5 Pharmacy Careers to Consider: Where a Pharmacy Degree Can Take You

1. Hospital pharmacy

Looking for a role that will draw equally on your scientific and people skills? Hospital pharmacists are part of multidisciplinary clinical care teams who work together to support patient health.

One of the major benefits of a hospital pharmacy career is that you can specialise in your area of clinical interest, whether that’s emergency medicine, oncology or general practice (to name a few). Another is that hospital pharmacists are also increasingly involved with what’s called partnered pharmacist medication charting or prescribing, where they work in collaboration with doctors to develop a medicine plan and chart medications.

And, if you’re passionate about supporting human health, this branch of pharmacy is full of opportunities to engage deeply with patient care.  

2. General practice pharmacy

General practice (GP) pharmacy sits somewhere between community pharmacy and hospital pharmacy—like community pharmacists, GP pharmacists work in a community setting and can help patients to manage their medication and respond to medicine-related queries from staff; like hospital pharmacists, the work they do is delivered as part of a collaborative clinical team.

From a pharmacy perspective, this can include conducting medication reviews and clinical audits, providing medication advice to patients, getting involved in health promotion and quality assurance activities, and delivering medication training and education to other practice staff. GP settings often provide a regular schedule and excellent work-life balance, as well as the opportunity work with patients from all walks of life.  

3. Aged care pharmacy

While pharmacists have long been regular visitors to aged care facilities, the Australian Government last year announced funding for on-site pharmacist roles in residential aged care homes—and who better to take on the job than the medication experts themselves?

Aged care pharmacy presents a unique opportunity to apply your compassion and clinical skills to support older people to live well. Similar to the GP setting, it has a focus on limited prescribing, vaccination programs, medication reviews, and educating residents and staff on medication safety, with added opportunities to sit on medication committees in partnership with other clinicians.

The cherry on top? Because you’ll be working in a long-term care facility, you can build patient relationships and care plans that often last years.  

4. Industry pharmacy

The pharmaceutical industry is an often-overlooked career path, despite the fact it relies heavily on expert pharmacy skills. What makes industry pharmacy such an exciting opportunity is that there are multiple specialist areas within it. 

Love pharmaceutical science? Explore the research, formulation and development of new drugs. Fascinated by good manufacturing practice? Get involved in production, testing and quality control. Detail-oriented and analytical? Work in legal compliance or medication safety. You can even pursue business development and marketing roles that combine pharmaceutical knowledge with creative flair.   

5. Academic pharmacy  

If you’re a born teacher with a curious mind, you can’t go past academic pharmacy.

Academic pharmacists work in universities to teach the next generation of pharmacy professionals, and many also conduct research that helps to further human health and the pharmacy profession.

In some cases, you can even work as a clinical-academic pharmacist, combining your clinical work (such as in a hospital setting) with your research for the best of both possible worlds.