Pharmacy students at uni

I was just wondering whether pharmacy students have to do a lot of physical examination of bodies? I thought pharmacy/pharmacists learn about drugs/symptoms/effects of drugs and mechanisms? I chose to do pharmacy to avoid physical examination of bodies etc that is normally done my doctors, nurses etc.

Reply 1

randomsheep11

Original post by BChillington

Hi, so I just graduated with my Pharmacy degree this summer. So we didn't have to do loads of physical assessment stuff. But throughout your education, you will have workshops and even assessments based on certain procedures including blood pressure readings, using an otoscope to check inside a patients ears - and you may be assessed on different body systems (e.g. conducting a cardiovascular/respiratory/neurological etc assessment on a "patient"). You also are very likely to get some sort of first aid training during your course.

If you're uncomfortable with being touched or touching others, the lecturers can be flexible (e.g. they usually pair up students of the same gender, you and your partner can wear shirts in the cases where viewing the patients chest would be expected, and they can even use mannequins in place of a human "patient").

Despite this though, most of the Pharmacy Practice (so not lab based) "practical" exams that you will do will mainly be to do with dispensing, medicines reconciliation, medicines optimisation, prescribing, medical history taking and differential diagnosis etc. These more involve: effective consultation skills, being able to use resources such as the BNF to find information and your own knowledge.

Hope this helps