new thread
well, this is my last year of high school. Thankfully i have a very good idea of what i would like to do. I would like to become a licensed pharmacist. I know that this will require six years of college. I have already been accepted to the university where i will be spending my first two years. I plan on continuing growing my hair throughout my six years in college. I would also love to be able to continue having long hair after college. The question that i have is regarding "longhair friendliness" in the pharmacy field. Do any of you know any longhair pharmacists? I would think that long hair would be a non-issue for male pharmacists because it is not an office job with meetings and such. Also, there is a huge demand for licensed pharmacists in the U.S. and there will be for a good while. i seriously doubt that they would turn a qualified person down because of their hair. or mabye this is just wishful thinking. i know that i am looking a pretty damn long ways into the future, but if any of you guys have any insight on this please share.
im in my lasr year of highschool too :)
i also want to do pharmacy when i leave
i dont know the situation where you are (im in Austrailia) i would like to say that long hair should never be a problem with a job (unless feales too need to have short hair) the employer is the problem.
I know many pharmacist's with long hair worn in a ponytail, and physicians also.
Most likely they'll judge you on your qualities and knowledge, not your hair. I plan on being a Nursing Assistant or CNA in a couple of years, at a hospital, and they say that long hair just has to be tied back, so most likely a braid of ponytail, there wasn't any information about beards... Employers should never judge someone just because of the length of their hair.
Take Care,
Erik
Erik's Website
Pharmacists are in such high demand here in the States (at least $80,000 starting salary and great signing bonuses), it shouldn't matter at all. There is a pharmacist around the corner from me at CVS who has longish hair, and he wears it down.
Good luck.
same here.....although 80,000 Aussie dollars
We go to a pharmacy where the pharmacist has very long hair, always worn down. It's a woman, but she does have really nice hair.
Grow your hair long while you're in school. Enjoy life as a student. 6 years is a long time and you might decide at some point you're sick of long hair - or you might decide you still love it.
Why worry about what's going to happen 6 years from now? People change so much in six years you really can't predict how you'll feel about the situation then.
Dear Soap,
The profession of phrarmacy has come up in the world over the last 50 years, and having worked with many pharmacists in clinical situations, they are uniformly well educated, flexible, and open minded. I am sure if we looked hard enough we could find an exception.
These folk are applied scientists, not doctrinaire social conformists.
In addition to working for a retail establishment, all hospitals have in house pharmacists, and all nursing homes have contracts with pharmacists who come in to review medications, to determine if there are interaction problems among medications Rx by different physicians, and who offer advice to the primary care physicians. Frankly, I have never known a situation in which anyone cares about length of hair.
What people value in a pharmacist is competence. This includes the ability cross check whether the physician has written the order correctly, and in an institutional setting, the ability to determine whether the optimum medications have been ordered for a particular diagnosis and whether there is any danger from interaction effects.
I am a clinical psycologist, and have worked with many pharmacists in institutional settings. I can recount several times when I have recruited the pharmacist to challenge the orders of a physician because we think he/she is wrong. I have long hair. I have bi-laterial earrings. It is just not an issue in professional circles. It is what you know, how you document, the quality of your interpersonal relationships, and your persistence to see that quality of care if provided.
James Harrison, PhD
North Carolina
that makes me feel a lot better. thanks for sharing your experiences. i was almost sure that hair would not be an issue in the pharmacy field ,but now i know for sure.
I would point out the best way to handle the problem is do what
my uncle did.....he was a pharmacist and owned his own store.
He set his own rules.
Once you own your own pharmacy you answer to yourself about your
hair length.
