A Day in the Life of a Hospital Pharmacist

From the collection of

Screen Archive South East at the University of Brighton collects, preserves, catalogues and provides public access to its collection of films and magic lantern slides. The collection charts the rise of screen culture in the region and the nation and captures many aspects of life, work and creativity in the South East from the late 19th century to the present day. It is available for research, screenings, creative re-use and commercial access.

A Day in the Life of a Hospital Pharmacist

Screen Archive South East at the University of Brighton
Worthing
1998-02-18
Sound

Watch a junior pharmacist develop her career through on-the-job training in a busy hospital pharmacy

This short programme features a day in the life of a junior pharmacist working in a hospital pharmacy in Worthing, West Sussex, in 1998. We see her arriving for work, attending a short meeting and chatting with her manager, who works out a timetable for her day. The viewer also gets a chance to see that range of functions that a hospital pharmacy provides. The pharmacist's first visit is to an elderly-care ward where she meets a patient and liaises with the ward sister and a doctor about the drugs that are being prescribed. Returning to the dispensary, we see prescriptions being prepared for patients in the wards as well as the shop, where over-the-counter medicines are sold. After lunch, the junior pharmacist attends a talk by a member of the medical staff, which is seen as part of her continuing training. Back at the pharmacy, we see a number of specialists at work in the department. A senior pharmacist is responsible for checking the latest information on drugs and their effects, while another works in a sterile cabinet making up drug cocktails for use in chemotherapy. Our junior pharmacist also shows us the 'a-septic-unit', which has machinery capable of making sterile ampoules for use in treatments, while another technician checks for quality and any possible contamination. Back on the elderly-care ward, we see the junior pharmacist with her supervisor, chatting with the original patient about her medication and getting feedback about any problems or concerns that the patient might have. The day ends with the junior pharmacist leaving the hospital and returning to her flat - which is nearby and provided by the local health trust. She ends by saying how vital her on-the-job training is for the progression of her career as a pharmacist.

How We Worked

Explore how yesterday's workplaces were recorded on video - and were infiltrated by it

From the late 19th century, the earliest film cameras captured thronging workers leaving their factories, their faces filling the frames of early films. Ever since, the moving image has had a close relationship with the workplaces where so many of us spend so much of our lives. As both screen technologies and the patterns of work evolved across the 20th century this relationship grew ever more varied and complex. Film itself played every possible working role in relation to all parts of the economy, the public and the private sectors, the factory and the office - observing and documenting, dramatising and satirising, training and campaigning. In the videotape era it became ever easier for cameras to film in workplaces - and for moving images to be shown there, via players and monitors. This collection explores the working worlds of the recent past, marked by economic and technological change, a world so close to our own and yet so far away.

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