Education Never Ends

Whoever you look at in the medical field, whether it's your pediatrician from birth or an surgeon in the hospital, we all know they have spent long hours in a school system. If not, maybe consider changing who your doctor is. Doctors go to school for years to learn everything there is about the human body, and everything they can about what the environment can do to the body. Even though pharmacists don't go quite as long as doctors, they still have a long road.

Pharmacy courses consists of organic and inorganic chemistry, biology, calculus, rhetoric, and any science classes an individual might take outside of the curriculum. A aspiring pharmacists must take two years of general educations classes, then apply for the College of Pharmacy. When accepted into the specialized school program, there are four more years of study before going into the field on your own. Also you must take two standardized tests before entering the College of Pharmacy and also exiting. From everyone I have heard from in the medical field, it is rigorous coursework but there are always ways of getting through it by studying and getting involved with others in your classes if you ever need help.

After pharmacists go into a pharmacy, lets say they are in there for 10 years after they are out of college, how do they keep up with all the new drugs and changing ways of medicine. As you flip through the TV channels next time, watch for new drugs you have never heard of to be advertised even if they are over the counter. Going into a pharmacy, there must be a lot of work outside of just scanning and distributing medication. Continuing education is crucial for the medical field. As I have researched, they must maintain some level on continuing education within a number of years. They have many options whether it is a online course, classroom course, or seminar. Also there are many different magazines that are offered that can help pharmacists with recent news in the field or any new findings that are being published or set into effect. When I worked in a daycare for a few years, we had the same type of education. We were responsible for finding any classes offered or events that would count towards our continuing education that we had to get done in one year. So in other words, I've already experienced the job of continuing education for a career.

Even though I plan on being in school for a full six years after high school, the continuing education doesn't even amount to half the work I've done throughout my life in schools. I am more than willing to take a couple hour class or seminar if that's all it takes to have the continuing education. I actually think it would be interesting finding out all the new technologies and drugs that are coming out for the future. It will be a field that never stops changing.