Pre-Healthcare: Pharmacy

Interested in Studying Pharmacy?

Enhance patient care and promote wellness.

A pharmacist’s professional commitment is to provide pharmaceutical care to their patients. The principal goal of pharmaceutical care is to achieve positive outcomes from the use of medication, which improves patients’ quality of life with minimum risk. In providing pharmaceutical care, pharmacists strive to:

• Cure disease;
• Eliminate or reduce symptoms;
• Arrest or slow a disease process;
• Prevent disease;
• Diagnose disease; and
• Alter physiological processes for desirable result in the patient’s health.

Curriculum

What will I study?

The Pre-Healthcare Pathway is not a major; rather, it is a carefully designed plan intended to prepare you to achieve your unique academic and career goals.

Professional program requirements vary widely, especially with regard to advanced biology courses and English requirements. Be sure to check all graduate programs you are considering applying to early during your undergraduate studies for specific prerequisites needed to apply to that school’s program.

Within Gardner-Webb’s pre-professional employment track, you will want to review the Biology Biomedical Sciences Concentration, Chemistry Pre-Health Professional Concentration, Biochemistry Major, and the Exercise Science Pre-Professional Concentration four-year plan as a guide to preparing for Pharmacy School.

The most common prerequisite courses include:

• BIOL 111: General Biology
• BIOL 203: Anatomy and Physiology I
• BIOL 204: Anatomy and Physiology II
• BIOL 105: Microbiology for the Health Sciences (or BIOL 206)
• CHEM 111: General Chemistry I
• CHEM 112: General Chemistry II
• CHEM 201: Organic Chemistry I
• CHEM 202: Organic Chemistry II
• EXSI 345: Healthcare Ethics
• PHYS 203: General Physics I (or PHYS 111)
• PHYS 204: General Physics II (or PHYS 112)
• MATH 151: Calculus
• MATH 105: Statistics
• ECON 203: Principles of Economics I
• COMM 233: Public Speaking
• ENGL 101: Composition I
• ENGL 102: Composition II

Additional 6 hours of Humanities courses, 6 hours of Social Science courses, 12 hours of advanced Biology/Chemistry electives.

Additional information, including descriptions of specific courses and their corresponding credit hours, is available in the Academic Catalog.

Next Steps

Pharmacy School Admissions

1. Review these pages regarding Pharmacy School admissions guidelines. Requirements vary between Pharmacy Schools, so be sure to check the specific requirements of the schools to which you plan to apply.
2. Complete the Pharmacy College Admissions Test (PCAT) by the November before the year in which you are seeking admission to Pharmacy School.
3. Register for a Pharmacy College Application Service account and submit the primary application. Official college transcripts are included in this application.
4. Submit additional materials requested by specific Pharmacy Schools in the secondary application, and participate in interviews if invited.

Outcomes

What can I do with this degree?

While responsibilities vary among the different areas of pharmacy practice, the bottom line is that pharmacists help patients get well. Pharmacists also:

• Play an important role in helping people get the best results from their medications.
• Help outcomes improve and costs decline when involved in patient care.
• Are accessible, and are someone people can talk to face-to-face without an appointment.
• Communicate effectively to evaluate factors that may affect a patient’s ability to take a medication.
• Are the medication specialists on the healthcare team.
• Work in a wide range of healthcare settings and have flexible hours.
• Are trained in colleges of pharmacy, which are centers of academic excellence, scientific research and innovation.
• Help people live healthier, better lives.

Click here to see if Pharmacy is right for you.