Who is a Pharmacist and Pharmacy Course in India

Who is a Pharmacist

A Pharmacist is the most easily accessible healthcare professional, who is a vital member of the healthcare system and is entrusted with multiple responsibilities ranging from inventory control to dispensing medicines to patient care. Pharmacists who works according to legal and ethical guidelines to ensure the correct and safe supply of medical products to the general public. They are involved in maintaining and improving people's health by providing advice and information as well as supplying prescription medicines. Pharmacists make important decisions in the selection of drugs, managing inventories, dispensing the right medications, right dose, right manner, right time, providing important instructions and counseling to patients about their illness and medications, and thus promote rational use of medicines.

Special skill and knowledge are required to sell & distribute medicines because any lapse can adversely affect public health. Pharmacists use their specialist knowledge to dispense drugs and advice patients about the medicines which have been prescribed. They work collaboratively with other health care professionals to devise the most appropriate drug treatment for patients. 

Registered Pharmacist and Pharmacy Act

“Registered Pharmacist” means a person whose name is for the time being entered in the register of the State in which he is for the time being residing or carrying on his profession or business of pharmacy under the Pharmacy Act, 1948. The owner of a pharmacy business to which this clause applies shall appoint a registered pharmacist to be responsible for regulations 3.3 of Pharmacy practice regulations

2015. There must be such an appointment in force at all times; otherwise the owner of the pharmacy business shall be deemed contravening the provisions of section

42 of the Pharmacy Act 1948.

One of the following qualifications and duration of studies as per section 14 of the Pharmacy Act 1948 is needed for one to be a Registered Pharmacist and to practice pharmacy in our country: 

Pharmacy Course

S. No.	Qualification	Duration of study after 10+2	Duration of training	Total no. of years of study plus training
1	Diploma in Pharmacy (D. Pharm.)	2 years	3 months	14.25 years
2	Bachelor of Pharmacy (B. Pharm.)	4 years	2 months	16.2 years
3	Doctor in Pharmacy (Pharm. D.)	5 years	1-year Hospital Internship	18 years
4	Postgraduate in Pharmacy (M. Pharm.)	4 + 2 = 6 years	2 months	18.2 years

All above-mentioned courses are approved & regulated by Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) and All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), New Delhi.

Pharmacist by WHO

As per the guidelines of WHO, Pharmacy education is a health oriented subject and requires special technical skill.  During the course of study of pharmacist, the students are given a vigorous training on all the facets of drug i.e. reading of prescription, types of dosage forms, drug formulations, uses, compatibility, in-compatibility, pharmacokinetics (what the body does to the drug), pharmacodynamics (what the drug does to the body, mechanism of action of drug), drug interactions, side effects, indication, contraindications, substitutes, storage conditions of drug formulations etc.  Such a vigorous and detailed training makes a pharmacist an expert of drugs.