My fiancee is a recently graduated pharmacist. I was surprised by how much of her work is just counting pills and managing insurance.

But, as with many jobs, a robot can't handle the edge cases.

Doctors can be surprisingly ignorant about the medications that they prescribe and she's the last check to make sure they aren't going to poison a patient.

She also provides advice and clarification for patients receiving drugs that could kill them if they're misused.

The vast majority of pharmacist work will likely be automated, but it will be quite difficult.

Good point. From what I've heard, many hospitals have already gone this route internally with automated drug dispensers. Publicly, this might take a lot longer since there is an ageing population that is simultaneously more reliant on pharmaceuticals and very adverse to change and technology.

That's only the aspect of the job consumers see at the walgreens counter. There is more. Go to any hospital and watch pharmacists do the job of organizing the system that delivers, evaluates and supervises drugs. They are the ones dealing with the software that checks for overdoses in prescriptions. They are the ones freeing doctors from the regulatory hurdles surrounding all manner of drugs. Ask a doctor to describe the steps to acquire a shipment of a morphine tablets.

Ask a doctor how much a specific drug costs as opposed to a different treatment. Ask which treatment better fits the lifestyle of the patient. Then ask a pharmacist. There is value in the profession.

Machines already count the pills.

(top search result: http://kirbylester.com/kirby-lester-products-and-technology.... )

Pharmacists are still well paid, which implies they are doing something of value (even at big chain stores they have good salaries).

I mean completely automated with no human except for the customer. Customer feeds in his prescription and gets back a container of drugs and a receipt and printouts of side effects to be aware of.

Regarding well paid: That's just union (licensing agency) controlling the supply of pharmacists. Look at the airline industry: United Airlines pilots who started in the 1970s with powerful unions still make $300k a year. Newly hired pilots today make $25k now that the unions lost their stranglehold.

Philip Greenspun makes a compelling argument that the new pilots making $25k and working the longest hours under the worst condition is a desired side-effect of union negotiations. The senior pilots, controlling the union and thus its negotiating policy, improve their outcome as much as possible. The junior employees are only nominally represented by the union, and their welfare is not a objective of the negotiations.

Source: http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines

Pharmacists are well paid and will continue to be well paid because they, as a profession, do things engineers don't:

- Create industry groups that advocate for the profession as a whole, using their seat at the table to influence policy makers

- Oversight over education institutions to ensure quality of graduates

- Collectively organize to ensure fair base pay, sane work schedules, and safe work environments

Create laws to restrict competition, automation and innovation.

Monopolize education to restrict supply and prevent deskilling.

Collectively organize to extract rents from the consumer in the name of safety.

The pharmacy degree is very difficult to get from what I understand (years of effort and limited opportunity) plus each pharmacy is required to have one on staff. So one aspect is a supply/demand. Secondly they take on some legal responsibilities so if things get screwed up they are at fault. They are there as a safety check and to resolve any ambiguities in the prescription. Much of this is being automated by computers now. Lastly they give out advice. You don't want to read a 5 page list of rare side effects...

Pharmacists are a protected class of workers. Legally mandated if you open a pharmacy. Thus, the fact that they are well-paid isn't evidence of anything, as it would be in a free market.

I guess this is one of the rare cases today where removing the middleman DESTROYS value.

Most of the time they might just handle the medication they're asked for. But they ALSO VALIDATE the treatment.

Think of them like a firewall. A human one, mostly silent.