How To Become A Pharmacist
If you are considering a career move into health care, you should learn how to become a pharmacist. The whole health care field is growing rapidly in response to a population that is simultaneously growing as well as aging. Working as a pharmacist would put you right in the center of the greatest need in health care: handling medication. 
Every year, more medications are prescribed as new drugs are invented. The world of medical science is constantly learning new ways to deal with problems that people used to simply suffer in silence. If you know how to become a pharmacist, you will be able to handle this growing need for medicine and prescription care.
How to Become a Pharmacist
The key to pharmacist training is education. It is not enough to know about the drugs that you will be dispensing. You will also have to learn how to explain their effects to people. Pharmacists also need to take care of their patients and provide back up to doctors when they think that these other medical professionals have prescribed medicine that will interact poorly with another medication that the patient is taking. There are several steps that you should follow if you want to become a pharmacist.
How to Become a Pharmacist in Six Steps
Step 1
Read about work in pharmacy and be honest with yourself about your aspirations. You may be tired of hearing from people who insist that you have to love your work. Perhaps you are mostly interested in the job security and pharmacist salary that this profession offers. However, while you certainly do not need to love your job to be content with your career decision, you should not find your job repellent or boring. If you cannot imagine putting in day after day of filling prescriptions and managing a pharmacy, then you should look for other work.
You might take this test a little further and try to get a part-time job in a pharmacy or drug store. This would allow you to get a glimpse of the work up close. You would much rather back out at this point than later on, when you are already in school or working in the field. On the other hand, this exposure to pharmacy may animate you and spur you to begin pharmacist training as soon as possible.
Step 2
Read about schools that offer doctor of pharmacy degrees (Pharm. D. degrees). If you are going to work in the United States, you will need a degree from one of these schools. This step in learning how to become a pharmacist requires you to familiarize yourself with the various prerequisites that you will have to meet in order to enter one of these schools. There are pharmacy schools in most states, but they do not cover every region of each state. You may have to move in order to attend one of these schools because they are not very widespread.
Step 3
The next step toward having a pharmacist salary is completing the educational prerequisites and applying to your chosen pharmacy school. You may have to take an exam to enter the school. This exam is known as the Pharmacy College Admission test (PCAT).
The degree in pharmacy is an advanced degree. You will be getting a doctorate in pharmacy. This will take several years. Some schools may require you to enter with a degree already acquired at another educational institution. Others may accept you right out of high school and train you through the various undergraduate and graduate studies that you will have to complete.
Step 4
Complete the program outlined by the school. This could take as long as four years.
Step 5
You may need to complete a residency program, just as doctors do. Pharmacy residences typically take one to two years to complete.
Step 6
You will have to pass an exam to become a fully licensed and independent pharmacist. These exams vary from state to state but there are several states that accept one of the following.
- The North American Pharmacy Licensure Exam (NAPLEX).
- The Multistate Pharmacy Jurisprudence Exam (MPJE).
- Foreign Pharmacy Graduate Equivalency Examination (FPGEE)
You would take that last exam if you learned how to become a pharmacist in a foreign country.
Your Pharmacist Salary
The US Department of Labor Occupational Employment Statistics recently reported that the average pharmacy salary was over $110,000 per year. This translates into more than $52 per hour. If you want to increase that pay rate, try working in mental health or substance abuse centers because they pay more on average.
If you are motivated to work in health care and you like helping people, this may be the right job for you. However, it is a long road to actually starting work in this field. Discovering how to become a pharmacist was just the first step.