Education is the key to a better life in the world. Because of this, many people consider education to be a basic necessity and thus explore all means to ensure that they attain good education. The exposure that a person gets through education is essential in tackling the day-to-day challenges in life. In essence, education introduces one to better decision-making when faced with a number of challenges. College education is an improvement of what one has learned throughout their lives. It is very important for one to attain college education. In the current competitive world, getting opportunities without college education is very difficult. In order for a person to get high-paying jobs, college education plays a key role. Most high school graduates find it difficult to maneuver the employment sector.
However, one problem that is experienced by college students regards the decision when on which field or career to major in. In most cases, students fresh from high schools have no information of the courses offered in college and their significance. Most of them end up depending on parental choices and other modes of guidance to decide which field to pursue. There is a big harm for this, in that they may end up choosing a field that may not turn out to be as interesting as they thought at first. If this is the case, then they are likely to develop a negative attitude to their major, leading to poor performance.
The college students all around the country have to decide upon a major not knowing much about the intricacies of the major or even how necessary other fields of study bear on their major fields of study. Peer pressure has also played a big role in determining the fields that the students end up pursuing in college. Such an influence will, no doubt, negatively affect the perception that the students may have towards education. The study of pharmacy, for instance, entails studying several other courses.
The relationship between pharmacy and sociology, for instance, has proved to be crucial for anybody undertaking pharmaceutical studies. It is crucial that students undertaking pharmacy get to learn about sociology because the two effectively relate to each other.
Pharmacy as a discipline entails the study of how to prepare and dispense medicines and other drugs (Fabre et al. 32). Largely, the discipline is categorized as a health profession that links the health sciences with the chemical sciences. The importance the study of pharmacy offers can never be questioned, since it promotes the effective use of the drugs. Pharmacy, to a significant degree entails both traditional and modern roles. Compounding and dispensing medicine is more of a traditional role that is played by pharmacy.
On the other hand, aspects such as clinical services, health care, reviewing medication and providing information about a drug can be said to be some of the modern aspects of pharmacy. The history of the study of pharmacy dates back to time immemorial, when communities had known personalities to administer local medicine to the community members. In the early 20th century, however, education was proposed to be the better way through which the pharmacists could be trained. This was in great contrast to the traditional means through which apprenticeship was the commonly used method through which one could practice pharmacy.
The twentieth century saw the practice change, requiring that one sit for licensure papers in order to complete the experience they had under a practitioner. Such papers were set by the State Board of Pharmacy (Guth et al. 43). Effectively, the practice of pharmacy became an examinable subject in schools in order to train people on the basic requirements and the complexities required.
The study of pharmacy has various specialties that deal with different issues in the modern world. The field of pharmacy can be divided into three major disciplines, all of which play the role of ensuring the administration of medicine and drugs is successful. These fields may include the pharmacy practice; pharmacy practice research and pharmaceutics/pharmacognosy. Important to note is the fact that these disciplines work hand in hand to ensure patients are better taken care of. Pharmacy is a field that directs its energy to practices that aim at ensuring patients are taken well care of.
In most cases, proper administration of drugs plays a crucial role in promoting the well-being of the patients. Pharmacy plays a very crucial role in the society and to the world in general. Its purpose is to ensure that proper administration of right drugs to the patients is achieved, with the aim of promoting health care in the society. Pharmacy entails some values such as better health to the society, which may, as a result, lead to economic development. As a result, pharmacy is a very crucial aspect in the livelihood of people in a society.
The disciplines of pharmacy and sociology are similar in regards to certain aspects. On the other hand, there are differences that can deduced between the two as will be shown. Whereas sociology is the study of human behavior and its origins (Giddens et al. 76), pharmacy entails preparing and dispensing medicine to patients.
These fields have many similarities. First, they all directly deal with human beings in the society as their main subject. Sociology entails the study of these beings, their behavior and what facilitates the way they behave. Pharmacy, on the other hand, takes into account human behavior as a result of being exposed to a certain stimuli and how they end up behaving. Through the use of medicine, the manner that human beings behave can be influenced. Human beings and the manner they behave is the major subject that the two fields aim to explore.
Sociology is a crucial aspect for pharmacists in a number of ways. In the 21st century, it is important that pharmacists understand human behavior and the factors that influence it. As a health care discipline, pharmacy entails understanding the patient needs and interpreting certain aspects before describing and giving them medication. After the medication, it is also important for pharmacists to understand the behavior that the patients may exhibit.
Most health care fields require that the practitioners relate to the patients in a certain manner. Different patients have different behaviors, which calls for the practitioner to have different mechanisms of understanding them. The interaction between the patients and the practitioner is very essential in that it may end up shaping the patient’s perception on their problems. It is important, therefore, for the pharmacists to have some basic understanding on sociology in order to ensure they handle the patients in a proper manner.
Despite the fact that the two disciplines exhibit very many similar characteristics, they also have big differences. The fact that they all deal with human beings does not give them a common background, since they do so from very different perspectives. Sociology, over time, has been used to understand human behavior and the history of the humans (Schaefer et al. 66). In this study, a person’s behavior is very crucial.
Sociologists analyze some aspects in the community and how they shape individual behavior. They are also tasked with explaining the reasons as to why an individual or a group may behave in a certain manner. In doing so, sociology is classified into two major fields: macro sociology and micro sociology. Pharmacy, on the other hand, has pharmacy practice; pharmacy practice research and pharmaceutics/pharmacognosy as the main fields.
Whereas sociology entails understanding the reasons behind a certain behavior in the society, pharmacy is in most cases concerned with the manner that patients react to the drugs and the medication they receive. This, therefore, means that pharmacy does not deal with the general population in the society. Rather, it narrows down its aspects to a certain group in the society: the patients.
Pharmacy, to a large extent, may not be concerned with the general behavior of the society and the reasons that promote such a behavior. However, this is the role that sociology plays in the society, analyzing the possible reasons as to why the society may behave in a particular manner.
Through understanding this, it is crucial to understand that as much as the two relate a lot, they are very distinct in nature. Sociology does not deal with drugs and does not take into account the patients when analyzing behavior change in a society. This difference explains how distinct the two fields are.
In a nutshell, sociological studies are very essential to any person intending to pursue pharmacy. The relationship that exists between pharmacy and psychology gives the pharmacists a better chance of understanding the reasons as to why certain patients may behave in a given manner. Understanding how to handle the patients that need medication is one of the areas that pharmacists ought to have a thorough understanding on. This is because the relationship between the caretakers and the patients determine the attitude that the patients may develop.
As much as the two disciplines have their own differences, it is important and necessary that pharmacists have some understanding of the sociological aspects to place them in a better position to handle their clients well. It is so difficult to separate sociology from pharmacy, since sociology lays the background to which pharmacists operate and relate with the contemporary issues.
The study of pharmacy without sociology is incomplete, since it will be difficult for the pharmacists to understand how the patients behave. The teachings of this semester have been crucial in that they have shaped my perceptions and attitudes towards accepting and appreciating the role that other fields have to pharmacy. For instance, it is crucial to note that dealing with patients calls for the pharmacist to understand various issues in the society.
Works Cited
Fabre, René. Pharmacy. New York: Cultural Center of the French Embassy, 1997. Print.
Generali, Joyce A, and Christine A. Berger. Pharmacy. New York: McGraw-Hill Medical Pub. Division, 2006. Print.
Giddens, Anthony, and Karen Birdsall. Sociology. Cambridge [England: Polity Press, 2001. Print.
Guth, Earl P. Pharmacy. Boston, Mass: Bellman publishing company, inc, 1945. Print.
Schaefer, Richard T, and Robert P. Lamm. Sociology. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992. Print.
