Noun

Singular pharmacist

Plural pharmacists

pharmacist (plural pharmacists)

1. (pharmacy) A professional who dispenses prescription drugs in a hospital or retail pharmacy.
2. (pharmacy, academic) One who studies pharmacy.

Related terms

• pharmacy
• pharmaceutical

Pharmacists are health professionals who practice the science of pharmacy. In their traditional role, pharmacists typically take a request for medicines from a prescribing health care provider in the form of a medical prescription, evaluate the appropriateness of the prescription, dispense the medication to the patient and counsel them on the proper use and adverse effects of that medication. In this role pharmacists act as a learned intermediary between physicians and patients and thus ensure the safe and effective use of medications. Pharmacists also participate in disease-state management, where they optimize and monitor drug therapy or interpret medical laboratory results – in collaboration with physicians and/or other health professionals. Advances into prescribing medication and in providing public health advices and services are occurring in Britain as well as the United States and Canada. Pharmacists have many areas of expertise and are a critical source of medical knowledge in clinics, hospitals, medical laboratory and community pharmacies throughout the world. Pharmacists also hold positions in the pharmaceutical industry as well as in pharmaceutical education and research and development institutions.

In much of the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth pharmacists are customarily sometimes referred to as chemist (or dispensing chemists), a usage which can, especially without a context relating to the sale or supply of medicines, cause confusion with scientists in the field of chemistry. This term is a historical one, since some pharmacists passed an examination in Pharmaceutical Chemistry (PhC) set by the then Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain in 1852 and these were known as "Pharmaceutical Chemists". This title is protected by the Medicines Act 1968 section 78.

The 1852 Pharmacy Act, June 30 established a Register of Pharmaceutical Chemists in Great Britain , restricted to those who had taken the Society’s exams. However, the Act did not restrict the practice of pharmacy to examined and registered people, nor provide a legal definition for the trade and practice of pharmacy. This was first done by the Pharmacy Act of 1868.

In the near future it is proposed by the Draft Pharmacy Order 2009 that the title "pharmacist" be restricted to those who register with a new Regulatory body the General Pharmaceutical Council due to be established to take this role over from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of GB in 2010. This article does not make reference to Pharmacy Law in the correct context.