Independent Community Pharmacist

The role of the pharmacist has drastically changed and increased over the years. What use to be one or two avenues of choice has grown to include multiple avenues for pharmacists. When searching for the right career path in pharmacy, one must take many things into consideration. One should have an idea of which various avenues of pharmacy they like and compare them. If they have no idea what they have interest in, then they should try taking a few surveys. These surveys will help guide them into an avenue of interest. One should consider how much interaction with their patients they prefer. They should know the amount of pay being offered, and they might also want to know what their schedule would look like. Is this career avenue flexible or

An independent pharmacy can be a single pharmacy or a chain of pharmacies owned by a group or an individual. The roles can be highly variable when in an independent community pharmacy. The pharmacist generally has a much bigger role than that of outpatient hospital pharmacists. They often have direct communication with the owners. They must also have good rapport and communication with their staff as well as within the community. Being an independent community pharmacist is usually lots of hard work and very time consuming. They also have more interaction with merchandising and marketing. According to Schommers Evaluation Pathway Program Survey (2012), 24% of pharmacists surveyed earned $80,000-$100,000 with 46% surveyed earning less than $100,000 and 23% of the pharmacists surveyed earned between $100,000-$120,000 and 26% earned higher than $120,000. Forty-one hours was the average amount of hours worked per week (pg. 2). The student noted that there was a correlation between her wanting to impact patients in a meaningful way and seeing that was the most appealing aspect of being an independent community pharmacist. The most common concerns with independent pharmacists was insurance and billing issues (pg.