Some great answers here!

However having been both a pharmacist and now a physician I can tell you with 100% conviction how necessary pharmacists are.

The training around pharmaceuticals in most medical schools is pitiful- I was taught similar basic pharmacology (principles of how drugs work) that I had learned during second year pharmacy. Speaking from the average Canadian med school trainee, we're woefully over educated in embryology, anatomy, and pathology as so many curricula have remained focused on archaic mentalities. We spent at least quintuple the time looking at various slides under a microscope than we did learning about medications. Given that out of my class of 100 one person has gone on to train in pathology while the 99 others have gone into fields requiring significant drug information, it does make one wonder. It's expected we "pick this up on the job" during clinical rotations, which given how complex medications have become is overwhelming as a student.

As a pharmacist, I spent four years learning about medications and all their subtleties; because your job is to be an expert on drugs. In all honesty, I'd be surprised if most physicians know even a tenth of the useful drug-related information pharmacists do- because we're simply not taught in this depth during medical school. The amount of knowledge we need to accumulate in those four years of med school is already hugely intimidating; knowing as much about drugs as a druggist is simply impossible.

Additionally there is a massive difference in how clinical knowledge is taught. In pharmacy you are given a presumptive diagnosis, and based on this and the patient variables you decide what are the best therapeutic options. In medicine we're trained to look at a patient and their constellation of symptoms and ask, "What are the possible (aka differential) diagnoses?" It is far more important to consider all sides of the root cause of what might be ailing a patient than it is to think about not just a treatment but all the specifics a pharmacist will evaluate. Will the drug be safe with the others already prescribed? Are there drug interactions that could cause possible or likely harm? Are there disease-drug interactions? [I can't say how many times I've seen metoclopramide or other anti-dopaminergic drugs given to Parkinson's patients]! Is this the best drug for this patient given their age and their renal and hepatic function? Can the patient afford this drug? And how long should they actually stay on it- many drugs are given for years that are meant to be prescribed for a specific interval- clopidogrel, PPIs, etc.

This is what I've personally observed through my 10 plus years of combined pharmacy and medical education and experience, and I imagine it might be quite different in other places and in other's experience. But I'll be honest- I'm incredibly thankful that I did pharmacy prior to medicine because I know how much better I'm equipped to be a family physician.

I am a hospital pharmacist. Physicians do not have the time to figure out dose adjustments for renal or hepatic function. They definitely don't have time to research drug interactions. When a physician enters an order, an alert will pop up, telling him/her of the problem. They choose an option "pharmacy to evaluate". If they tried to do my job, then they would see less patients, which decreases revenue.

I work in oncology, where the physicians know their stuff. I still recheck their chemotherapy calculations, because everyone can make a mistake. Believe me, physicians are glad there are pharmacists.

I wasn’t aware that pharmacists actually “make” medicines. I thought that the medicines were manufactured in factories scattered around the world. The pharmacist simply counts out the pills and puts them on the bottles (I believe that is what happens in N America). In the UK the tablets/ capsules are prepacked in sealed foil strips.

But all drugs actually have 3 names.

1. Trade/brand names. e.g. Viagara, Revatio
2. Generic name: sildenafil citrate
3. Chemical name: pyrazolo[4,3-d]pyrimidin-7-one having a methyl substituent at the 1-position, a propyl substituent at the 3-position and a 2-ethoxy-5-[(4-methylpiperazin-1-yl)sulfonyl]phenyl group at the 5-position
   
   
   So actually the “chemical” name is probably not on the pack. The generic name is put on because many drugs have a number of different brand names, but the one thing they have in common is the generic name.

One common misconception about health insurance is that it is expensive because of high profit margins. In fact, health insurance profit margins, on a percentage basis, are low, usually in the 2 to 5% range, and MUCH lower than profit margins of pharmaceutical companies.

There ar many reasons for this, but one reason is that an insurer’s or health plan’s success is not based on maximizing your profit percentage. High profit margins will make your premiums higher than they should be, and if an insurer’s premiums are higher than competitive premiums, their business will be in trouble. Success depends on having lots of business, which depends on having lower premiums than the next guy.

Lower health insurance premiums are not a bad thing. They are good for consumers and good for the economy. But how do you get them? In the bad old pre-Obamacare days, insurers could make money by refusing to cover people who had been sick in the past or by offering coverage plans that offered inadequate protection. That is now not an option (but watch out for some current efforts to evade these protections, like short-term coverage plans).

The best way to get lower cost premiums is to try to get patients and doctors to avoid wasteful or unnecessary care. If a treatment is efficient and effective, it will save money in the long run, so just saying “no” to needed care is a bad idea.

Drug costs are a big part of the total cost of health care and therefore of your insurance premium. The cost of drugs has been rising much faster than inflation. Insurers have found a few different ways to deal with this.

In some cases, fir example, two drugs that do the exact same thing medically and biologically have much different prices. As a result, most health insurance will charge a lower copay for generic drugs (which have the same effective ingredients as more expensive branded drugs). If the insurer’s pharmacy benefit manager can get a better discount on drug Brand X than on drug Brand Y, they will charge a lower copay for Brand X. Likewise, if a certain drug chain will fill prescriptions for a lower price, the insurer may give them preference (or leave a higher priced pharmacy out of the network altogether).

For most people, these actions will lower costs but still provide excellent coverage. In rare cases, someone may have an allergy to a dye or filler in a generic drug or specific drug, or other unusual problem. In those cases, it may be worth paying a higher copay for a specific drug.

Insurers also may have other measures to control drug costs, like requirements that a patient try less expensive treatments first, before going to higher cost medications. It is often possible for a doctor to get an exception to these rules where medically necessary.

As at least one other answer points out, insurers don’t tell doctors what to prescribe or not prescribe,and don’t tell consumers that they can’t go to a specific pharmacy. If you are willing to pay for the drug out of your own picket, you can do as you please. In almost every case, though, an Obamacare-compliant health plan will offer a covered medication that will meet your needs. There are many big problems and challenges with health insurance, to be sure, but we’ll have to save them for another question and answer.

Well it may be simple in your country to read a doctor’s order and fill it and send the patient on their way with no responsibility for the patient’s health, but here in the USA the pharmacist must have a great depth of knowledge in order to ascertain if the prescription 1) has been written correctly 2) there are no interactions with the other drugs the patient might be on, 3) there are no health issues the patient might have which will be worsened by taking the prescribed drug. In one single day I probably save 4 to 5 patients from harm or death. That is NOT an exaggeration. If a patient gets harmed or dies from a prescription in the USA the courts say “you did not catch the fact that this patient has low kidney function? You can easily see that from the other drugs he’s taking. It is a well known fact that the drug you gave him needs high kidney function…. you are paid to know this… you and the prescriber are responsible for the patients death”.

So…. if your child, parent, friend…. or you go you your little uneducated pharmacy clerk with an order from the doctor I assume they just take your money, hand it over and say “good luck”. When your child, parent, friend drops dead because it was mis-prescribed I assume the uneducated drug seller bears no responsibility whatsoever….

Take these examples to your “pharmacy” and ask them what the problems with these orders are. These are actual orders I have received and have had to phone the prescriber who said “oooops…. you just saved a patient from serious harm, thank you”. Remember … what might kill your father might cure you…. in each of these cases I looked at the prescription and said “I need to know more before I can fill this with confidence” so I either talked directly with the prescriber or the patient. Also remember: all of the examples below could be helpful in certain cases, harmful in others.

Patient 1: Birthday 15January1930 Triamcinolone 0.5% ointment apply 3 times daily to rash

Patient 2: Birthday 15January1960 Oxycodone 30mg ER Tab take 1 tablet 4 times daily for breakthrough pain.

Patient 3: Birthday 15May1940 Ciprofloxin 500mg take 2 tablets twice a day for 10 days for infection

Patient 4: B’day 10June1980 Ciprofloxin 100mg twice a day for 7 days for infection.

Patient 5: 10July1941 Gabapentin 600mg three times daily for pain.

How about some Augmentin for someone with a penicillin allergy? The dentist was clueless. The drug was not dispensed. Maybe some Bleph 10 eye drops for someone with a sulfa allergy? Sorry you’re now blind….. the emergency room doc didn’t know…. but I caught it and saved her eyes.

These examples passed me just last week. There is no way in hell that a person without a depth of medical and pharmaceutical knowledge would have seen reason to question these prescriptions (except for one obvious one) because they all look fine on the surface and can, indeed be prescribed as such.

I could go on and on….. but I won’t. I will finish with this: Many, many, MANY people have escaped harm and death because a pharmacist…. with 7 years of education…. intervened and said “no… I will not dispense this order as it is written”.

Pharmacists and pharmacies serve two purposes:
1. Dispensing prescriptions
2. Clinical (ie: non-dispensing) work

Pharmacists are medication experts. The clinical aspect of a pharmacist's job is generally thankless work. We're making sure that different medications don't interact, or whether the doses need to be adjusted based on kidney function. Unfortunately, this type of work is often seen as "why is it taking so long to fill my prescription?" and is likely a by-product of putting pharmacies in places like grocery stores, Wal-Mart, etc. I digress.. I've met some brilliant doctors, some who know what they prescribe as well or better than a pharmacist would. However, it is not unreasonable to say that the average pharmacist knows much more about drugs than the average doctor. I wouldn't feel very good about health care in a system where a pharmacy couldn't act as a gatekeeper between patients and harmful drug interactions.

As a pharmacist myself, I can tell you that there's much more to operating a dispensary than printing a label and counting pills. Managing a pharmacy means requires a great deal of regulatory compliance (eg: record keeping, accountability for controlled substances), dealing with insurance companies and suppliers, finding drugs when they are short from the manufacturer, among many other time-consuming duties. Even the most efficient pharmacies can be overwhelmed with work most days of the week and they require a great deal of trained, experienced staff to operate well. Putting this burden on to the doctor wouldn't be fair.

Finally, there is an ethical issue regarding doctor's earning a profit from the products he/she prescribes. How would you feel if you learned that your doctor was prescribing you Drug B for no other reason than a higher profit margin compared to the safer, and more effective Drug A?

I will concede that pharmacists don't know very much about diagnosis. That's where the doctors are essential - let's keep it that way!

Actually some can. It depends on the jurisdiction and the pharmacist’s personal competencies.

Pharmacists frequently don’t have the required knowledge and skill set to be able to diagnose and treat disease. It’s just not part of their training. They are very knowledgeable when it comes to the effects of medication and medication safety, but diagnosis requires a different skill set.

Let me give you an analogy. I’m a nurse. I’m trained to provide patient care. When it comes to medications, I’m required to know what the medication is, why it’s being given, what the safe dose is, any potential side effects, required patient teaching, interactions, cautions, and contraindications. But I’m not an expert at prescribing. For the most part, I couldn’t tell you why a doctor would prescribe a beta blocker and not a calcium channel blocker, or this statin and not that one. It just isn’t part of my training.

I used to joke with people that I was trained to read minds!

The facts are:

Pharmacists are sometimes reluctant to bother prescribers.

Physicians write in Martian

Patient safety and well being are DEPENDENT on the Pharmacist getting it RIGHT.

IF a Pharmacist has ANY DOUBT, he or she SHOULD call the precriber!

One of my earliest experiences in Pharmacy vividly emphasized this point and made a lifelong impression on me. I was a clerk/delivery boy in a Manhattan Pharmacy. A mother came in and told the owner (a Pharmacist) that her son still had fever and was sleeping virtually around the clock after a few days on a prescription med filled in that store. The owner retrieved the original handwritten Rx. I saw it. It was ILLEGIBLE! The owner looked at doses remaining in the vial to see how the Rx had been filled by one of his employee Pharmacists. He then called the doctor. The employee Pharmacist had filled an ILLEGIBLE Rx for an antibiotic with a SEDATIVE. The owner FIRED that employee on the spot!

I think that’s a great idea, but remember that many drugs have crazy names and terribly odd spellings.

To be sure you’re going to get the correct medicine, I’d ask the doctor to spell out the name of the drug and write down the milligram dose. Also ask the doc to include how often you should take the medication and for how many days. You could then take that piece of paper to any pharmacy you choose and buy your medicine. It kinda sounds like a traditional prescription, doesn’t it?

Or maybe you’re asking if the doctor wouldn’t mind writing down just the name of a medication that they determine to be the proper treatment for you. The doc would then expect you to chose the mg dose, number of pills/capsules/injections per day, and the duration of such treatments? We call that a prescription. I have a better idea for this age of internet knowledge.

Let’s make all medications available to all persons, without the requirement of a prescription. Just consult with Dr. Google, your online friends, or your favorite blog.

Sarcasm aside, I really do favor this approach. People don’t value expertise as they once did, since everyone is an expert now. If all medications were available over-the-counter, patients would take full responsibility for their health and they would value the medical opinions they would eventually seek.

Essentially, the role of the pharmacist is to take the medication orders from a physician, to check them to make sure that there are no mistakes or errors in the order, to check for drug interactions or drug disease state interactions twin sure that the medication provided does not cause adverse reactions for the patient. Also of primary concern is to ensure the patient understands how to take the medication properly, to help them understand the signs and symptoms of the medication not working appropriately. And, in general, to make themselves available to answer any questions or concerns the patient has about the medications provided. To a lesser degree other services we provide are immunizations, to answer Dr. questions, to keep medical records on everything provided… So that if a Nother physician assumes primary care, they can contact us and find out what the patient has been taking. One of the most difficult aspects of any pharmacy is billing of insurance. Billing of insurance is no easy task, and I believe almost any person to never worked in the pharmacy field, would be quite surprised how difficult it is to work with insurance companies to get medications covered

Another aspect of a pharmacist work that often goes relatively unnoticed, pharmacist make themselves available to answer medical questions over the telephone. And also make ourselves available to answer questions in person and or to help a patient select over-the-counter products.

That is the primary work of a pharmacist, but there are many other smaller details such as ensuring that all the medications provided are safe, and have been stored properly under the correct temperature. We ensure that all the medications are within the dispensing date and no medication has expired. If there are any drug recalls we are responsible for checking the lot numbers, so that recalled medication does not get dispensed. And we document everything we do in the pharmacy, so that anyone coming even two or three years later and tell exactly what was provided for the patient at what time… Something that comes into play often when people are hospitalized, and the hospital has no records of the patient's medical history.

Why have health insurance companies started dictating which medications our doctors can prescribe, and at which pharmacy the patients must buy their medications?

False premise.

Anyone who has the proper licensure to prescribe medications may prescribe whatever medication they want. The insurance company has no influence on this. Any pharmacy that has the proper licensure to dispense prescription medications may dispense whatever medication they want.

Health insurance companies will make a mutual decision with doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and pharmacists on which medications will be covered, which doctors will be covered, and which pharmacies will be covered. This is based on things like payout from the company, the risk of abuse of a medication, and whether the drug is approved for the purpose for which it is being prescribed.

You are more than welcome to pay out of pocket for any drugs, doctors, and medical services that you want.

An ordinary person can indeed sit at the pharmacy, but would you trust your health and life to that person? one of the reasons why people are told to go to one pharmacy for the core of their care is so that the pharmacist can easily catch errors, overdosage, interactions etc. With the way healthcare is segmented, it's not hard to see 5 or even more specialists , with one hand not knowing what the other is doing. The checks and balances remain with the pharmacist who can see across the board and make adjustments with the necessary physicians etc. There may someone sitting there handing out the meds at the pharmacy, but l bet there is a pharmacist in the back supervising everything. On that note, l do agree that 6 years is insane for a pharmacy education. Even when l was in school, l always thought 3–4 years was more than enough. The first 2 years is just fluff, but l did enjoy those sociology and art appreciation classes as it has fueled my love for impressionists, but did l need them to be a pharmacist? That answer would be no.

Yes. Pharmacists studied how medications work, how they interact, their side effects, etc, in pharmacy school. If they forget any of it, they can easily look it up and refresh their minds, just like you may temporarily forget how many inches are in a foot or something. Occasionally a new drug comes out that they never learned about, and they have to learn about that new one. I recall one new drug for diabetes coming out and my pharmacist friend was curious about it. It took him about a minute to understand how it worked. I assume it took him a little longer to learn interactions and side effects, but learning these things is exactly what their job is about, so I suspect it is pretty easy for them to learn 1 new drug every now and then.

Because:

1. Patients do not want to spend money on consultation of a proper doctor.
2. Most people have no knowledge about any facet of medicine, even the literate people have no knowledge. They classify medicine like Headache medicine, body ache medicine, back ache medicine, Mosans medicine, vamiting medicine etc. They think if we can just get the medicine for what I am having why waste money on doctor.
3. The medical store people have nothing to lose by dispensing medicine. Infact if they don't they lose a customer.
4. There is no clear requirement for prescription, even if there was the laws are lax.
5. Actually things seem to be getting better with some of the medical store people not giving some medications without prescription.

Saw a patient with Hypothyroidism. Outside doc gave 100 ugm Eltroxin.

Pharmacist dispensed 100 mg Eptoin.

Both come in bottles of 120 tabs.

Thank God, we found out.

It's like trying to fly a plane without knowing how to land! It's a recipe for disaster!

You might end up with a pill-pocalypse of epic proportions, with side effects that rival a blockbuster movie.

From spontaneous disco dancing to a sudden urge to adopt a herd of llamas, who knows what could happen?

So, let's keep it safe and legal, folks. Leave the prescription pad shenanigans to the pros and avoid becoming a cautionary tale in the annals of "Pharmacy Fails."

Obtaining medication without a valid prescription from an authorized healthcare provider can be dangerous and may result in serious health risks.

Taking medications without appropriate medical supervision can lead to potential risks, such as adverse drug interactions, incorrect dosages, allergies, and other health complications. Medications are powerful substances that can have significant effects on the body, and they should be used only as prescribed by a qualified healthcare professional who has taken into consideration an individual's specific medical history, condition, and other relevant factors.

PS: Always prioritize your health and safety by seeking professional medical guidance and following appropriate protocols for obtaining medications.

Pharmacies (Medical store) must have a Registerd pharmacist as a staff, number of pharmacist vary depending on areas of medical store/ dispensing area of medical store, but to open a retail pharmacy/medical minimum one registered pharmacist must have without pharmacist you can not get the license to open a medical store.

Pharmacist are the one who knows the basics of medicine which is written by the doctors, they can direct/ advice the patients to take medication in properly, even they can consider as last check point in terms of patients safety as they can find any thing wrong in the prescription then redirect the patients to the doctors.

Pharmacist are directly dealing with patients after doctors they know what effect are going to happen after the medication consumed, so they exactly know how to make patients comfortable.

They should not have any unusual facial expression while dispensing the medication to the patient, which give any discomfort to the patients, because so many time its necessary to make patients unaware about their critical conditions and their psychological factors will play important role in treatment.

They are the one who knows medicine physical storage condition, which medicine store at which place. I mean at what temperature. If storage conditions are not according to medication than it may lose their effect.

Lots more reasons are there to appoint pharmacist at pharmacy.

Dispensing medication is not a simple job as delivery medication its very responsible job as you are dealing with life of patients. Any mistakes/wrong can be dangerous to any one life.

I hope you may understand the necessity of pharmacist at pharmacy.

You can comment your suggestion.

Keeping ‘secrets’ gives economic as well as competitive advantage to the doctors, among other benefits.

In India, prescription laws are virtually non-existent at the level of medical stores. Antibiotics, pain-killers, etc. can be purchased without having a valid prescription. According to rule, you would need a valid prescription to purchase even Combiflam, Voveran, Sinarest, antibiotics(amoxicillin, azithromycin, cefexime, etc.)

Why it makes economic sense to the doctor?

Patient has to come to the doctor and pay his fees every time he is ill. This way, doctor earns money without much fresh work, he just repeats a few pills and earns cash! If the same medicine is prescribed on a piece of paper and handed over to the patient, the patient will never come to the doctor and instead purchase the medicine directly from the medical store. Not just for him, but his whole family will purchase the same medicine in future. Thus, doctor loses opportunity to make money!

Why it gives competitive advantage to the doctor?

Only the doctor which medicine he used to treat your ailment. This way, you are ‘locked’ to this specific doctor whose medicine suits you. That way, any new doctor would not be able to snatch away the patient(“customer”) from the old doctor!

Other advantages: Prevents unsupervised use medicines

Patients often feel that they should be helpful to other patients. So whenever somebody close to them(family, friends) falls ill, the person starts advising medication without opinion of doctor? “Ex: Oh you have stomach ache, just take one XYZ tablet!” This is dangerous as most of the drugs can be dangerous if taken without doctors advice. Also, you need a fresh prescription(current dated prescription) to purchase new stock of medicines. You cannot use your 3 years old prescription to purchase a 7 days course of antibiotics(and chemists usually ignore this issue)! So when you purchase new stock of medicines on old prescription or without a prescription, it is unlawful.

Can you force the doctor to disclose the names of the medicines?

No. The doctor always has a legal right to choose to not serve a patient. The doctor is not under compulsion to serve you. The doctor can simply say “Please FO if you don’t agree to my terms and condition of treatment”.

Can you do anything about it, like complaining to the medical council?

Yes, you can complain. But its extremely difficult to succeed.

And above all remember that doctors are also small but smart businessmen and they work collectively like a ‘cartel’ to secure their collective rights! In all reality, no doctor will every assist you in filing any complaint about other doctor on such issue. Accept it. Deal with it!

There’s a combination of things that make it easier for a pharmacist to read. For one, there’s kind of a shorthand that pharmacists and doctors use that non medical people wouldn’t know.

Another is that we know what the drugs are called so that helps us make an educated guess on what name we’re reading. We also know the way they’re usually taken. So if we can figure out the directions, we can make an educated guess on what is being prescribed, if we can tell what’s being prescribed, we can make an educated guess on the directions.

Sometimes doctors won’t even really put directions because they know the pharmacist will know what the directions are, or they leave out things like quantity because they know the pharmacist can calculate the necessary dispensing quantity. On top of that we can see what a patient has gotten before and make an educated guess on what we’re reading.

Also you just get better at reading sloppy handwriting.

If all of that fails we can call the doctor’s office and ask what the prescription is written for.

Pharmacy grow krne ke liye bhut sari chizon ko nazar main rakhna padta hai tab ap pharmacy grow ker skte ho.

1. Site - site bhot important thing hai pharmacy grow krne ke liye.
2. Shop
3. Population of area where you start a pharmacy store.
4. How many store situated in this area.
5. Kitne store hai site per. Or kitne time se run ho rahe hai.
6. Baki jo store hai unper kitna kam hota hai roz. Unki sale kitni hai.
7. Waha ke log kitne favour main hai apke or jo phle se hai unke b.
8. Uske bad shop apko kis jagah mil rahi hai.like sab se front main hai ya fir back side main hai.
9. Waha kitne stockist ate hai medicine ki supply proper hai ya apko khud jana padega lane kahi dur se.
10. Apki investment kitni hai
11. Apko experience kitna hai
12. Apka bat kerne ka tarika kesa hai. Polite ya aggressive.
13. Or bhi bhut sare points hai but ye jo bhi mene btaye ye sabse important points hai 1 pharmacy run kerne ke liye or usko grow kerne ke liye.

Yes and yes.

You can assist prescribers and pharmacists with their duty by prompting them to counsel you. I recommend Indian Health Service's Ask Me 3

1. What is my main problem?
2. What do I need to do?
3. Why is it important for me to do this?

But some of the best prescribers and pharmacists will also ask you to tell them what the medicine is for.

This is called the teach-back method

If we failed to tell you something important, or if we did not explain well, then these deficits will be revealed by asking you to explain to us in your own words the purpose of the medication, how it is supposed to work, possible problems to watch out for, and when to contact us for help.

As a pharmacist in the Indian Health Service, I used the Three Prime Questions

1. What did your doctor tell you about this medication?
2. How did your doctor tell you to take the medication?
3. What did your doctor tell you to expect?

Then I could fill in any knowledge gaps with some targeted teaching.

In IHS most pharmacists have full access to the health and visit records, so already know what the medication is for before they speak to the patient. But it is still important to know what the patient thinks it is for. When there is a big mismatch in expectations, this can identity errors such as drug prescribed for wrong patient.

Similarly, in retail pharmacy and other settings it is, important for the pharmacist to know why the medication was prescribed in order to provide correct education.

If we receive a prescription for propranolol and it does not specify why, then we don't know whether it is for

• high blood pressure
• abnormal heart rate due to atrial fibrillation
• symptoms of opiate withdrawal
• performance anxiety
• prevention of esophageal varices

Or something else! How can we give you good education if we don't know what is being treated? How do we know if an appropriate dose is ordered? If the prescription didn't say, we should ask you.

Thanks to some Quora robot thing for the A2A! I feel smart when artificial intelligences demand my input.

Footnotes

Medicinal Chemistry is the study of how the chemical structure of a drug molecule affects the activity of that drug in the body. Just by this definition, one can see that a pharmacist would have the potential to participate in such research or applications to drug therapy.

However, different colleges of pharmacy put emphasis on different subjects based on the faculty's view of what is important in pharmacy practice. Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science included some Medicinal Chemistry in our Pharmacology (the study of how drugs work) and Pharmacotherapy (the cumulative study of how various aspects of a drug affect a patient's medication therapy) classes. From my viewpoint, I probably know just enough Medicinal Chemistry to understand why certain drugs do what they do and be able to explain basic ideas to others. That is enough for daily practical application for most pharmacists. Other colleges of pharmacy provide a more in depth course in Medicinal Chemistry (as described in another answer) because the faculty there believe it will be helpful to future pharmacists. That could be for a better understanding of pharmacology or because a significant number of students who attend those colleges want to pursue a career in research. Since pharmacists from different colleges study different topics with different emphasis, I conclude that different pharmacists can use Medicinal Chemistry skills at different levels.

If you want to pursue a career in Medicinal Chemistry in research, you will need to get a PhD in the subject to be prepared. If you want to make Medicinal Chemistry a strong skill in your future pharmacy practice, find a college where there are specific courses given in the subject. One can be a successful pharmacist with integrated information like I received, but I would not say that I can do any more than dabble in Medicinal Chemistry.

-With rare exceptions, doctors don’t sell medicines, they write presciptions. They don’t derive any direct personal benefit there.

-Kickbacks from drug companies are illegal, and days of companies bribing MDs with expensive junkets are largely gone. Even free samples are much more restricted than they used to be.

-If you want medicines to exist, someone has to synthesize and sell them. IE what the heck is “wrong” with pharmaceutical companies?

-If you mean “sell” as in “work as salesperson for”, very few MDs do that, but there are those that do. Answer is because MD speaks the language of medicine and is probably the most qualified individual to convey risk/benefits/use cases of new medications to other MDs.

Why should this NOT be legal?