Introduction 
Collins dictionary defines a career as "a profession or occupation chosen as one’s life’s work". Pharmacy recruitment literature makes liberal use of the concept of pharmacy as ‘a career path" and of the idea of "career commitment". Inkson¹ describes the concept of career as a metaphor: career path as a metaphor for journey and career commitment a metaphor for career role. Over the past 25-years many studies have described pharmacist’s role/s but few have explored the motivational drivers for pharmacy as a profession and there has been no developmental work on the conceptual meaning within pharmacy of common career terminology. The Pharmacy Workforce studies² are beginning to shed light on the attitudes and movements of pharmacists but little is known about the plans, intentions or expectations of pharmacy undergraduates. The aim of this ongoing study is to document the career choices and motivations of undergraduate students. This abstract reports developmental focus groups with final year students. 

Method 
Developmental focus group work with final year students in three Schools of Pharmacy (SOPs) produced qualitative insights into the meaning of career, profession and work of participants. The purpose was to inform the design of a survey instrument. Self-completion questionnaire surveys will be administered early in 2005 by 15 Schools to provide a quantitative measure. 

Results 
Professional was considered to denote the possession of expertise and a commitment above that for a normal job: "A profession has got to be something you’re quite passionate about, whereas a job you do for the money." A profession was also linked to personal development "a job was something you went into with a set amount of skills and knowledge whereas in a profession you’re prepared to build upon those skills and knowledge." A wide range of occupations were considered professional. Careers were viewed as long-term and offering potential to advance: "a career is something that I’m going to be sticking to lifelong and I may move from one position to another" and something with "the possibility of advancement". Career path and career ladder are regarded differently: "ladder implies that you’re sort of going up whereas a path you could reach a certain level in one job and then you’d have to go and work somewhere else". Most were confident that pharmacy was a profession but were less sure as to how others viewed it: "There are still some people who haven’t got a clue what knowledge a pharmacist has - they just think you are a glorified shopkeeper". However, there was confidence in the future: " everything is going to change - making it more exciting and for me it’s opening up many career paths". 

Discussion 
Undergraduates distinguished between profession and career, had clear views of the meaning of career path and career ladder and regarded pharmacy as a profession. Although less certain of its public stature, they were positive about the future. These findings will inform the design of the quantitative study to be performed at the beginning of 2005. 

References

1. Inkson K. Images of a career: nine key metaphors. Journal of Vocational Behaviour 2004;65(1):96-111.

2. Hassell K, Shann P. Pharmacy Work Patterns, Summary of the 2002 Pharmacy Workforce Census. London: RPSGB, 2003.