Pharmacologist

What is a Pharmacologist?

The following responsibilities are common for Pharmacologists:

• Designs, manages and carries out research and experiments
• Tests drugs through clinical trials on animals and humans
• Makes recommendations based on findings of experiments and research
• Writes data reports and research papers
• Collaborates and shares research findings and data with other scientists

A Day In The Life

Pharmacologists study and investigate the effects of pharmaceuticals on living things.  They are responsible for examining and identifying the effects of new and modified medications and recording the reactions to those medicines in the living specimens.  They conduct this research to make sure medications are safe and free from any side-effects.

They work in laboratories or research libraries along side other scientists and researchers and they carry out complex experiments, test specimens, and analyze scientific data.  Then they will write detailed reports and research papers on their findings and present their finding to the scientific community.

Typical Work Schedule

Pharmacologists are usually required to work full-time following the regular working schedule of 40 hours per week. However, you should be ready to work for additional hours based on the needs. For example, if you work for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, you may have to evaluate the data provided by pharmaceutical companies regarding clinical trials prior to releasing new drugs. Some will work for the pharmaceutical company itself to develop a new drug, analyze data or conduct the clinical trials. Sometimes you may have to appear as expert witnesses during lawsuits to testify regarding possible side effects of a drug, how a certain drug works or the actions of illegal drugs. Different tasks may require additional hours to perform, but in most cases the regular working hours should be enough to adequately perform, so overtime is quite rare for pharmacologists.

Projected Job Growth

According to the US bureau of labor statistics, the employment of various medical scientists including pharmacologists is expected to increase by 6% from 2019 to 2029, which is somehow faster than the average for all other occupations. As the population ages, more chronic conditions will arise, and better pharmaceuticals will be crucial to their treatments which will increase demand for pharmacologists. In addition, working in modern medical research for various purposes like those related to treating diseases such as AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancer, will increase the demand for them as well. Other factors to this increase demand will be the research into treatment problems, such as resistance to antibiotics as well as the population density and the frequency of international travel which will cause new diseases and the spread of them. Additionally, the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to further increase the demand for pharmacologists due to their vital role in searching for drugs and vacancies.

Typical Employers

Pharmacologists have different employers which include working in the research and development departments in different life sciences and medical corporations. In addition, working for colleges and universities in the research departments is also an option. The highest paying positions may be in working with different pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing corporations whose results are becoming more and more crucial in recent years.