As American Pharmacists Month draws to a close, I’m happy to feature Sachoy Fowler PharmD. One of the goals of HealthOU is to bring awareness to the variety of professions within healthcare outside of medicine and dentistry and the diverse uses of a strong background in the sciences. One such profession is Pharmacy. Like medicine and dentistry a career in pharmacy provides the opportunity to work in a hospital or private, or government setting all while helping to serve others. Earlier this month, we featured Dr. Nadeje Aurubin, today we’ll hear from Dr. Sachoy Fowler.
Sachoy is a 2005 graduate of Oakwood College and a recent graduate of the Howard University School of Pharmacy in Washington D.C. She was born on the island of Jamaica and currently works as a pharmacist at a retail pharmacy chain in Virginia. She enjoys cooking and traveling in her spare time and plans to open a pharmacy in her native country in the near future.
- Dr. Fowler and her mother at her graduation from the Howard University School of Pharmacy
HealthOU: How did you end up going into pharmacy?
S.F. I was a PreMed student at Oakwood; because that was really all that was preached to me; medical school or dental school. We had a career fair and Auburn School of Pharmacy was there. I told one of the professors I worked for (Dr. J. Durant), that I was thinking about applying for pharmacy school and she encouraged me because she thought it would be a better fit for me than medical school. I reluctantly took the PCAT and did very well, so I decided to apply. It seemed that was where God wanted me to be as well because everything worked out and I was accepted to Howard University School of Pharmacy and graduated in May 2011.
HealthOU: What do you love the most about what you do?
I enjoy the patient interaction. Its what drives me to go to work every day. I enjoy giving patients medication advice – within the scope of my practice of course. I also value the trust that exists between patients and their pharmacist.
HealthOU: What are the perks of your job / pharmacy in general (compared to other professions in healthcare)
S.F. Believe it or not even though we are in the numbers game in the retail pharmacy sector, I believe we have a lot of face time with the individual patients. There are many who cannot afford to go to the doctor’s office and are looking for remedies for common ailments and when they come into a pharmacy they trust that you, the pharmacist, know what to give them to help them. You are also able to go beyond what a physician can do, due to time constraints, like in depth explanations of medication side effects and other pharmacological effects of drugs as well as how to take the medications that have been prescribed to them.
HealthOU: What is one of the biggest misconceptions about your profession?
S.F. I have to say it is “pill counting”. That is really a pharmacy technician’s job. I would be crazy not to acknowledge that there are many people who have no clue what goes on in a pharmacy, whether it is in your local community pharmacy or hospital or elsewhere. It is hard work and we are trained intensely for the job. We are within our own rights Doctors of pharmacy and registered pharmacists. We are held accountable for maintaining accurate records and ensuring that patients received the medication which physicians have prescribed them among many other things.
Another misconception is how large the field really is. We have several areas of pharmacy which Nadeje mentioned. Our profession is extremely more diverse than people may think.
HEALTHOU 