Interviews!!

So for this week, I interviewed two of my family members who are both pharmacists. However, both of don't live in Chicago, so it had to be a phone interview. First I interviewed my uncle who is working as a Pharmacist at a Walgreens in Tampa, Fl. He is the one who always told me look into Pharmacy career or at least try to see if I would like it because he loves what he does more than anything (well may be not his family..?). He got his Pharmacy Degree in India(where it is a masters course rather than doctrate). After he was done with school, he got married to my aunt and came to America to be with her and start a family. When he came here, he had to take more classes and an exam to fulfill the requirements to become a Pharmacist here in America. He fulfilled all of his credit hours and started working as a Pharmacy tech first to get some hands on experience before taking the exam because the whole drug making and different combination of drugs to treat diseases and stuff intrested him very much. After working as a Pharmacy Technician for almost two years and studying for the board exam in between, he decided to take the exam for the first time to become a licensed Pharmacist. Unfortunately, he didn't pass the exam the first time. But what I liked about him was that he didn't give up! The fact that he didn't pass the board didn't discourage him, instead it made him more motivated and pushed him to work harder and study more. I think my uncle was really unlucky when it came to taking the board exam because when he took it again for the fifth or sixth time, he lost it by a point which is very sad. But he was strong enough to keep trying and working as a pharmcy tech instead of giving up and moving on to a different career. After trying for numerous time, he took a break from taking the boards and just worked as a pharmacy tech. After moving to florida and trying it for almost ten years, he finally passed the board and he became a pharmacist and started working as one at a Walgreens. One thing that he learned throughout his journey is that not go give up on something that you reallly want. He also said that since he struggled so much to get to where he is right now, he appreciates what he has a lot more and enjoys it a lot too. From hearing his story, I also learned that I need to be more determined about what I want in life and fight for it if I really want it because not everything comes easy in life!

The second interview that I had was with my aunt who is working at a clinic in Indiana. Like my uncle, she also got her degree in India but when she came here, she had to go to school here for two more years. Unlike my uncle, she didn't work when she was in school, but worked as a pharm tech before she took a her board to become a licensed pharmacist. She worked at Walgreens too as a pharm tech before taking her exam. She was lucky enough to pass the exam on the first try and got her license. After she got her license her and family moved to Indiana and she started working at a private clinic, which she said is completely different from working for a big company like Walgreens. At Walgreens, she said they had many patients and every case or prescriptions were different from each other. However, at her clinic now, it is very small and few number of patients. She said it is also because she lives in a remote area and the population around there is very small. When I asked her which one she liked better, she said even though it has less benefits, she liked working at the clinic better than Walgreens because she felt like she had a biggern impact on her clients because she knows all of them very well!

After I interviewed these two, I think I want to give Pharmacy a real chance and see if I'm going to like it. However, I think I also need to get different people's perspectives rather than just family members. So I landed myself a intership/volunteer oppurtunity at the Pharmacy Department at Glenbrook Hospital and I'm going to be working there over the summer, so I'll get to know more about this field and what it is really like and why my uncle loves it soo much!