APhA president- we need an additional 100,000 pharmacists!

[ChapmanPharmacy]

Soo basically the rich (like yourself get richer). The students get poorer and eventually schools shut down (laying off professors)...but the administration by then has made out like a bandit...

...great scheme!

Wow that would be a great scheme if I could get rich being an administrator.

As an administrator, I work 60 to 70 hours a week in my job, so my hourly rate is actually less than a typical pharmacist.

And yes, I think it would be great if pharmacy school wasn't $45k per year. I paid $30k a year when I went to a private pharmacy school, but to me it was a great investment. It allowed me to do a job I love for the rest of my life. I'm still paying off my student loans, but if I didn't invest in pharmacy school, I would probably be still working as a pharmacy tech. I wouldn't have the loans, but I would be living paycheck to paycheck, and I wouldn't have the quality of life I have now.

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[BMBiology]

I don't know why you are comparing Chapman tuition to USC which is probably the most expensive pharmacy school ever. Chapman is a new school located in strip mall across the street from a Chinese Church. Don't believe me? Google map the school.

APhA doesn't represent working pharmacists. It doesn't talk about things that matter to us like working conditions. Look at the companies that are sponsoring the APhA...CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens. These companies are paying your salary. This is why we about the APhA. Tell me something...how many pharmacists (not including people in academia) are APhA members? Too embarrassed to post the actual number on your website?

Yeah existing schools got greedy too but that does not mean you have the right to put students in debt as well. You graduated years ago when tuition was cheap. How do you expect these students to start their own business when they are up to the neck in debt?


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[Digsbe]

I don't think it's necessarily fair to dog on school administrators of blame new schools. One reason my city is saturated is the state university opened up a whole new other campus here along side the much smaller private schools that opened 10 years ago. I just respectfully disagree that we'll need 100,000 more pharmacists. Right now I think there are too many grads being churned out and the job market is suffering. Increasingly we hear of companies making it harder to work 40 hours per week as well. As professionals I'd hope we focus on increasing wages, job satisfaction, scope of practice, and ethical employment over other things.

 

[ChapmanPharmacy]

I am not talking about the pharmacists who work in the real world and also teach part time.

I am talking about the professors like yourself who do not work in the real world...the ones who have their own little clinic, the ones who round with the medical team. They are not being compensated for the "work" they are doing. They are just volunteers like you had stated:






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I'm not seeing where I said the clinical pharmacist are volunteers. I said the school doesn't make money from the clinical work they do. The clinical pharmacists who round with a medical team get part of their salary paid for by the institution. As for academic pharmacists who work in a school run clinic, they are doing that to provide a service to patients who don't have access to health care. So yes, you could say they are volunteering, but since that is noble work, I don't see how one could complain about them spending time to care for patients in need. Plus those sites are used to train student pharmacists.

As for professors like myself who don't work in the real word. I'm not sure what world you think I work in. You can say I don't work in the real world of pharmacy practice; that would be true. But I still work in the real world of academia. As did the associate dean of student affairs at the pharmacy school you graduated from.

 

[BMBiology]

That is what you don't seem to get. These pharmacy professors are not being paid because they can't bill for their work. Look at the physicians at the medical school. Do you think they are not getting paid for the work they are doing?


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[ChapmanPharmacy]

I don't know why you are comparing Chapman tuition to USC which is probably the most expensive pharmacy school ever. Chapman is a new school located in strip mall across the street from a Chinese Church. Don't believe me? Google map the school.

APhA doesn't represent working pharmacists. It doesn't talk about things that matter to us like working conditions. Look at the companies that are sponsoring the APhA...CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens. These companies are paying your salary. This is why we about the APhA. Tell me something...how many pharmacists (not including people in academia) are APhA members? Too embarrassed to post the actual number on your website?

Yeah existing schools got greedy too but that does not mean you have the right to put students in debt as well. You graduated years ago when tuition was cheap. How do you expect these students to start their own business when they are up to the neck in debt?


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My comment compared Chapman tuition to USC, which is the most expensive, and compared Chapman to the other private schools in California, which all have about the same tuition.

And you lose so much credibility when you keep lying about our school being in a strip mall across from a Chinese Church. Here is our address: 9401 Jeronimo Rd, Irvine, CA 92618. I suggest everyone google map the address so they can see for themselves. When you do the search, you will see that our neighbors are Par Pharmaceuticals, Bio Rad laboratories, Alliance Medical Products, Irvine Pharmaceuticals, Teva Pharmaceuticals, and a number of other large companies. There wasn't enough space of Chapman University's main campus in Orange, CA, so they purchased some buildings in Irvine and created a Health Science campus. There is a Doctor of Physical Therapy program, a MS in Communication Science Disorders program, on campus with us, and a PA program is starting next year. More health profession programs will be moving from the Orange campus to Irvine over the years.

Although we only occupy two buildings right now, 9401 and 9501 Jeronimo, Chapman has already purchased a total of 5 buildings. They have one more building they are trying to buy so that we will have a large contiguous footprint and so Chapman can do landscaping and everything else to give it a true campus atmosphere.

As for APhA, you are correct, the number of pharmacists members is extremely low. Only about 30,000 or so. But low pharmacist membership is true for ASHP, AMCP, and all other national pharmacy associations. APhA used to spend a lot of time and resources on worklife issues for community pharmacists, but they still didn't join. If you are really interested in having APhA change the pharmacy workplace for the better, get 50 to 100,000 community pharmacists to join and get involved. Become a delegate at the House of Delegates during the Annual meeting and propose policy to be voted on. Believe me, if you had that large of a force of pharmacists interested in improving working conditions APhA would be glad to put resources into changing things.

As for your last point, pharmacy schools haven't gotten greedy. The cost of running a pharmacy school is extremely expensive. In order to attack good researchers who are likely to bring in research grants, and who can teach pharmacy students cutting edge research, millions of dollars have to go into building the labs and buying the lab equipment. We actually save some money by having two CORE labs, for really expensive equipment. The researchers share that equipment, rather than each of them having one of their own. I'm talking about pieces of equipment that costs $250,000 or more. Plus, to get really good researchers schools have to pay them a start-up package which is used to for their research. And to get quality clinical pharmacists, their salaries can't be that much less than what they could make as a normal clinical faculty member.

Plus there is money that goes back to the students in the form of scholarships and support for student travel to professional meetings.

And just in case you are under the impression that all pharmacy student tuition goes to the school of pharmacy, you couldn't be more wrong. The parent University not only takes a good portion of the tuition, but they also take a portion of research grants. They do this to help pay for the upkeep of the University, to pay for University wide initiatives, and other costs that come with running a University. Schools like California Northstate are different, because for one they are for-profit, and for two they started with just the pharmacy school. There wasn't a parent University that was different from the pharmacy school itself.

But I always enjoy getting your comments, because it provides me with a great opportunity to provide factual information. Or at least an alternative opinion.

 

[ChapmanPharmacy]

That is what you don't seem to get. These pharmacy professors are not being paid because they can't bill for their work. Look at the physicians at the medical school. Do you think they are not getting paid for the work they are doing?


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Okay. Now I see what you are saying. You feel that because the pharmacists aren't able to bill for the work they do, they don't get paid

However, the difference between the pharmacist model and the medical school physician model is that pharmacists get paid a salary and physicians get paid based on what they bill.

Both get paid, it's just that physicians are generating their revenue, while pharmacists aren't.

But that difference is due to the payment system in health care. Once pharmacists are able to bill a reasonable amount for their services, then you can be sure that academic pharmacists will begin to bill for their services.

So I'm not able to figure out why you think academic clinical pharmacists and the schools that employ them are horrible because they aren't billing for their services, when there is no mechanism for them or most regular pharmacists to be able to bill for their services. Why are you trying to insinuate that something is wrong with academic institutions that employ clinical pharmacists. Nursing school professors who work in institutions don't bill for their services either, because there isn't a billing mechanism. Are nursing schools horrible as well, or not living in the real world because of not billing?

I''m just trying to get clarity as to what your issue really is.

Oh, and by the way, those medical school docs. Although they do bill for their services, the revenue still goes to the medical school. Not to the docs. They have to see so many patients per month in order to earn the professor salary they get. Most of the excess revenue goes to the medical school and the University.

 

[ChapmanPharmacy]

I don't think it's necessarily fair to dog on school administrators of blame new schools. One reason my city is saturated is the state university opened up a whole new other campus here along side the much smaller private schools that opened 10 years ago. I just respectfully disagree that we'll need 100,000 more pharmacists. Right now I think there are too many grads being churned out and the job market is suffering. Increasingly we hear of companies making it harder to work 40 hours per week as well. As professionals I'd hope we focus on increasing wages, job satisfaction, scope of practice, and ethical employment over other things.

Thanks for your comment.

But do you think some pharmacists might say that as professionals, especially as health care professionals, they would hope we would focus on improving the quality of care to our patients. Increasing wages, job satisfaction, scope of practice, and ethical employment can lead to better care for our patients, but if we focus on those things rather than the patient then the patient may be forgotten.

 

[zelman]

...Also, don't you think it is strange that everyone likes to blame the new schools for the shortage of pharmacists jobs, when in fact the largest increase in pharmacists came from older schools increasing their class sizes back in the 1990's and 2000's. You had so many schools going from 100 to 175 or so, and you had so many schools opening up new campuses which greatly increased the number of pharmacists they produces. Also, what you guys don't know is that there are a lot of schools out there that are no longer able to fill their classes, so the number of new graduates will be going down even with all the new schools...

I think we acknowledge the missteps of those old schools as well. There's plenty of blame to go around. As for schools who will not fill their first-year classes, I find that hard to believe. I am pretty confident that they will let in the poorest quality students to get some tuition money before they fail out.

...And as I have said before, about 90% of Chapman students are from California and would have ended up going to another pharmacy school anyway. California used to export students to other states to go to pharmacy school, and then come back to California to get licensed. But now we are able to educate them in California, so they don't have to go out of state...

Why would anyone care about academic migratory patterns of people in their early twenties?

...And as for the 100,000 additional pharmacists, yes I think in 5 to 10 years we will need that many and more. Every month, more and more medical groups and ACO's are hiring pharmacists to provide medication management services...

So, the 433 ACO's will need how many pharmacists? Generously, you're accounting for 5,000 jobs. You really think medical groups that aren't part of ACO's will make up the other 90,000+? If they aren't part of an ACO or HMO, it remains financially advantageous to manage patients using only billable time (a.k.a. time spent with a provider).

...Plus more and more pharmacists are opening up their own Chronic Care Management (CCM) services companies. I just talked to a pharmacist in Detroit who graduated just 4 years ago. He worked in Long Term Care for a few years to build up his skills and then opened his own company. This is because Medicare pays for CCM services. He has contracts with several small medical groups in the area, and is working on getting his first large medical group. He has 8 pharmacists that he employs, and plans on hiring another 20 by the end of this year...

Sure. We could consider CCM as another opportunity for growth. The problem is, pharmacists won't be the ones to take advantage of it without accepting lower wages. Right now, "the median time spent delivering the service is 35 minutes per patient per month, 15 minutes more than the 20-minute minimum requirement. And, although non-face-to-face services may be furnished by any qualified clinical staff member, half of respondents are using registered nurses – a more expensive resource than other types of clinical staff – to engage patients." So, if RN's are too expensive for it to be viable, do you really think a PharmD should be a better option? Or will they tend to utilize “medical technical assistants” or CMAs as allowed by Medicare guidelines?

...I think as the shortage continues, more and more pharmacist will decide to stop waiting for someone to give them a job, and will start their own business. Pharmacy graduates will need to be a lot more entrepreneurial than they have been in the recent past. But don't forget, the pharmacy profession was founded on pharmacist business owners. It was only in the 1980's or so that independent pharmacy ownership really began to decline. Being a business owner is in the life blood of the history of pharmacists...

#1 The shortage is over. The shortage may not have even been real to begin with. It may have been manufactured by the transition from 5 year to 6 year education requirement, which yielded a year with few graduates.
#2 If you want to operate a school for opening businesses, open a business school. Independent pharmacies didn't go away due to evil magic. They are being progressively crushed by PBMs' unwillingness to reimburse in a manner that supports independent pharmacy ownership. Why else would Mississippi have had to legislate pharmacies' right to refuse to lose money on a sale? The medical and economic climates have changed, and you can't look to the "good old days" as a model for the future.

 

[zelman]

Okay. Now I see what you are saying. You feel that because the pharmacists aren't able to bill for the work they do, they don't get paid

However, the difference between the pharmacist model and the medical school physician model is that pharmacists get paid a salary and physicians get paid based on what they bill.

Both get paid, it's just that physicians are generating their revenue, while pharmacists aren't.

But that difference is due to the payment system in health care. Once pharmacists are able to bill a reasonable amount for their services, then you can be sure that academic pharmacists will begin to bill for their services.

So I'm not able to figure out why you think academic clinical pharmacists and the schools that employ them are horrible because they aren't billing for their services, when there is no mechanism for them or most regular pharmacists to be able to bill for their services. Why are you trying to insinuate that something is wrong with academic institutions that employ clinical pharmacists. Nursing school professors who work in institutions don't bill for their services either, because there isn't a billing mechanism. Are nursing schools horrible as well, or not living in the real world because of not billing?

I''m just trying to get clarity as to what your issue really is.

Oh, and by the way, those medical school docs. Although they do bill for their services, the revenue still goes to the medical school. Not to the docs. They have to see so many patients per month in order to earn the professor salary they get. Most of the excess revenue goes to the medical school and the University.

The issue is that students are misled into thinking that the pharmacists they train with in clinical settings are being employed by that setting. If I meet a psychiatric pharmacist at my local hospital and am blown away by their knowledge and reverence of their co-workers, I might decide that I want to be that pharmacist one day. And when I finish my training, and I owe my $180k and I go to a hospital and let them know I'm looking to be their psychopharmacology expert, they are going to look at me like I'm a crazy person.
Hospital Admin: "Why would we pay for one of those?"
New Grad: "But, my professor was, like, mega-smart. And they rounded with psychiatrists and I learned so much!"
HA: "We don't have that. And, why would we employ both a psychiatrist and psych-pharmacist when we only need one (the one who can prescribe)?"
NG: "But [fancy hospital] has one!?"
Reality: No. They don't. They tolerate one as a volunteer. That person is a pharmacy school employee. There is no such job. You are six-figures into debt to get a job that doesn't exist.

 

[PAtoPharm]

@ChapmanPharmacy You mentioned that the attempts that have been made over the last few years by the APhA to pass provider status legislation haven't been successful. Assuming provider status legislation passes within the next year or two, it will (based on my understanding) grant provider status privileges to pharmacists working in medically underserved areas. In order to grant provider status to pharmacists working in areas that are not considered to be underserved, is the APhA planning to encourage a successive piece of legislation that will grant provider status to all other pharmacists?

 

[RPh Who]

Increasing wages, job satisfaction, scope of practice, and ethical employment can lead to better care for our patients, but if we focus on those things rather than the patient then the patient may be forgotten.

I would respectfully challenge you to actually use your pharmacist license and work a few shifts in your local CVS or Walgreens. After you have this joyous and uplifting experience, please let us know how we can better serve the patient without having ethical employment conditions or adequate staffing levels. Furthermore, we could explore how accepting funding from major chains and refusing to allocate resources to improving working conditions is, in fact, not a conflict of interest.

 

[zelman]

I would respectfully challenge you to actually use your pharmacist license and work a few shifts in your local CVS or Walgreens. After you have this joyous and uplifting experience, please let us know how we can better serve the patient without having ethical employment conditions or adequate staffing levels. Furthermore, we could explore how accepting funding from major chains and refusing to allocate resources to improving working conditions is, in fact, not a conflict of interest.

No. His local one will be in CA. They actually have labor laws to protect pharmacists.

 

[Pharmd2012yay]

@ChapmanPharmacy I am sure you make more than me. I have been a pharmacist for about 4 years now....still can't find a stable full time job. travel to bum**** middle of nowhere to work currently to work only part time because there is saturation in those areas as well. All my friends that are PT/OT don't have this problem and get recruiters calling them. I am lucky to even have a job! I really don't know how any school can use the word shortage. I think all the stats (Manpower/BCLS) are outdated.

 

[gwarm01]

I would respectfully challenge you to actually use your pharmacist license and work a few shifts in your local CVS or Walgreens. After you have this joyous and uplifting experience, please let us know how we can better serve the patient without having ethical employment conditions or adequate staffing levels. Furthermore, we could explore how accepting funding from major chains and refusing to allocate resources to improving working conditions is, in fact, not a conflict of interest.

Sounds like someone is forgetting the patient. *Smug academic grin*

 

[Dalteparin]

Yes I am listening, and I don't disagree that there are some areas of the country where it is tough to find a job. But there are a lot of other areas where it isn't as tough to find a job.

Like where? I have asked you this question before and will continue to do so until you respond: How long has it been since you looked for a pharmacist job? I really don't think you understand what the job market is like these days. It took me over a year to find a job when I was trying to relocate, and I'd been working for several years by that point.

Also, don't you think it is strange that everyone likes to blame the new schools for the shortage of pharmacists jobs, when in fact the largest increase in pharmacists came from older schools increasing their class sizes back in the 1990's and 2000's. You had so many schools going from 100 to 175 or so, and you had so many schools opening up new campuses which greatly increased the number of pharmacists they produces. Also, what you guys don't know is that there are a lot of schools out there that are no longer able to fill their classes, so the number of new graduates will be going down even with all the new schools.

You and I have had this conversation before and I'll tell you what I told you then: yes, the older schools made a mistake when they expanded. Frankly, every time you bring up the older schools' expansion, all I can hear is, "But MOOOMMM! Everybody else was throwing spitballs too!" Yes, everybody else is misbehaving, but I'm not talking to them, I'm talking to you, and their misbehavior doesn't absolve you. Furthermore, new schools are taking the least qualified students. Yes, I know your incoming students have an average GPA of 3.3 and an average PCAT of 50%. A student with those stats would not have been accepted at my (outside CA) alma mater. I don't know why you're so proud that their PCAT score was exactly average anyway.

And as for the 100,000 additional pharmacists, yes I think in 5 to 10 years we will need that many and more. Every month, more and more medical groups and ACO's are hiring pharmacists to provide medication management services. And as more and more of them see the value of having a pharmacist on board, this will encourage even more of them to higher pharmacists.

I just checked my employer's website (a medium-size health system with half a dozen hospitals and ~10 medical clinics) and guess how many MTM jobs I saw? One. But if you're a new grad, don't bother applying - the role requires a minimum of 2 years experience.

I think as the shortage continues, more and more pharmacist will decide to stop waiting for someone to give them a job, and will start their own business.

Where on Earth are you getting the idea that there is a shortage? Really, the only way you could think that is if you got picked up by a strange man in a blue box in 2005 and he dropped you off.

So I'm not able to figure out why you think academic clinical pharmacists and the schools that employ them are horrible because they aren't billing for their services, when there is no mechanism for them or most regular pharmacists to be able to bill for their services.

The bolded is the issue. As others have pointed out, your faculty is able to make a living at these "emerging" clinical roles. Hurray for them! It sounds like a great career! (Not being sarcastic - it actually does sound great.) The problem is that students are going to think that clinical roles like this are available everywhere. The reality since we can't bill for services yet, those roles are not being created because health systems cannot afford to pay these salaries. Academia is the place where one is most likely to find an "emerging" clinical role because half the salary is paid by the school, which means the health system gets a pharmacist practicing at the top of his/her license for half price.

 

[Dalteparin]

And you lose so much credibility when you keep lying about our school being in a strip mall across from a Chinese Church. Here is our address: 9401 Jeronimo Rd, Irvine, CA 92618. I suggest everyone google map the address so they can see for themselves.

Just for funsies, I took you up on this. I'll concede that you're not right across from a Chinese church. You are, however, right across from Arbonne International - a MLM cosmetics company akin to Amway or Norwex. Birds of a feather...

 

[BMBiology]

Take a look again. The Chinese Community Baptist Church is across the street from Chapman


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[BenJammin]

Wow that would be a great scheme if I could get rich being an administrator.

As an administrator, I work 60 to 70 hours a week in my job, so my hourly rate is actually less than a typical pharmacist.

And yes, I think it would be great if pharmacy school wasn't $45k per year. I paid $30k a year when I went to a private pharmacy school, but to me it was a great investment. It allowed me to do a job I love for the rest of my life. I'm still paying off my student loans, but if I didn't invest in pharmacy school, I would probably be still working as a pharmacy tech. I wouldn't have the loans, but I would be living paycheck to paycheck, and I wouldn't have the quality of life I have now.

There's no way you're really a school administrator. You still owe students loans on a $120k loan for pharmacy school? Are you in your late 20s or early 30s?

 

[BMBiology]

He is not being direct. He went to a 3 year school so $30 k x 2 + discounted 3rd year tuition so less than $90 k in tuition. Chapman is charging almost 3x as much in tuition.


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[Judgment Dragon]

Someone tried recruiting me into Amway once. I told them that I would need angel investors to start an Amway business and that it was their responsibility to provide me with said angel investors. They quickly left.

 

[Dalteparin]

Take a look again. The Chinese Community Baptist Church is across the street from Chapman


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Aha, found it! In case anyone's curious, if you're using Google Street View, you might not see the church since it's not well marked. Plug the address the dean provided into Google Maps and then search for the church - it's just on the other side of Hughes from the school.

 

[Judgment Dragon]

Here is the screenshot of Chapman Pharmacy School and the Chinese Community Baptist Church.

 

[gwarm01]

Hold on, if why would pharmacists get tired of waiting for someone to give them a job if the shortage is ongoing? Or are you now referring to a shortage of jobs?

Anyway, great posts. I'm about to request that the hospital suspends my pay so that I may become one of these noble volunteers.

 

[BenJammin]

Thanks for your comment.

But do you think some pharmacists might say that as professionals, especially as health care professionals, they would hope we would focus on improving the quality of care to our patients. Increasing wages, job satisfaction, scope of practice, and ethical employment can lead to better care for our patients, but if we focus on those things rather than the patient then the patient may be forgotten.

This comment is absolutely unbelievable. Why don't you just come out and say that pharmacists should take a pay cut? Why hire one pharmacist for $100,000 when you could hire 3 for $33,000? 3 pharmacists can access more patients than 1. What if a patient needs to pick up their statin during your lunch break? Why spend 30 minutes with the pharmacy closed when it can remain open and the pharmacist can eat throughout the day? School administrators like you need to be held accountable for the kinds of things you advocate with your students. If the Dean of my alma mater said what you said I'd be canceling my alumni association membership TONIGHT.

 

[Whereismynorco]

http://www.aacp.org/career/grants/Documents/Brown-all.pdf

He went to University of the pacific (1996- 1999)

 

[Pharmd = Phake Doctor]

@ChapmanPharmacy You mentioned that the attempts that have been made over the last few years by the APhA to pass provider status legislation haven't been successful. Assuming provider status legislation passes within the next year or two, it will (based on my understanding) grant provider status privileges to pharmacists working in medically underserved areas. In order to grant provider status to pharmacists working in areas that are not considered to be underserved, is the APhA planning to encourage a successive piece of legislation that will grant provider status to all other pharmacists?

How could you do this AAtoPharm? I thought you were one of us. The members of SDN Pharmacy nurtured you and gave you support in this darkest of hours. We tried to make you see the light in this cruel and unforgiving world. We wanted you to follow the path of the righteous and to never falter.

And here you go and make some last-ditch appeal to the devil himself. You think the APhA is strong enough to intercede on your behalf. 'Provider Status,' 'interdisciplinary healthcare teams,' and 'MTM' are jokes. Just a bunch of sick temptations conjured by the dark forces. Deep inside, you know that provider status bills will die in committee until the end times, physicians don't want some goofball pharmacist cosplaying as a doctor to come along with them on rounds as a member of some "interdisciplinary patient care team", and MTM is just plain stupid.

Here, I even made a graphic just for you:

Isn't pharmacy just beautiful? It amazes me sometimes that the practice of pharmacy can be so elegant.

 

[Pharmd = Phake Doctor]

Hey BMBiology, I'm glad you brought up these points, so that I can provide some information.

Pharmacy School clinical pharmacist work as pharmacists 2 or 3 days a week. The other days they are performing the other missions of a professor (service, teaching and research). And they are not volunteers. A typical academic clinical pharmacist has half of their salary paid for by the institution and the other half paid for by the school. The reason the institution only pays half, is because they only work can only work in the institution 2 or 3 days a week. And during the days they are at the institution, they also serve as preceptors for the school's pharmacy students. Lastly, most of the advancements in clinical pharmacy came from academic health center institutions that were largely staffed by academic clinical pharmacists.

And as for the lack of billing for their clinical services, that is an issue with almost all clinical pharmacists in the institution or community pharmacy area (although it is a little better in community pharmacies due to Medicare Part D MTM and immunizations services which can be billed for). So the academic clinical pharmacist work as clinical pharmacists in the institutions, just like non-academic clinical pharmacists, and they don't bill for their services but instead get a salary, just like most non-academic clinical pharmacists. But I can guarantee you that as soon as clinical pharmacists are able to bill for their services, they will. But don't forget that if the clinical pharmacist is employed by an institution, it is the institution that will get the money, not the pharmacist, since the institution will fell that the pharmacist is already being compensated with a salary. The only way that a pharmacy school could make money from their clinical pharmacists is if the School opened and ran it's own clinic or community pharmacy. There are some examples like that in the US. But schools have to be careful, because if they create too big of an operation, the pharmacists in the area will get made because the school is competing with them and taking away their business.

As for pharmacy student tuition paying for everything, I can say that is mostly true for private schools, but not entirely true. Additional money for salaries comes from research grants, contracts, and from the parent University. But that is true for almost all schools, not just pharmacy schools. Academic institutions are a profit generating organization. In fact, the vast majority if college and universities are non-profit organizations, so they are not allowed to make large sums of money.

Ummm, I don't know if what you're doing is technically illegal, but I think you just described a money laundering scheme. Here, I even got a graphic of a typical money laundering scheme:

Then I plugged in what you just described to make it relevant to our current argument (that clinical pharmacist specialists are nothing but volunteers paid for by student's tuition money):

Voila!

 

[PAtoPharm]

How could you do this AAtoPharm? I thought you were one of us. The members of SDN Pharmacy nurtured you and gave you support in this darkest of hours. We tried to make you see the light in this cruel and unforgiving world. We wanted you to follow the path of the righteous and to never falter.

And here you go and make some last-ditch appeal to the devil himself. You think the APhA is strong enough to intercede on your behalf. 'Provider Status,' 'interdisciplinary healthcare teams,' and 'MTM' are jokes. Just a bunch of sick temptations conjured by the dark forces. Deep inside, you know that provider status bills will die in committee until the end times, physicians don't want some goofball pharmacist cosplaying as a doctor to come along with them on rounds as a member of some "interdisciplinary patient care team", and MTM is just plain stupid.

Here, I even made a graphic just for you:
View attachment 204702
Isn't pharmacy just beautiful? It amazes me sometimes that the practice of pharmacy can be so elegant.

This is a great post, but come on now -- I was just curious to hear what the dean has to say. Loved the graphic though, LOL.

 

[Pharmd = Phake Doctor]

Plus, to get really good researchers schools have to pay them a start-up package which is used to for their research. And to get quality clinical pharmacists, their salaries can't be that much less than what they could make as a normal clinical faculty member.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA. Almost died there. Bull-hooey about the existence of some upper-echelon Clinical Pharmacists. Have you been raiding the CII vault lately? There are world-class doctors, world-class dentists, heck, even world-renowned nurses. But I have never heard of clinical pharmacists until I got a hospital job. And the hospital has no clue what to do with that 'clinical pharmacy specialist' because they only have one, while they employ around 40-50 NPs and PAs. The only thing I have seen the clinical pharmacist do is precept the pharmacy students. HA.

Okay, okay. Let's put this in perspective with a hypothetical question. Say that a doctor, a nurse (maybe even an NP!), and a clinical pharmacist are on a flight. A passenger goes code blue all of a sudden. Which professional is NOT called to assist in resuscitating the patient? You know the answer.

How about another brain teaser? You know what happens to a clinical pharmacist that can't get a hospital job? They crawl to Larry for PRN work.

Plus there is money that goes back to the students in the form of scholarships and support for student travel to professional meetings.

You would have to give students $50K a year in scholarships in order to match the tuition at my public university.

And just in case you are under the impression that all pharmacy student tuition goes to the school of pharmacy, you couldn't be more wrong. The parent University not only takes a good portion of the tuition, but they also take a portion of research grants. They do this to help pay for the upkeep of the University, to pay for University wide initiatives, and other costs that come with running a University...

As for pharmacy student tuition paying for everything, I can say that is mostly true for private schools, but not entirely true. Additional money for salaries comes from research grants, contracts, and from the parent University. But that is true for almost all schools, not just pharmacy schools. Academic institutions are a profit generating organization. In fact, the vast majority if college and universities are non-profit organizations, so they are not allowed to make large sums of money.

So you admitted that the COP is basically a cash cow for McChapman University.

I think as the shortage continues, more and more pharmacist will decide to stop waiting for someone to give them a job, and will start their own business. Pharmacy graduates will need to be a lot more entrepreneurial than they have been in the recent past. But don't forget, the pharmacy profession was founded on pharmacist business owners. It was only in the 1980's or so that independent pharmacy ownership really began to decline. Being a business owner is in the life blood of the history of pharmacists.

Shortage? You mean saturation right? Have you been to the pre-pharmacy forums? I know you have. Then you should know that the majority of these pre-pharmers are whiny, entitled, dumber-than-trash little babies, who have the charisma of wet cardboard and minimal-to-nonexistent people skills. They can barely handle stress and they can barely pass community college-level courses. Do you actually think they can be entrepreneurs? They can't handle a multiple choice exam and somehow they're supposed to be able to maneuver the complex workings of the business world?

You're starting to sound like a law school dean. Once pharmacy schools get labeled the 'new law school' in the greater public, you can sell your soul to Larry, but no one is gonna take clinical pharmacy seriously. It will be DEAD. Do you think the physicians or nurses will give a care about the loss of 'clinical' pharmacy? They wouldn't bat an eye.

Whooops....
Pharmacy School is the New Law School

 

[Pharmd = Phake Doctor]

This is a great post, but come on now -- I was just curious to hear what the dean has to say. Loved the graphic though, LOL.

All in the name of humor my dear AAtoPharmtoReek.

 

[PAtoPharm]

All in the name of humor my dear AAtoPharmtoReek.
View attachment 204707

Who's/what's Reek? LOL

 

[gwarm01]

Who's/what's Reek? LOL

I've drawn you a bath, Reek.

 

[zelman]

I've drawn you a bath, Reek.

warning: NSFW

 

[PharmtoCS]

@ChapmanPharmacy , assuming that student loans could be discharged through bankruptcy, how confident would you feel about having Chapman University loan tuition money directly to your students and being responsible for collecting the payments after they graduate?

 

[WVUPharm2007]

Does it make it more trifling if it's across from a Chinese church as opposed to, say. a Catholic church?

 

[WVUPharm2007]

Here is the screenshot of Chapman Pharmacy School and the Chinese Community Baptist Church.

So do the Chinese and Slavic congregations share the same building?

 

[BMBiology]

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[gwarm01]

Does it make it more trifling if it's across from a Chinese church as opposed to, say. a Catholic church?

At least a Korean church would have stronger US ties!

 

[PAtoPharm]

I've drawn you a bath, Reek.

^^^ In that case, I've been feeling like a Reek for at least the past 6-8 months or so....

 

[Chalupa_Batman86]

Someone tried recruiting me into Amway once. I told them that I would need angel investors to start an Amway business and that it was their responsibility to provide me with said angel investors. They quickly left.

There's a difference. Those Amway recruiters left. Mr. Brown is still maintaining his position. I guess the cannabis is strong up there in California, setting delusional levels to an all time high.

 

[Judgment Dragon]

Does it make it more trifling if it's across from a Chinese church as opposed to, say. a Catholic church?

It is actually a Chinese Community Baptist Church.

 

[BMBiology]

This comment is absolutely unbelievable. Why don't you just come out and say that pharmacists should take a pay cut? Why hire one pharmacist for $100,000 when you could hire 3 for $33,000? 3 pharmacists can access more patients than 1. What if a patient needs to pick up their statin during your lunch break? Why spend 30 minutes with the pharmacy closed when it can remain open and the pharmacist can eat throughout the day? School administrators like you need to be held accountable for the kinds of things you advocate with your students. If the Dean of my alma mater said what you said I'd be canceling my alumni association membership TONIGHT.

Let's see him take a pay cut. He is probably making $200 k+ a year in salary alone. I bet you he makes more if he recruits more students. That is why he is on this forum and using his title as APhA president to impress prepharmacy students. That is why he is saying crazy things like how we need an additional 100,000 pharmacists when provider status legislation is no where close to being passed. Where did he get this number? How irresponsible is this? How greedy can you get?



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[ChapmanPharmacy]

@ChapmanPharmacy You mentioned that the attempts that have been made over the last few years by the APhA to pass provider status legislation haven't been successful. Assuming provider status legislation passes within the next year or two, it will (based on my understanding) grant provider status privileges to pharmacists working in medically underserved areas. In order to grant provider status to pharmacists working in areas that are not considered to be underserved, is the APhA planning to encourage a successive piece of legislation that will grant provider status to all other pharmacists?

Great question.

Obviously APhA and other pharmacy associations would have loved to have the proposed legislation give provider status to all pharmacists in the US. But having the legislation allow for all pharmacists to be recognized as providers of ALL care to ALL patients would have resulted in an extremely high CBO score. An extremely high CBO score would have prevented any hope of it getting passed. So to limit the cost of the legislation it was decided to limit it to pharmacists who provide care for patients in medically underserved areas. APhA has a map here http://www.pharmacist.com/sites/default/files/files/APhA National Map - Medically Underserved.pdf that shows how common medically underserved areas are in each state. It is estimated that about 80% of counties include a medically underserved area, so a majority of pharmacists would be included as providers.

After we get this legislation passed, and society sees the value of having pharmacists as providers, then legislation will be submitted to allow provider status for all pharmacists.

But APhA isn't just working at the National level, they are also helping states get provider status legislation passed. A couple of years ago California got provider status passed and they even created a new type of registered pharmacist called an Advanced Practice Pharmacist. These pharmacists will be able to initiate, modify, and discontinue therapy, as well as order labs.

 

[BMBiology]

The provider status that was passed in California is very limited in its scope. If the same bill passed nationwide, it won't create 100,000 pharmacist jobs you are touting on this forum. Again, how did you get this number?


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[UofK]

If anyone tells you there are NOT top schools of pharmacy, they are fools.

If you want GOOD jobs pre-pharm kids, not just slaving away for a corporate DM fighting for 32 hours per week for the next 40 years, the first step in the process is going to a school with a quality reputation.

edit: I would say...the TRUE first step would be to avoid pharmacy. But if you insist, go to a good school.

 

[ChapmanPharmacy]

This comment is absolutely unbelievable. Why don't you just come out and say that pharmacists should take a pay cut? Why hire one pharmacist for $100,000 when you could hire 3 for $33,000? 3 pharmacists can access more patients than 1. What if a patient needs to pick up their statin during your lunch break? Why spend 30 minutes with the pharmacy closed when it can remain open and the pharmacist can eat throughout the day? School administrators like you need to be held accountable for the kinds of things you advocate with your students. If the Dean of my alma mater said what you said I'd be canceling my alumni association membership TONIGHT.

I wish more pharmacy school deans had the same perspective. If they did pharmacists would have more recognized value in the health care system. "Patients don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." That was a quote from one of my professors at the University of Minnesota. I have been using that quote in convocation and graduation speeches since then, and you would be amazed at how many heads are nodding. People already have the perception of pharmacists that they are just merchants who only care about selling stuff. If the public doesn't believe we care about them, they are unlikely to care about us, our wages, or our working conditions.

Also, if physicians don't believe we care about the patients, they are also unlikely to want to partner with us.

Isn't it strange that pharmacists want to be viewed as health care professional, yet some feel that it isn't important to show they care about the patients we serve.

I'm not saying pay and working conditions aren't important, just that showing we care about patients should be the primary focus.

 

[Digsbe]

Thanks for your comment.

But do you think some pharmacists might say that as professionals, especially as health care professionals, they would hope we would focus on improving the quality of care to our patients. Increasing wages, job satisfaction, scope of practice, and ethical employment can lead to better care for our patients, but if we focus on those things rather than the patient then the patient may be forgotten.

The path things currently take the focus is on corporitization of healthcare which has profits as the focus and views caring for patients as a "necessary evil" to getting their money. How is an oversupply of pharmacists going to benefit patients? All it will do is lead to an increase in unethical practice and employment practices as dictated by corporate healthcare with pharmacists making less money and more being out of work with crushing student loan debt. An increase or oversupply of pharmacists isn't beneficial for patients, especially if there aren't jobs there for those pharmacists to work and serve patients in the first place.

 

[PAtoPharm]

Great question.

Obviously APhA and other pharmacy associations would have loved to have the proposed legislation give provider status to all pharmacists in the US. But having the legislation allow for all pharmacists to be recognized as providers of ALL care to ALL patients would have resulted in an extremely high CBO score. An extremely high CBO score would have prevented any hope of it getting passed. So to limit the cost of the legislation it was decided to limit it to pharmacists who provide care for patients in medically underserved areas. APhA has a map here http://www.pharmacist.com/sites/default/files/files/APhA National Map - Medically Underserved.pdf that shows how common medically underserved areas are in each state. It is estimated that about 80% of counties include a medically underserved area, so a majority of pharmacists would be included as providers.

After we get this legislation passed, and society sees the value of having pharmacists as providers, then legislation will be submitted to allow provider status for all pharmacists.

But APhA isn't just working at the National level, they are also helping states get provider status legislation passed. A couple of years ago California got provider status passed and they even created a new type of registered pharmacist called an Advanced Practice Pharmacist. These pharmacists will be able to initiate, modify, and discontinue therapy, as well as order labs.

Thanks for the information. At this point, do you know what the bill's legislative status is? (e.g., when the next vote is expected to be held, by when will it be known whether the legislation is going to pass or not, etc.)

 

[steveysmith54]

This is hilarious... So BLS came out with a report that pharmacy growth is below average, pharmacy times and drug topics both reported that number of grads outnumber jobs based on recent data.... in respnse to this, APhA president comes out and says no we need more pharmacists... Sorry, some us actually have real life experience and think this report is as legit as the claims that's OC needed their own pharmacy school lol...