Why did I choose pharmacy?

After reading my pharmacy rants (part 1 of many to come), a fellow blogger asked me why I chose pharmacy as a profession. I have no quick and easy answer to that at all...but maybe I am trying to overcomplicate it. I already worked at a large chain drugstore through high school and college, and the pharmacists there were always trying to encourage me to go to pharmacy school. I never really took it seriously until I found out how much money they made. That's pretty much it. Yes the story is slightly more complicated than that, but that's pretty much it.

The longer version is not much longer.... I graduated from high school in 1987. I worked for a major drug chain for most of high school and all of college..stockboy, assistant mgr, etc. I was lucky enough to get a full ride to State U. about a year after high school but I still needed some extra money (still just a stockboy you see). I joined the Army National Guard in 1989 and took a year off school. I also figured it would help me figure out what I wanted to do with my life. It did enhance my work ethic but still didn't help me find my "career". I never really found anything that interested me enough to make it my life's work. I just went back to school and tried to learn as much as possible. I tried education (physics/chemistry and earth science..I was going to be a science teacher!) and accounting (going to be a CPA). Neither of those managed to hold my interest for various reasons. Next I tried radiography, which is basically taking x-rays, MRI's, CT scans, etc. It was interesting and challenging and I liked it except for 2 things. First, the money was less than I was looking for...around $20,000 a year 6 years ago. (I was making that as an assistant manager at the drugstore.) Second, and most important, I came upon a huge realization that I did not really like sick people very much. Mostly it was the getting bodily fluids hurled at me in various ways. I just didn't feel like I cared enough about the people I was helping. I needed to find a way I could do something mentally challenging but also had a little extra layer between me and patients. Thus I began to consider pharmacy. I spent 3 semesters kicking my own ass taking full loads of science classes and pre-req's for pharmacy. Those classes were awesome and I knew I was on to something. I liked Genetics, Biology and Microbiology so much that I made my "backup" major Biology with the idea that I would become a criminologist (THIS WAS YEARS BEFORE CSI I SWEAR!!!) or possibly work in genetics research. I was accepted into pharmacy school in 1995 however, and graduated with a Doctor of Pharmacy in 1999.

So in a nutshell, years of retail work, many changes of college major and a dash of military disclipline = me the pharmacist.