"You want to be a farmer?"

A random recollection of one day in my college job came to me whilst I was revising antipsychotics (possibly what I'll be needing pretty soon if these facts don't stay in my head!). During the year of my AS Levels, I had a part time job working in a school's after school club. One day, one of the children asked me what I was applying to university for. "I'm applying to study pharmacy," I said. She was silent for a few seconds and before I could ask her if she knew what a pharmacist did, with a perplexed look on her face, she asked: "you want to be a farmer?"

"No," I replied, trying hysterically not to laugh. But I couldn't think of a simple way to describe a pharmacist's role justifiably without confusing, or indeed boring, her. It made me think. What IS my job going to be? How can I describe it to a kid in one sentence, one word? At any rate, she was more content on extinguishing that route of conversation and asking me instead if I knew that Zac Efron was dating Vanessa Hudgens (bear in mind this was 2007) whilst she carried on painting her picture. Honestly, the youth of today!

More recently, I met a medical student friend of mine after a very long time and asked how her course was going. Naturally, we got into the inevitable match of insults about each other's careers.

"All you do is give out drugs from behind a counter!"
"That's a laugh, YOU'RE always coming to US for help!" Yeah, I know I could've argued our case a little better.

Even now, four years later, three years into my degree and a lot more wiser about my future career, I still don't know how I'd respond to a youngster's confused face if I were to be asked what my job is or even an adult's, without going into lengthy details and boring them half-silly for want of justifying our position in the healthcare hierarchy. I'd be glad to know of anyone who has a way of getting the message home. I hope I know for when I'm next asked.


Good luck to everyone with upcoming exams.
Here's a parting joke for you all:
How many pharmacists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Just one, but they'd have to do it for ten days, three times a day :)