What do Pharmacists really do?

Filling prescriptions, talking with prescribers, dispensing meds, counseling patients, recommending OTC drugs, billing insurances, dealing with a mountain of paperwork, reviewing patients profiles for interactions/allergies/overlaps/over and under usage. Dealing with upset and nasty people. Making sure I am compliant with federal and state laws. Thats about a third of what I do on a daily basis. Mechanics make about what I make and they have a much easier job. One mistake can harm or kill a patient so the stress is incredible. Be prepared for no lunches, no breaks, and people who want your services for free and unreasonably fast.

Lots and lots of hydrocodone.

I worked in a pharmacy when I was in highschool, and sometimes it was stressful because alot of times the stores get auddited and you have to have all the paperwork and all the past prescriptions you have filled over the years and you have to be able to account for every class 2 drug that you dispensed. Those are the drugs that are locked up, like percocet oxycontin, ritalin, xanax, stuff like that, and if they are even missing one pill then they can get fined. So that part is stressful, other than that they get prescriptions from the customers and sometimes doctors will call them in and they fill them, usually the pharmacy tech will go to the shelf get the bottle count out the pills, and bottle them up, but the pharmacist has to check it beofre they can actually sell it to the customer, they also have to type all the info into the computer and get all the insurance info in and sometimes they have to argue with insurabce companies to get a drug covered for someone who really needs it, atleast a good pharmacist does that. They have to order the drugs from the pharmaceutical companies and make sure they always have enough stock on hand. They make schedules. there is alot of paper work. The pharmacicts that work in a hospital do different things but im not familiar with their work, I had a friend who did it for a little while but she hated it and said the hours were terrible so she went to retail pharmacy.

Since your life is literally in a pharmacists hands much like a physician, I assure you it is not laid back. Pharmacists in hospitals are required to go to codes to help with the correct dosage of medications during codes, be in charge of technicians filling patient med order, and making IV's for all patients on IV's. The least mistake can cause a patient to die. There is much paper work and reports to do in both retail and hospital settings. And it is no joke about how bad a physician's hand writing is either.

It really depends on the day whether or not it is stressful. They pretty much give advice on meds and give prescription meds out to people who have a Doctor's Prescript.

depending who you contract with. Sometimes stressful...Know your chemistry if that is what you want.