I want to become a pharmacist

What Do I Do?

This is a very broad question that I get all the time. It depends where you are on your education. I will start from those age groups that just graduated high school or have graduated high school in the last few years (17-20 years old). First you need to decide which school is your choice of interest. Are you willing to mover out of state or not. Every school's requirement is different depending on their program.

Use this website to find pharmacy school in U.S.
http://www.aacp.org/resources/student/pages/schoollocator.aspx

After you have looked at their requirement try to write yourself a list of classes you want to take per semester to cover pharmacy school's requirements. Usually you should be taking 2 difficult classes and one easier class per semester (Chemistry, Math, History).

Don't hesitate to send your questions to info@tatitati.org and I will respond to them here on my blog.

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Best wishes

To Be Continued...

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Physician-pharmacist teams may help increase hypertension control.

Physician-pharmacist teams may help increase hypertension control.

HealthDay (11/23, Edelson) reported that, according to a study published in the Nov. 23 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, hypertension "is better controlled by doctor-pharmacist teams working hand-in-hand than by doctors and pharmacists working alone." Researchers from the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy divided "402 people treated for high blood pressure at six clinics...into two groups."

Medscape (11/23, Barclay, subscription required) reported that patients at "three clinics were randomly assigned to a control group," while patients at the other three "clinics were randomly assigned to an intervention group in which physicians and pharmacists underwent team-building exercises." Next, "using national guidelines, clinical pharmacists made drug therapy recommendations to physicians in the intervention group." The investigators discovered that "in the control group, mean guideline adherence scores increased from 49.4 ± 19.3 at baseline to 53.4 ± 18.1 at six months (8.1% increase), compared with a 55.4% increase in the intervention group (from 40.4 ± 22.6 at baseline to 62.8 ± 13.5 at six months)."

MedPage Today (11/23, Phend) reported, "These results suggest that clinics and health systems with clinical pharmacists consider giving them a more direct role in patient management," the authors said. An editorial accompanying the study pointed out that "so far, the medical home model for chronic conditions such as hypertension typically hasn't included a pharmacist," but "before the medical home" concept "takes further root, comprehensive efforts should be made to ensure that pharmacists are included on the team because of the mounting evidence for their contribution to quality of care."

FDA

FDA approves Crestor for younger patients with familial hypercholesterolemia.The AP (10/16) reported that "the Food and Drug Administration approved AstraZeneca PLC's cholesterol drug Crestor [rosuvastatin] for use by children and teenagers with a genetic disease" called heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. The condition "affects 10 million people worldwide, and causes high levels of...LDL cholesterol." HeartWire (10/16, O'Riordan) reported that "the approval is based on data from the Pediatric Lipid Reduction Trial of Rosuvastatin (PLUTO), a 12-week randomized, controlled trial that examined the safety and efficacy of rosuvastatin in 177 pediatric familial hypercholesterolemia patients."

Technology

Number of people using Internet to research drug information doubles.

Healthcare IT News (10/2, Monegain) reported, "Since 2005, the number of patients using the Internet to research prescription drug information has doubled to 102.3 million, according to a new study from Manhattan Research." The survey of 8,600 adults "during the third quarter of this year" also "found that the major theme of the digital health landscape over the past four years is the increasing diversity of the overall patient media mix." In addition, health-related "social media, in particular, has flourished in recent years with the increased popularity of online patient communities, social networking and health 2.0 applications."