Delegate, Direct, or Do · Health & Medicine
Pharmacist: what would you hand to AI?
Interaction checks and paperwork are automated; counseling patients through tricky cases is not.
AI changes quite a bit of this job
Printable guide (PDF) · Pick a different career
Three bins
| Delegate | AI does it and a person spot-checks the result. |
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| Direct | AI drafts; a person steers, fixes, and decides. |
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| Do | A person does it. AI stays out. |
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Four questions for every task
Every sort needs a one-line reason that uses at least one of these.
- What does a mistake cost? A typo in a draft is cheap. A wrong dose, a wrong verdict, or a live wire is not.
- Can a person check the output quickly? If checking takes as long as doing it, delegating saves nothing.
- Who answers for the result? Whoever signs, submits, or says it out loud owns it, whoever wrote the draft.
- Does it involve private data or judging people? Health records, student files, and decisions about a person need a person.
Grades 6-8: Sort it
Start with these tasks, then add 3-7 more that people in this job really do. Put each in a bin and write one line on why, using the four questions.
- Check a new prescription for drug interactions
- Draft a plain-language handout for a new medicine
- Counsel a patient who is confused about their medicines
Some jobs land mostly in Do. That is a real answer, not a failure.
Grades 9-12: Brief it, then audit it
Sort the tasks as above. Then pick one Delegate or Direct task and write a brief with four parts: the goal, the context the AI needs, the constraints it must follow, and what done looks like.
Audit this sample
Draft a plain-language pickup handout for a new allergy tablet
- goal
- A short handout a patient reads at pickup for the (fictional) allergy tablet Clarivex.
- context
- Patients get dosing instructions on the printed label and from the pharmacist, so they come from there and not from this handout.
- constraints
- No dose amounts or schedules. Grade 6 reading level. Tell patients to ask the pharmacist with questions.
- done
- Five short sentences or fewer that follow every constraint.
What the AI sent back
Clarivex helps with sneezing, itchy eyes, and a runny nose.
Take 2 tablets with each meal.
It may make you a little sleepy, so be careful driving at first.
Do not take it with other allergy medicines unless you have checked first.
Ask your pharmacist if you have any questions.
Something here should stop you from signing off. Find it, name which of the four questions it fails, and rewrite the brief so it is less likely to happen again.
A live AI tool is optional, only if your district allows student use.
Close: one task you would never hand off
Which task would you never hand off in this job, and why?
Grades 6-8: one paragraph. Grades 9-12: a short argued response that answers the strongest reason someone might give for handing it off.