Ever dreamt of becoming a registered pharmacist in Australia?
As we all know being a pharmacist has a lot of diverse job opportunities all over the world, and it is the most respected profession all over the place. A task of a pharmacists is to prepare medications by reviewing and interpreting the orders of the physician. The job of a pharmacist is to advise doctors and medical practitioners regarding the medicines side effects, dosages, and labelling pharmaceuticals. The duty of a pharmacist is to take good care of the patients or clients in the first place. A lot of people prefer going abroad for higher studies, for more job opportunities and for more developed living condition.
Pharmacist is one of the most trusted professions in Australia and it has the strong presence in the community for about 150 years. A pharmacy is something more than preparing or dispensing drugs and taking care of their patients. Although in some areas pharmacies are not yet popular or recognised but in reality they often contribute to better running of our everyday lives.
There are a lot of benefits of becoming a registered pharmacist in Australia:
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Community involvement
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Career advancement
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Better salary
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Career stability
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More flexible
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Growth potential
There are different options if you decided to apply for pharmacist jobs in Australia. The person can work in hospitals, retail business, academic, pharmaceutical industry, government body or armed services. Since the competition among people is very high thus working hard is not enough, you need to study smarter in order the crack the exam.
There are lot of competitive examinations to become a registered pharmacist in Australia, there is KAPS examination that should be cracked to have a dream career in Australia. KAPS stands for knowledge assessment of pharmaceutical science, it is an exam which is conducted by the Australia pharmacy council thrice a year.
The exam is conducted to test the knowledge of the students and to test how much information you know about pharmaceutical science in Australia. There will be few centres available for appearing for exams like Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Delhi, the exams will be conducted through two papers, paper 1 and paper 2. The topics mainly focus are pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmacology, and physiology and that of paper 2 is on pharmaceuticals and therapeutics. If the student clears their KAPS exam, it means that the student is eligible to practice in Australia. The best coaching institutes focuses mainly on helping graduates in the field of healthcare, fulfil their dream careers in Australia. The coaching strictly follows the syllabus and they are provided with quality study materials that will help the students the full potential while appearing for KAPS examinations.
The pharmacies in Australia is not just about filling prescriptions. It is about promoting health awareness and contributing to the Development of Society.
A few departments of pharmacist that are available in Australia:
- Community pharmacist: They dispense prescription, provide advice on drug selection and usage to doctors and all other health professionals, primary health care advise and support, and educating customers on health promotion, disease prevention and the proper use of medicines.
- Consultant pharmacists: They are either employed by the community pharmacy or hospitals or they are self-employed and take up contracts with community pharmacies to provide medication review to the residents of the place or they provide medication related services to the society.
- Hospital pharmacist: They are the part of a hospital health care team and are involved in monitoring medication usage, counselling patients, providing drug information and advice to health professional and the community, conducting clinical trials and preparing products for patients use.
- Industrial pharmacist: They are the research team which manufacture, testing, analysis and marketing of pharmaceutical and medical products.
- Outside the square and going places: some pharmacist also works as locum and in fields like military, law, journalism, academics. They provide services to rural and remote areas and even abroad.
- Locum pharmacist: if you enjoy flexibility, then you may enjoy being a locum Pharmacist. There are a lot of positions in being a locum pharmacist like maternity leave, vacation, staff turnover or in relief situations if a pharmacist calls in sick, you get opportunities in trying out different work environments and practise. These are people who are looking for flexibility in their jobs and an opportunity to travel, you can try for the position of locum pharmacist.
- Military pharmacist: The department of national defence employees registered pharmacist to work in the army, navy and air force. For a pharmacist, this role can involve being in other health personnel to work in navy ships.
- Mental health pharmacist: They are responsible for providing clinical pharmacy services to the adult mental health in patient’s wards, and psychiatric assessment. It is a highly specialised career path that requires strong teamwork skills and it focus of this work includes managing the supply of antipsychotic medications to mental health patients.
- Government and NGO roles: pharmacist have knowledge, skill and experience that can feed into advisory roles, its applicable both for government as well as non-governmental institutions, such as health funds and private hospitals.
- Women’s and new-born’s pharmacist: Other than old age pharmacist there are other field for new-born’s, providing clinical pharmacy services to maternal and neonatal patients. Most pharmacist come to this career path with a grounding in hospital pharmacy.
- Pain educator, program director or consultant: Chronic or acute pain are some of the fascinating areas to work in. pharmacist work with pain sufferers manage their medications and coordinate other forms of treatment. This field that encompasses many areas of treatment, not just pharmacy and pain medications.
- Drug safety officer: as a drug safety officer, they are responsible for pharmacovigilance activities, including receiving and processing of the reports of all the adverse drug events and conducting regular conciliations with health authorities.
As we can see there are a lot of departments to specialize on, and these can be considered some of the benefits of becoming a registered pharmacist. After being a registered pharmacist, people can choose from any department as per their choice of interest.
Pharmacy practice in Australia
There are some differences that can be noted when working in Australia, including different scheduling of medicines. There is a classification known as ‘pharmacist-only medications’ which means it can be supplied from a pharmacy without a prescription under the supervision of a pharmacist. In Australia, they provide big emphasis on preventive therapy and nutritional supplementation in community pharmacy. The other benefits provided in Australia is that, even UK citizens are eligible to apply for Medicare, which allows benefits under the ‘pharmaceutical benefits scheme’, meaning access to subsidised medications costs and GP visits. Pharmacist can further subsidise medications for patients at their own discretion, leading to a rise in ‘discount pharmacies’.
This is a good opportunity to learn and know more about providing healthcare services to indigenous communities, and the joy and challenges of working in rural areas, isolated parts of Australia, as well as busier coastal areas. There are much more opportunities when coming to a pharmacist, in some places pharmacist train to become accredited consultant pharmacist, who can provide home medicine reviews for patients, their doctors can offer helpful input into patient’s care. Despite the increased cost of living, Australia is a beautiful country and it is the most recommended as the greatest place to live and work as a pharmacist.
The reason why a lot of people choose career as a pharmacist is because there are a lots of variety of jobs available in this field and the demand is always high in foreign countries. Once it is decided , prepare for KAPS Exam. For Cracking KAPS you need the best Coaching.SO, Come join Us – Pharma International Institute as we are the best KAPS Coaching Centre in India and UAE. We provide the finest Coaching For Abroad Pharmacist Exams like KAPS and PEBC Exam. The benefits of becoming a pharmacist are immense. There are a lot of opportunities to succeed in this career, the demand for pharmacist has increased, due to the need for pharmaceutical by a large and ageing population. As a result, number of people choosing pharmacist job has increased and many have started to migrate to the best place suitable to them.