computer use - pharmacy career?

[pharmwise]

I just recently graduated from college with a Computer Science degree. But, because I have a developed a repetitive strain injury in both hands, I am unable to use the computer for more than a few minutes. Thus I cannot do this for a liviing until I am fully healed which itself has no timeline.

Therefore I am going to stay in school and pursue another degree. Pharmacy was my second choice out of high school. Can you guys tell me if you have to use the computer much on the job and in school for the pharmacy related work? If possible, could you give some specifics.

thanks.

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[LVPharm]

In pharmacy school, we use our laptops to download lecture material and check email. On occasion, we use them to work on powerpoint presentations for group projects, and there is an occasional research paper. I don't type my lecture notes, like some classmates do. Most of us just print out the lecture material and write in additional notes.

In a pharmacy career, you may be using a computer quite frequently, especially in retail. It depends on the staffing and volume of the store. Every prescription needs to be typed into the computer along with patient, doctor, and third party (insurance) info. That's quite alot of typing, and is usually done quite quickly. If you've got a technician, you might be able to get away with not typing most of it up, and simply having to type override passwords for DUR alerts, and other less routine computer activities. I don't know how the condition of your hands will be by the time you graduate and practice, but I would go into this with the expectation that you'll be doing your fair share of typing, and quite alot of repetitive hand movement (counting, filling, labeling, writing, etc).

 

[26339]

Ack, tired. You can make all the techs do the work if you want to. The pharmacists at Kaiser used to just cruise in the back and all the pharm techs were busting ass filing prescriptions. You'll have no problems with your repetitive stress injury as a pharmacist.

 

[jdpharmd?]

It would completely depend on where you worked and how the pharmacy was run. I've worked in retail stores where the pharmacist's main job was typing in every script (400+/day) and doing 3rd party billing on the computer, etc. There is quite a bit of repetitive work in just filling the scripts. I can remember more than one (12-hour) day of opening childproof caps, punching out the seals, counting pills, and filling vials as my days as a tech, and the pharmacist was right there with me, doing the exact same thing. I can even remember thinking "I'm going to get a repetitive strain injury doing this all day!".

Some of the larger places (hospitals, etc) might allow the techs to do more of the actual manual work and allow the pharmacist to supervise, but even then you're going to have to do some repetitive work, even if it's just writing with a pen. Come to think of it, I can't really imagine too many jobs that DON'T involve repetitive tasks.

After earning your degree in computer science, are you sure that your injury would actually prevent you from obtaining a well paying and rewarding job? Do you really desire to be a pharmacist enough to go through 4-5 MORE years of school (pre-reqs), or do you just see it as a convenient alternative to what you're doing now? Have you ever worked in a pharmacy or shadowed a pharmacist? Just some questions for you. It's quite a commitment, and it seems like if you have to take special jobs and precautions as a pharmacist, then you might want to look into taking special jobs and precautions as a computer science major (and save 4-6 years, many headaches, and lots of loans). Surely not all CS majors spend all day at a keyboard, right? Then again, if pharmacy is what you desire, I say "go for it!".

 

[Triangulation]

Yeah, if you land up in retail RSD is coming your way at some point or another. I've definitely had days at in-window where i started to feel a real twinge in my hands. Retail isn't the best at updating to ergonomic equipment, so you're on your own. I honestly, don't see a position with decent salary that won't require a lot of typing. That's just not how it works anymore. I have a good friend in bio research and he has tried to move to voice command for all his typing, but it's still not enough. That technology is still a few years away.

I guess clinical pharmacy may have less, but still as much as any md or nurse would have to type.

 

[pharmwise]

thanks all for your input thus far.

Basically, my RSI is bad enough that I cant use a computer for more than 5 minutes and then further use results in real bad pain. I had to quit my internship as a computer scientist b/c of it. RSI's can take a while to heal (1-2 years) if its bad like mine. I was going to obtain a business degree after my degree in CS but I rethought it and that was really a delay tactic for my hands to heal.

I decided I want to pursue something I would have a passion for. Pharmacy was my second choice out of high school. Plus I needed a career that was not as demanding on the hands. I expect in 4 years (when I would be done with book schooling) that my hands will be healed.

I am very bright so I truly have the intelligence and motivation to do this. I am a 4.0 graduate with my computer science degree. I have A's in all of the chemistry and biology courses. From this point, I am not concerned.

I do have to admit I have seen very little work that a pharmacist does and have no idea what they do in a typical day but I was more worried about just how much computer use there is.

I realize computers are a part of our everday life. And we can use them everyday if we are smart and take frequent breaks from them. This is something I failed to do but I never knew about RSI's until I obtained the problem.

In fact, I have had the condition since last september to give you an idea of how bad it can get if you work through the pain as I did.

Other repetitive tasks don't bother me, its actually the keyboard and mouse that are bad for me right now. RSI's are the #1 cause of work related injury and can be a real pain to get rid of because they are an accumulation of many years of doing the same thing without enough breaks.

I continue to value everyone's input and appreciate any further questions/comments.