can be responsible for drastically varying effects within the body. Learning the structure-function relationship of medications and the body’s physiology is an important part of drug development, and the designing of new medications.