According to the statistics, more than 217,000 pharmacists are holding jobs in the United States. Pharmacists can be easily seen at local pharmacies, but not many people know what kind of works they do, what level of education is needed, or how much they earn. Actually, pharmacists do more than just sorting drugs and selling them to local customers.
             Pharmacists?jobs differ depending on where they are employed. The most general works of pharmacists are to dispense drugs according to prescriptions by physicians and other healthcare workers. However, they also answer to patients?questions about different kinds of drugs, advise on nonprescription products, and supervise patients'medication histories and current condition so that they can avoid duplicate drugs or arrangements of drugs that can occasion side effects.
             Other pharmacists who work for different kinds of employment, such as hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers, government agencies, or schools of pharmacy have very different jobs than retail store pharmacists. Some of the duties they carry out are as following: mixing and researching on different kinds of medicines, keeping records of patients, supervising other pharmacists, buying and selling of supplies, arranging ingredients that make up tablets, capsules, ointments, solutions, or other forms, advertising products, inspecting all the medical firms using drugs, and even testing the effect of drugs.
             To become a pharmacist, the degree Doctor of Pharmacy is required from a school accredited by the American Council on Pharmaceutical Education. As high school students, they are recommended to take Math and science classes, including Biology, Physics, and Chemistry, and also English and foreign language(s) to communicate with consumers with diverse linguistic backgrounds. Once they get into college, they will take two years of pre-pharmacy classes in a general college setting. Then, they will apply to a school of pharmac...