How to become a pharmacist? Career paths for pharmacy graduates

2025-03-11

Pursuing a medical profession can be a really rewarding career path but it also comes with great responsibility. Are you considering pharmacy studies? Or are you a pharmacy graduate who is looking for work opportunities that go beyond filling prescriptions and dispensing medicines? Read this article to find out how to be a pharmacist, what your training pathway might be and where you can work after graduating from pharmacy studies.

Key takeaways:

To work at a pharmacy, you need to complete pharmacist education. This means that you have to obtain a master’s degree in pharmacy and do an internship at a pharmacy establishment, company or laboratory.
Your daily duties may include dispensing and monitoring the availability of medicines, verifying prescriptions, counselling patients and preparing custom medications.
To become a pharmacy technician, you don’t need a university education but you must complete relevant training. However, you won’t have all the qualifications and capacities of a pharmacist.
Pharmacy graduates can work in the pharmaceutical industry or marketing, clinical trials, medicine registration agencies, non-governmental organisations, hospitals and universities.

What does a pharmacist actually do?

Pharmacists work in pharmacies, don’t they? That’s right: most pharmacy graduates are employed at a chemist’s. Their main job is to inspect and fill prescriptions. If a medicine is not available from a given pharmacy, the pharmacist should contact pharmaceutical manufacturers or wholesalers to help the patient obtain the product. Another option is to suggest a substitute for the original medicinal product, containing the same active ingredient in the same dose. What’s more, pharmacists make custom medications, such as ointments, eye drops, suppositories, infusion fluids and dialysis fluids – such preparations are often referred to as compounded drugs.

So, what other duties do pharmacists have? They help customers choose adequate supplements, informing them about the right dosage and storage. They can also advise which medical device is the most appropriate choice in a given case (e.g. an inhaler or a blood pressure monitor). In emergency situations, pharmacists are allowed to issue special medical prescriptions. In certain cases, they can also write out prescriptions for themselves and for their closest family members. Pharmacy specialists must regularly update their knowledge and upgrade their skills by participating in courses and conferences and keeping up with the changing laws.

How to become a pharmacist

How to become a pharmacist? Education and training

The pharmacist’s education pathway is quite long and it requires determination, patience and accuracy. First, you need to graduate from a secondary school and then complete a master’s degree in pharmacy. Next, you have to do an internship at a hospital or retail pharmacy, a pharmaceutical company or a lab.

Pharmacists are expected to be responsible, diligent, empathetic and resistant to stress. If you think this description matches your profile and you are also a well-organised, self-sufficient person who always wants to learn and develop, finding a job in the pharmaceutical industry may give you not only an attractive salary but also a lot of satisfaction.

Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians

Pharmacy technicians work at pharmacies as well but they have lower qualifications and competencies. This is why they cannot perform all of the tasks that pharmacists are authorised to do.

What can you do as a pharmacy graduate?

There are multiple employment opportunities for pharmacy graduates that are not strictly related to working at a pharmacy establishment. You might find a job in a pharmaceutical company or become a university lecturer. As a researcher, you may apply for various grants and external funding. Some pharmacy graduates work for hospitals, supplying them with medical substances and devices. What other pharmacy-related options do you have? You could pursue a career in a clinical research centre, work in the field of pharmaceutical marketing or cooperate with NGOs and medicine registration agencies. If you are motivated to find a particularly high-paying job, consider applying for a position in the pharmaceutical industry. As you can see, pharmacy graduates don’t have to work at a pharmacy – there are so many other possibilities!

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SCRUBS FOR PHARMACISTS… AND MORE

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