How relevant is research in pharmacy school?

[cougarpharm]

My pharmacy school is currently trying to implement a Bioinformatics program. By doing so they hired a new professor to help with the launch and over the summer did a trial speed run of an overview of basic computational skills to analyze and visualize biomedical datasets. Pretty much a beginners level course into coding and understanding the data. I was pretty interested in the workshop since I believe that Pharmacy Informatics is a growing field.

A P3 I talk to told me that research in pharmacy school is only relevant if you are trying to get into research/industry/masters. I do have an inpatient internship but was interested in this new research opportunity just to see what PharmDs can do outside of retail and inpatient.

Is research is relevant in pharmacy school? Is Pharmacy Informatics a field to get into? What are the potential jobs that Bioinformatics can lead to for PharmDs? Thank you in advance and I hope everyone is stay safe during the pandemic.

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[ValeRx]

Are you talking about drug development type research? There are MS degrees for that. The purpose of the PharmD is not research.

 

[Marzapan]

My pharmacy school is currently trying to implement a Bioinformatics program. By doing so they hired a new professor to help with the launch and over the summer did a trial speed run of an overview of basic computational skills to analyze and visualize biomedical datasets. Pretty much a beginners level course into coding and understanding the data. I was pretty interested in the workshop since I believe that Pharmacy Informatics is a growing field.

A P3 I talk to told me that research in pharmacy school is only relevant if you are trying to get into research/industry/masters. I do have an inpatient internship but was interested in this new research opportunity just to see what PharmDs can do outside of retail and inpatient.

Is research is relevant in pharmacy school? Is Pharmacy Informatics a field to get into? What are the potential jobs that Bioinformatics can lead to for PharmDs? Thank you in advance and I hope everyone is stay safe during the pandemic.

The #1 thing you should remember as a pharmacy student is to not trust your professors. Informatics is not a growing field. Just ask any real informatics pharmacist (not an academician or one of those LinkedIn/social media keyboard warriors).

Just like how techs displace the value of pharmacists, so does an IT professional displace the value of an "informatics pharmacist." The bottom line is why should an organization pay for someone 2-3x MORE expensive than an IT worker but much LESS technical? What is the incremental value of having niche "clinical" value (i.e. your clinical background does not translate to the broader medical informatics space because pharmacists don't diagnose or bill so there is a lot of stuff in the background you won't ever be exposed to even if you've practiced as a clinical pharmacist for years)?

Do a simple job search for informatics pharmacists and you will see that the job opportunities are scant. With PGY-2 programs training out 30-40 "informatics pharmacists" each year, this has already saturated that market.

 

[cougarpharm]

Are you talking about drug development type research? There are MS degrees for that. The purpose of the PharmD is not research.

Nah it’s not drug development. It’s using basic computational skills (i.e. Python) to analyze and visualize biomedical datasets.

 

[Rockinacoustic]

How relevant? It depends what you want to do upon graduation. It won't matter for community, it won't hurt for residency, and it's probably a necessity for research/health informatics.

I'd wager it will open more doors for you if you do it. Preferably do that and the inpatient internship to keep your options open.

 

[deleted562805]

The #1 thing you should remember as a pharmacy student is to not trust your professors. Informatics is not a growing field. Just ask any real informatics pharmacist (not an academician or one of those LinkedIn/social media keyboard warriors).

Just like how techs displace the value of pharmacists, so does an IT professional displace the value of an "informatics pharmacist." The bottom line is why should an organization pay for someone 2-3x MORE expensive than an IT worker but much LESS technical? What is the incremental value of having niche "clinical" value (i.e. your clinical background does not translate to the broader medical informatics space because pharmacists don't diagnose or bill so there is a lot of stuff in the background you won't ever be exposed to even if you've practiced as a clinical pharmacist for years)?

Do a simple job search for informatics pharmacists and you will see that the job opportunities are scant. With PGY-2 programs training out 30-40 "informatics pharmacists" each year, this has already saturated that market.

I remember shadowing an informatics pharmacist, no residency but had a bachelors in CS. Knew the pharmacy side of things and the technical programming side of things. If one wants to informatics, this person suggested getting a degree in CS in informatics as opposed to informatics residency.

ASHP apparently looks at informatics as pharmacists that check emails and answer phone calls all day. So don’t expect these residency programs to teach you technical programming language needed for informatics.

 

[deleted562805]

How relevant? It depends what you want to do upon graduation. It won't matter for community, it won't hurt for residency, and it's probably a necessity for research/health informatics.

I'd wager it will open more doors for you if you do it. Preferably do that and the inpatient internship to keep your options open.

Research has become a necessity for hospital residencies now.

 

[Seriously Serious]

The #1 thing you should remember as a pharmacy student is to not trust your professors. Informatics is not a growing field. Just ask any real informatics pharmacist (not an academician or one of those LinkedIn/social media keyboard warriors).

Just like how techs displace the value of pharmacists, so does an IT professional displace the value of an "informatics pharmacist." The bottom line is why should an organization pay for someone 2-3x MORE expensive than an IT worker but much LESS technical? What is the incremental value of having niche "clinical" value (i.e. your clinical background does not translate to the broader medical informatics space because pharmacists don't diagnose or bill so there is a lot of stuff in the background you won't ever be exposed to even if you've practiced as a clinical pharmacist for years)?

Do a simple job search for informatics pharmacists and you will see that the job opportunities are scant. With PGY-2 programs training out 30-40 "informatics pharmacists" each year, this has already saturated that market.

The #2 thing you should remember as a pharmacy student is not to trust random posters on an anonymous forum who do not know what they are saying.

You cannot hire an IT professional with no medical background to build ordersets and tools in EHR's because they would literally have no idea what they are building or why they are building it... One might say "oh, well you would just hire a consultant to help guide cheaper IT professionals to build in EHRs"... well because consultants are expensive and you are essentially hiring 2 people for a 1 person job (IT pharmacist) -- not only that, the time for projects to complete would take longer... which again costs more money.

"Do a simple job search for informatics pharmacists and you will see that the job opportunities are scant"... Do a simple job search for any kind of pharmacist and you will see that the job opportunities are scant, we are in a pandemic on top of an already saturated job market.

"With PGY-2 programs training out 30-40 'informatics pharmacists' each year, this has already saturated that market."... hmm, I'd rather compete against 40 new informatics pharmacists for the few number of opportunities each year than compete against 15K new grads for the few number of floater positions that exist. The benefit of training as an informatics pharmacist is that you acquire skills and experience that translate to non-pharmacist jobs like data-science (aka a way out of pharmacy).

How relevant? It depends what you want to do upon graduation. It won't matter for community, it won't hurt for residency, and it's probably a necessity for research/health informatics.

I'd wager it will open more doors for you if you do it. Preferably do that and the inpatient internship to keep your options open.

This is very true. Take that research position and complete as many projects as you can, this will set you a part from other residents, especially for informatics.

I remember shadowing an informatics pharmacist, no residency but had a bachelors in CS. Knew the pharmacy side of things and the technical programming side of things. If one wants to informatics, this person suggested getting a degree in CS in informatics as opposed to informatics residency.

ASHP apparently looks at informatics as pharmacists that check emails and answer phone calls all day. So don’t expect these residency programs to teach you technical programming language needed for informatics.

This is false. If I were a new undergraduate student, sure, I would get a degree in math/engineering/CS if I knew for a fact that pharmacy informatics is career I wanted to pursue... but nobody goes to pharmacy school thinking they want to become an informatics pharmacist, it is something they discover in school. At the very best, it is a "plus" on a resume. Informatics pharmacists DO NOT code in the traditional sense... so you will be wasting your time learning to code. At most, you will learn simple software like SQL, xcel/VBA, Tableau, maybe SAS/R if you are an overachiever.... which I do not consider coding bc you can effectively learn any of these programs in like 1-2 weeks.

I am pharmacy informatics resident, if you have any specific questions, shoot me a PM.

 

[Marzapan]

The #2 thing you should remember as a pharmacy student is not to trust random posters on an anonymous forum who do not know what they are saying.

You cannot hire an IT professional with no medical background to build ordersets and tools in EHR's because they would literally have no idea what they are building or why they are building it... One might say "oh, well you would just hire a consultant to help guide cheaper IT professionals to build in EHRs"... well because consultants are expensive and you are essentially hiring 2 people for a 1 person job (IT pharmacist) -- not only that, the time for projects to complete would take longer... which again costs more money.

And yet, take a look at what personnel exist in health system informatics departments. There are many ways to circumvent the need for hiring dedicated IT pharmacists - relying on a continuous feedback loop from end users (clinical/staff pharmacists or their management) for input, borrowing expertise from other "clinical" staff that work in informatics (MDs, RNs, PAs etc.), or simply just hiring people who have healthcare informatics degrees/backgrounds who aren't a "clinician." You can also get "medical" experience by simply working in a hospital as a non-clinician because while your duties may be different from a clinician, you will be observing similar things and will be able to pick up the jargon through time. So I wouldn't be surprised if most informatics departments' IT personnel have some sort of technician, medical assistant or ancillary heathcare background prior to transitioning into their current role. In addition, pharmacy informatics only exists to help health systems with migrations and new implementations but a health system only needs to do this once in a while - you might need some "clinical" staff to help with the initial setup/load, but once fully implemented all that's left is maintenance which hardly requires someone with a "clinical" skillset to manage. This is why health systems are constantly restructuring/consolidating their informatics and IT departments (for example, Kaiser). Funny that you say that you're a informatics resident because it tells me that 1. You have no idea what the job market is like because you haven't looked for a real job yet, and 2. Because you haven't worked as a pharmacist you don't have a working knowledge of industry trends. Believe me, I've seen those ads/videos of informatics RPDs touting the "growing field of pharmacy informatics" but just like every other area of pharmacy, a self-proclaimed statement means nothing when it's other people (MBAs, MDs etc.) who are ultimately controlling your destiny.

Do a simple job search for any kind of pharmacist and you will see that the job opportunities are scant, we are in a pandemic on top of an already saturated job market.

You just proved my point? In a field that already has scant opportunities, why pigeonhole yourself even further by looking for even more scant, niche opportunities?

"With PGY-2 programs training out 30-40 'informatics pharmacists' each year, this has already saturated that market."... hmm, I'd rather compete against 40 new informatics pharmacists for the few number of opportunities each year than compete against 15K new grads for the few number of floater positions that exist.

Your basis for comparison is off. Your competition not only includes informatics residency grads, but also PGY-1 grads interested in informatics jobs, hospital staff/clinical pharmacists interested in transitioning into informatics jobs and retail pharmacists wanting to get out (of course, that last group's applications are automatically tossed out the window but they still count towards the "total number of applications" if that's the metric we're interested in.

On the other side, by virtue of there being some 5000ish residency spots each year, hundreds of fellowship positions and attrition of new grads to other careers or pursuing additional degrees instead of looking for jobs, there is in reality much less than 10k new grads competing for those floater positions you are talking about. And while the ratios of applicants to positions may be higher, there are still many more opportunities to apply to so you have a better overall chance of getting something. Here's an analogy: would you rather buy a lottery ticket that had a 10% chance of winning or 100 lottery tickets each with a 1% chance of winning? I'd take the 100 tickets anyday because it diversifies my risk and all I care about is winning - I don't care about how much I won or what brand of ticket I bought, I just want to win.

 

[lord999]

The #1 thing you should remember as a pharmacy student is to not trust your professors. Informatics is not a growing field. Just ask any real informatics pharmacist (not an academician or one of those LinkedIn/social media keyboard warriors).

Just like how techs displace the value of pharmacists, so does an IT professional displace the value of an "informatics pharmacist." The bottom line is why should an organization pay for someone 2-3x MORE expensive than an IT worker but much LESS technical? What is the incremental value of having niche "clinical" value (i.e. your clinical background does not translate to the broader medical informatics space because pharmacists don't diagnose or bill so there is a lot of stuff in the background you won't ever be exposed to even if you've practiced as a clinical pharmacist for years)?

Do a simple job search for informatics pharmacists and you will see that the job opportunities are scant. With PGY-2 programs training out 30-40 "informatics pharmacists" each year, this has already saturated that market.

I take offense to that as an academician myself but agree with the general sentiment. We're not all ivory tower.

Most of the outstanding informaticists are industry, mainly because, you deal with the politics, you make your money, and you bring value to the table where there wasn't any before. Argus, SureScripts, Blue Cross (Optum) are fine companies to work for. But most of the very high trained pharmacist informaticists do not go through ASHP, most of us were NLM trained. The ASHP residency, which one of my fellows was instrumental in forming, was designed as a lesser option to the competitive NLM placement (and still is that way). I do not consider residency trained informaticists to be that well trained on anything and are largely useless outside of very defined institutional settings. For the fellows, that's first semester.

NLM's University-based Biomedical Informatics and Data Science Research Training Programs

www.nlm.nih.gov

If I'm thinking about the same institution in CA, yeah, they're a joke and it's not worth it to hang around. Go to UCSD where they're serious about it, there's no way in hell that institution is even going to be remotely competitive to UCSD, and UCSD is considered among the lower-tier institutions in the NLM system.

 

[deleted562805]

This is false. If I were a new undergraduate student, sure, I would get a degree in math/engineering/CS if I knew for a fact that pharmacy informatics is career I wanted to pursue... but nobody goes to pharmacy school thinking they want to become an informatics pharmacist, it is something they discover in school. At the very best, it is a "plus" on a resume. Informatics pharmacists DO NOT code in the traditional sense... so you will be wasting your time learning to code. At most, you will learn simple software like SQL, xcel/VBA, Tableau, maybe SAS/R if you are an overachiever.... which I do not consider coding bc you can effectively learn any of these programs in like 1-2 weeks.

I am pharmacy informatics resident, if you have any specific questions, shoot me a PM.

I said a CS degree in informatics, basically a health informatics IT degree rather than a informatics pharmacy residency. If someone is going into health informatics, they don’t need to know Python.

I think a hospital will more than likely will recognize a general health informatics IT degree vs a pharmacy informatics residency. Other health care professions like medicine don’t really have a medical informatics residency, they just get a health informatics IT degree.

I agree with you are not coding in the literal sense. By coding I mean Java, C++, and Python.

 

[lord999]

When I think of a fellow trained pharmacy informaticist, I mean:
1. Can program in M or its more modern form in Cache classes or can significantly develop using the EHR system programming language with data interfacing
2. Can form and transmit HL7 messages to and from areas using the NCPDP standard by hand and to be able to build a validator from the SCRIPT specs
3. Can deal with systems analysis on the IT level and have fundamental knowledge of one of the aspects and technical knowledge of the rest (security, kernel, data, analysis, exchange, crisis)
4. Can deal with Clinical Decision Support not just at the individual level, but a system implementation level (as in, give the tools for the clinical application coordinators to do their relatively limited-scope jobs)
5. To deal with regulatory issues related to 1-4

They are not easy to find, and when they are new, they command significant salaries as it's a given that getting a job at Intersystems/Epic/Cerner, Optum, or Elsevier is a decision for the newly graduated. Most go the Health Insurance or Medical Information route.

Everyone else is a basic clinical analyst. Those jobs used to be competitive, but are increasingly not as saturation takes place. But anyone with the above fundamental skills has the basis to move to any platform, any problem, and industry will pay almost any price to retain their services.

 

[Marzapan]

I take offense to that as an academician myself but agree with the general sentiment. We're not all ivory tower.

Respectfully, I think you're a different type. I can't think of any academician who regularly posts on this board besides those pharmacy school deans of new schools and given this specific subject matter being discussed, I think it's fair to say that many schools will struggle to have even one faculty on staff who is qualified to talk about informatics, let alone give students advice. Matter of fact, the quantitative subjects at my alma mater were taught by PhD's and not pharmacists. Based on your post history though I do believe we have some common colleagues who I happen to respect so I'll just call it "reputation by association" and leave it at that.

 

[Seriously Serious]

And yet, take a look at what personnel exist in health system informatics departments. There are many ways to circumvent the need for hiring dedicated IT pharmacists - relying on a continuous feedback loop from end users (clinical/staff pharmacists or their management) for input, borrowing expertise from other "clinical" staff that work in informatics (MDs, RNs, PAs etc.), or simply just hiring people who have healthcare informatics degrees/backgrounds who aren't a "clinician." You can also get "medical" experience by simply working in a hospital as a non-clinician because while your duties may be different from a clinician, you will be observing similar things and will be able to pick up the jargon through time. So I wouldn't be surprised if most informatics departments' IT personnel have some sort of technician, medical assistant or ancillary heathcare background prior to transitioning into their current role. In addition, pharmacy informatics only exists to help health systems with migrations and new implementations but a health system only needs to do this once in a while - you might need some "clinical" staff to help with the initial setup/load, but once fully implemented all that's left is maintenance which hardly requires someone with a "clinical" skillset to manage. This is why health systems are constantly restructuring/consolidating their informatics and IT departments (for example, Kaiser).

I can tell you are someone with little to no inpatient experience looking in from the outside based off your list of mitigation strategies to circumvent the need for an informatics pharmacist. You are misled if you think being "clinical" is merely understanding medical terminology... that is the easy part and is not what having a clinical background means at all. Being clinical is:

1. Understanding interdisciplinary workflow: knowing how a drug is prepared/delivered knowing when it should be appropriately given as to not take up too much of a nurse's time and/or cause confusion (med errors). Keep in mind, there varying degree of nurse specialties and varying degrees of pharmacy specialties, which means varying degrees of pharmacy/nursing workflow.
2. Understanding the differing combination of drugs and administration protocols for every procedure and/or disease state: e.g. list the premeds given before chemo, are they pushed or given continuously, what order do you give the differing chemos, how far apart are chemos given, what lab values are red flagged when a patient is on drug X, how soon should drug X be given after being compounded due to Y shelf-life, etc.

If an IT professional can pick all of this up while sitting in a closet in front of a computer, i'll be damned, give that person an honorary doctorate.

You claim that IT staff are consolidated because of minimal maintenance after a system is in place... you again, are misinformed. As long as medicine and science progresses, medical practices change, new drugs are developed and brought to the market, pharmacy IT will be needed to make these changes in the Health-Systems EMR for constant process improvement, quality control, and waste reduction.

Funny that you say that you're a informatics resident because it tells me that 1. You have no idea what the job market is like because you haven't looked for a real job yet, and 2. Because you haven't worked as a pharmacist you don't have a working knowledge of industry trends. Believe me, I've seen those ads/videos of informatics RPDs touting the "growing field of pharmacy informatics" but just like every other area of pharmacy, a self-proclaimed statement means nothing when it's other people (MBAs, MDs etc.) who are ultimately controlling your destiny.

Funny, I do not recall choosing this career path by watching an ad/video. You keep showing me how misinformed you are.

In school, I consulted with at least 5 different informatics pharmacists from differing health-systems and companies (non-hospital settings), I held two internships in informatics (1 clinical setting, 1 non-clinical/industry setting), I applied to residency programs that were in health-systems with impressive growth over the past 5 years who had an ambitious vision to grow their varying departments (more growth = scalability of infrastructure = more opportunity for a job).

You just proved my point? In a field that already has scant opportunities, why pigeonhole yourself even further by looking for even more scant, niche opportunities?

No I didn't? Your point was that there are scarce jobs and saturation. My point is literally everyone around the country is feeling this symptom, pharmacy or not. If your reason for not going into pharmacy informatics is job saturation... that is literally everything in pharmacy. If I had to choose between a saturated niche informatics market, or an even more saturated retail/staffing market, I will choose the former.

Pigeonhole? I will have accumulated more non-pharmacy skills (data analytics, project management, etc) that will allow me to transition to non-pharmacy jobs if I desired. Working retail, accumulating no personal/professional growth is pigeonholing your career.

Your basis for comparison is off. Your competition not only includes informatics residency grads, but also PGY-1 grads interested in informatics jobs, hospital staff/clinical pharmacists interested in transitioning into informatics jobs and retail pharmacists wanting to get out (of course, that last group's applications are automatically tossed out the window but they still count towards the "total number of applications" if that's the metric we're interested in.

You are grossly overestimating my "competition". Over the past 3 years, I have been following job posting requirements. Two big gateways that are big obstacles to about 70-80% of postings: (1) Epic certification, (2) Two-year Pharmacy Informatics residency required; or both. I will have both. Even in a situation where these are not required, I will have major leverage over my inpatient/retail staffing competition.

My odds at getting a job are severely higher than someone looking to land a full-time position in retail where the only thing that is required is a license.

Here's an analogy: would you rather buy a lottery ticket that had a 10% chance of winning or 100 lottery tickets each with a 1% chance of winning? I'd take the 100 tickets anyday because it diversifies my risk and all I care about is winning - I don't care about how much I won or what brand of ticket I bought, I just want to win.

Huh? lol

Here's my analogy: would you rather get paid 120K doing something you love, or getting paid 120K doing something that you hate. Life is too short to work a job you hate.

 

[Seriously Serious]

I said a CS degree in informatics, basically a health informatics IT degree rather than a informatics pharmacy residency. If someone is going into health informatics, they don’t need to know Python.

I think a hospital will more than likely will recognize a general health informatics IT degree vs a pharmacy informatics residency. Other health care professions like medicine don’t really have a medical informatics residency, they just get a health informatics IT degree.

I agree with you are not coding in the literal sense. By coding I mean Java, C++, and Python.

Well I know for a fact that this is untrue. Getting a masters in informatics does not give you heavy clinical work experience nor does it get you something as important as an Epic certification, which right now, is really hard to get without work experience...

I will say if you could not get a residency (any kind) and/or you are at least a few years into your career and are looking to pivot, it is a good place to start. However, you are just as likely to successfully pivot (if not more) if you take on real-world informatics experience at your current work place.

 

[Marzapan]

I can tell you are someone with little to no inpatient experience looking in from the outside based off your list of mitigation strategies to circumvent the need for an informatics pharmacist. You are misled if you think being "clinical" is merely understanding medical terminology... that is the easy part and is not what having a clinical background means at all. Being clinical is:

1. Understanding interdisciplinary workflow: knowing how a drug is prepared/delivered knowing when it should be appropriately given as to not take up too much of a nurse's time and/or cause confusion (med errors). Keep in mind, there varying degree of nurse specialties and varying degrees of pharmacy specialties, which means varying degrees of pharmacy/nursing workflow.
2. Understanding the differing combination of drugs and administration protocols for every procedure and/or disease state: e.g. list the premeds given before chemo, are they pushed or given continuously, what order do you give the differing chemos, how far apart are chemos given, what lab values are red flagged when a patient is on drug X, how soon should drug X be given after being compounded due to Y shelf-life, etc.

If an IT professional can pick all of this up while sitting in a closet in front of a computer, i'll be damned, give that person an honorary doctorate.

You claim that IT staff are consolidated because of minimal maintenance after a system is in place... you again, are misinformed. As long as medicine and science progresses, medical practices change, new drugs are developed and brought to the market, pharmacy IT will be needed to make these changes in the Health-Systems EMR for constant process improvement, quality control, and waste reduction.



Funny, I do not recall choosing this career path by watching an ad/video. You keep showing me how misinformed you are.

In school, I consulted with at least 5 different informatics pharmacists from differing health-systems and companies (non-hospital settings), I held two internships in informatics (1 clinical setting, 1 non-clinical/industry setting), I applied to residency programs that were in health-systems with impressive growth over the past 5 years who had an ambitious vision to grow their varying departments (more growth = scalability of infrastructure = more opportunity for a job).



No I didn't? Your point was that there are scarce jobs and saturation. My point is literally everyone around the country is feeling this symptom, pharmacy or not. If your reason for not going into pharmacy informatics is job saturation... that is literally everything in pharmacy. If I had to choose between a saturated niche informatics market, or an even more saturated retail/staffing market, I will choose the former.



You are grossly overestimating my "competition". Over the past 3 years, I have been following job posting requirements. Two big gateways that are big obstacles to about 70-80% of postings: (1) Epic certification, (2) Two-year Pharmacy Informatics residency required; or both. I will have both. Even in a situation where these are not required, I will have major leverage over my inpatient/retail staffing competition.

My odds at getting a job are severely higher than someone looking to land a full-time position in retail where the only thing that is required is a license.



Huh? lol

Here's my analogy: would you rather get paid 120K doing something you love, or getting paid 120K doing something that you hate. Life is too short to work a job you hate.

Get a job then we'll talk. I get my info from recent (last 2-3 years) PGY-2 informatics grads and the consensus is the "pharmacy informatics" skillset gained from residency is too niche. Some of them are currently unemployed - others are practicing as clinical pharmacists and are falling back on their PGY-1 skillset because the jobs aren't there. The fact of the matter is that informatics pharmacists, just like clinical specialists, are seen as "nice to haves" to a health system and not essentials. Just don't get ahead of yourself just because you are doing a "niche" residency and getting "skills" that other pharmacists don't have because you'll be in for a rude awakening...

 

[Seriously Serious]

Get a job then we'll talk. I get my info from recent (last 2-3 years) PGY-2 informatics grads and the consensus is the "pharmacy informatics" skillset gained from residency is too niche. Some of them are currently unemployed - others are practicing as clinical pharmacists and are falling back on their PGY-1 skillset because the jobs aren't there. The fact of the matter is that informatics pharmacists, just like clinical specialists, are seen as "nice to haves" to a health system and not essentials. Just don't get ahead of yourself just because you are doing a "niche" residency and getting "skills" that other pharmacists don't have because you'll be in for a rude awakening...

Look, I am not someone who thinks I am holier than others just because I am looking to pursue a career that requires me to get more education/training. I was fully prepared to apply for retail jobs out of school if I did not match. It just blows my mind how people are so ready to tear down another person without knowing how calculative they have been through this whole transition (and continue to be). I am offering my first hand experiences & research with the OP inquiring about the path I am currently pursing over some random poster's "who have heard from a friend". In a pharmacy market that is already tough to land FTE, I would say what do you have to lose. If this was a 2000-2010 market, it would be a different story.

 

[Marzapan]

Look, I am not someone who thinks I am holier than others just because I am looking to pursue a career that requires me to get more education/training. I was fully prepared to apply for retail jobs out of school if I did not match. It just blows my mind how people are so ready to tear down another person without knowing how calculative they have been through this whole transition (and continue to be). I am offering my first hand experiences & research with the OP inquiring about the path I am currently pursing over some random poster's "who have heard from a friend". In a pharmacy market that is already tough to land FTE, I would say what do you have to lose. If this was a 2000-2010 market, it would be a different story.

You're talking about tearing another person down? You led off your post with "The #2 thing you should remember as a pharmacy student is not to trust random posters on an anonymous forum who do not know what they are saying."

If you are pursuing informatics that's your choice and your business, and I don't blame you given the state of the job market. My point was to argue that this field is saturated and not growing. Nothing more than that till you decided to try and discredit me.

 

[deleted562805]

Well I know for a fact that this is untrue. Getting a masters in informatics does not give you heavy clinical work experience nor does it get you something as important as an Epic certification, which right now, is really hard to get without work experience...

I will say if you could not get a residency (any kind) and/or you are at least a few years into your career and are looking to pivot, it is a good place to start. However, you are just as likely to successfully pivot (if not more) if you take on real-world informatics experience at your current work place.

None of the other health care professions have a residency nor have they created one for informatics. They just get a Masters in informatics. So what exactly is advantage of a pharmacy informatics residency has over Masters in Informatics?

A Masters in informatics is supposed to help on the technical side of things. The purpose of the degree is not help with the clinical work experience. Most other health professions have clinical work experience prior to Masters in Health Informatics.

Well, pharmacy informatics does not get you EPIC certified. The only way to get EPIC certified is if your hospital has a contract with EPIC or you work for EPIC head quarters. I am sure other health care workers and even non clinicians working in a hospital who have a Masters in health informatics are Epic certified if their hospital has a contract with EPIC

Basically, pharmacy informatics by itself is too niche of a field with even very few positions.

Instead as a pharmacist after either retail or staff pharmacist work experience I can broaden my scope by getting a Bioinformatics degree or Health informatics. Also, consider that there is a saturation of residents now.

 

[lord999]

None of the other health care professions have a residency nor have they created one for informatics. They just get a Masters in informatics. So what exactly is advantage of a pharmacy informatics residency has over Masters in Informatics?

A Masters in informatics is supposed to help on the technical side of things. The purpose of the degree is not help with the clinical work experience. Most other health professions have clinical work experience prior to Masters in Health Informatics.

Well, pharmacy informatics does not get you EPIC certified. The only way to get EPIC certified is if your hospital has a contract with EPIC or you work for EPIC head quarters. I am sure other health care workers and even non clinicians working in a hospital who have a Masters in health informatics are Epic certified if their hospital has a contract with EPIC

Basically, pharmacy informatics by itself is too niche of a field with even very few positions.

Instead as a pharmacist after either retail or staff pharmacist work experience I can broaden my scope by getting a Bioinformatics degree or Health informatics. Also, consider that there is a saturation of residents now.

I would not listen to this advice. This person speaks with no background knowledge about either field.