Today's pharmacist has become an important partner in patient health care. A more complex role has replaced the traditional view of the pharmacist dispensing medication from behind the drug store counter.

Often, the pharmacist may be the first person that the patient contacts about a health care issue. That is why the profession has grown and the demand for new pharmacists continues to increase. Pharmacists now have more knowledge about prescription medicines and spend more time interacting with patients. The focus has moved to understanding treatment rather than preparation and dispensing of pharmaceutical products.

Pharmacists are more involved in patient counseling, disease state management, and as an information source for the patient. Drug therapy is complex and comprehensive and challenging to understand and use. Pharmaceutical care has become more of a primary treatment than hospitalization and surgery.

Working with patients and physicians, pharmacists can help modify patient behavior and become involved in physician prescribing practices. The pharmacist can be a resource for the physician as well as the patient.

Federal law requires pharmacists to screen and counsel patients receiving prescriptions in areas such as therapeutic appropriateness, appropriateness of generic products, duplication of medication, drug to disease contraindications, drug to drug interactions, incorrect drug dosage or duration of drug treatment, drug-allergy interactions, clinical abuse or misuse.

Drugs now come with highly technical information packets that pharmacists must assist patients in understanding proper use, storage, side effects and other issues related to pharmaceutical therapies.

This new health care role for pharmacists means completing higher educational requirements. LECOM and other colleges of pharmacy have become more clinically oriented by providing advanced education and training in drug therapy management. The profession has transformed from a baccalaureate degree to a six-year doctor of pharmacy. Since 2002, all pharmacy students graduate with the Pharm.D. degree. and many continue clinical training in post-graduate residency programs.