Pharmacy scope in India

In India, more students are moving towards the pharmacy course after completing their 12th class. Before choosing this course, many students are worried about the scope of the pharmacy in India.

Students may take admission in D. pharmacy (diploma in pharmacy) or B.pharmacy ( bachelor in pharmacy) after completing their 12th from science stream.

Here we will discuss the scope of pharmacy in India and the fields where a pharmacist can work.

Scope of pharmacy in India

Here we will discuss the top 7 fields of work where a pharmacist can go after completing their pharmacy course.

1. Production

After doing the pharmacy course, one can start doing work in the production department in any pharmaceutical industry.

Pharmaceutical companies usually need pharmacists who can properly do the production of pharmaceutical products.

If you are a fresher, then you will get a low pay scale in production as compared to marketing. but when you gain experience in the production field, you will get highly paid.

Pros and cons of doing the job in production

Pros:

• You will have a 9-5 job with weekly offs.
• You are not going to have any work pressure as compared to the pressure of sales in marketing.
• You will not need any good communication skills or presentation skills. all you need is good pharmacy skills

Cons:

In the initial stage, you will get low paid as compared to other fields.

2. Dispensing

Most of the people like to do a job in the hospital after doing B. Pharmacy or D. pharmacy. The main work of the pharmacist in the hospital in India is to dispense medicine by reading the prescription by the doctor.

You can also do the dispensing job in other retail chain pharmacies like “Apollo pharmacy” or any other retail medical store.

The pharmacist has a lot of responsibilities on their shoulders while doing the job in hospital pharmacy or other retail chain pharmacies, Pharmacist has to take care of whole inventory, keeping the stocks of particular medicines, make a list of expired medicines and much more.

In some places, even Invoices of the dispensed medicines is also made by the pharmacists.

For doing a job in a hospital pharmacy or retail pharmacy, you must have a great knowledge of the pharmaceutical products and various brands. A patient can ask you anything about the medicine and you can not tell them that you do not know about this medicine. you must have to tell the patient about the particular medicine.

Pros and cons of doing the job in dispensing

Pros:

• You will get to know a lot about drugs and various brands.
• You are going to develop good management skills in you.
• Your communication skills will improve.

Cons:

In most of the hospitals, the pharmacies are open 24/7, so most of the time you will have to work in night shifts too. which is not suitable for the female pharmacists.

3. Sales and marketing

You can start doing the marketing of medicines for pharmaceutical companies, The marketing of medicines is usually done by the pharmacists.

You can do a job as a “Medical representative” after doing Pharmacy. The main work of this job profile is that you have to visit doctors, chemists and tell them about the products of your company in order to generate a prescription of particular medicines.

After completing the given target of sales by the company, you will get a lot of incentives.

The job of “Medical representative” is usually a field job. If you like to do travel, then this job is for you.

You will get a good pay scale as compared to other fields of work, even if you are fresher.

There is one more marketing job that a pharmacist can do is online marketing. There are many pharmaceutical companies that require pharmacists to do marketing of their products online.

The online marketing of medicines is usually done at some offices of the respective companies. this is basically a desk job.

Pros and cons of marketing job

Pros:

• You will get a good pay scale, even if you are a fresher
• If traveling is your hobby, then you will enjoy doing the job.
• The working hours are usually less as compared to other 9-5 type jobs.

Cons:

• You are going to have sales pressure in this job.
• You will have to complete the targets as given by the company.
• As this is a field job, you have to do work in any weather.

4. Teaching

If your passion is teaching, then you can also do a job as a teacher in colleges or universities.

You can only do a job as a teacher after completing at least a Master’s in pharmacy. You can not go to the teaching profession by just doing B. Pharmacy or D. Pharmacy.

So if you really want to go to the teaching profession, you should go for Masters in pharmacy.

5. Open Your own retail or wholesale store

You can start your own drug store after doing B. Pharmacy or D. Pharmacy. One must need a pharmacy registration to apply for the license to run a retail or wholesale store.

Once you have done the diploma or bachelor in pharmacy, You will get the pharmacy registration from the state pharmacy council. and then you can apply for the license to run the retail or wholesale store.

If you don’t want to do a job under someone, then you can easily open a medical or wholesale store after doing a pharmacy course.

Pros and cons of starting a medical store:

Pros:

• You will be your own boss.
• You will do work as per your choice.

Cons:

If you are financially weak, then it is tough for you to start a retail or wholesale store.

As all of us know that doing business is a matter of risk. You should only start a medical store if you are capable to accept the risk.

6. Online pharmacy

Nowadays, Online pharmacies are in trend. Patients get their medicine delivered at their doorstep with a good discount By these online pharmacies.

Online pharmacies also need pharmacists to do the whole process, There is a lot of work that pharmacists can do in online pharmacies like reading the prescription by the patients, To interact with patient on call or message, a quality check of the medicines that are going to be delivered, Maintaining the inventory and other things.

There are a lot of job opportunities for pharmacists in online pharmacy and as well as these online pharmacies offer a good pay scale to the pharmacists.

7. Research

Students can go to the research field only after doing at least M. pharmacy. Before entering in research filed, a student must have great knowledge about the existing molecules,

In research, the main work is that to research new and better molecules, one can not able to research new molecules until he or she is properly aware of the existing molecules or products.

Summary

There is a lot of fields where pharmacists can work after completing their respective pharmacy courses, Although there is a lot of work fields for pharmacists to do the job, still most of the pharmacist are not happy with their profession.

In India, if we see the medical stores, then around 60-70% of them are run by non- pharmacists, This is just because of the trend of renting the pharmacy registration in India. Pharmacists rent their registration to the non-professionals to run the medical store.

Even in sales and marketing, the pharmacist’s jobs are replaced by other professions. companies are hiring people from other professions to market their products.

But if being a pharmacist is your passion, then you should ignore these corrupted things that happen in society and you just need to do is to work hard. Then you will surely get a good job in your desired field.