Opinions on nuclear pharmacy?

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PAtoPharm

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Yesterday, I met with the pharmacy manager of the local Cardinal Health nuclear pharmacy about doing an IPPE rotation there, and he was pretty enthusiastic about having me rotate there. He said that they don't have students rotate there very often and that they just had a student from a different in-state school back out after they had tentatively planned to do an APPE there. He also said I would be able to get hired as a nuclear pharmacist there today if I was graduating now and was interested.

So what is the general consensus on working as a nuclear pharmacist? I know the schedule is weird (I will be coming in at 3 AM), but the manager's enthusiasm at the prospect of having me rotate there was kind of surprising. I have no idea what to expect and am actually looking forward to the rotation.

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Yesterday, I met with the pharmacy manager of the local Cardinal Health nuclear pharmacy about doing an IPPE rotation there, and he was pretty enthusiastic about having me rotate there. He said that they don't have students rotate there very often and that they just had a student from a different in-state school back out after they had tentatively planned to do an APPE there. He also said I would be able to get hired as a nuclear pharmacist there today if I was graduating now and was interested.

So what is the general consensus on working as a nuclear pharmacist? I know the schedule is weird (I will be coming in at 3 AM), but the manager's enthusiasm at the prospect of having me rotate there was kind of surprising. I have no idea what to expect and am actually looking forward to the rotation.
I only know what I read in the nuclear mega thread on here, but I thought it sounded pretty cool. Like most areas of pharmacy, it was a totally sweet gig once upon a time and is getting worse, but still not a bad option.
 
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When I did an APPE at a nuclear site my preceptor made it seem like nuclear was in real trouble. According to him the number of nuclear pharmacies is shrinking and the demand for radioactive products is on the decline. I am pretty shocked your site has an opening that is not already spoken for, but that is based off of my very limited experience with the field.
 
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When I did an APPE at a nuclear site my preceptor made it seem like nuclear was in real trouble. According to him the number of nuclear pharmacies is shrinking and the demand for radioactive products is on the decline. I am pretty shocked your site has an opening that is not already spoken for, but that is based off of my very limited experience with the field.

Are people saying that nuclear pharmacy could go away completely within 10-15 years?

Also, it sounds like the job market for nuclear pharmacists must be pretty bad in most areas (like it is for most other kinds of pharmacists)... I guess my area must be an exception for now, or they just have a rare opening that they just happen to have a hard time filling.
 
Are people saying that nuclear pharmacy could go away completely within 10-15 years?

Also, it sounds like the job market for nuclear pharmacists must be pretty bad in most areas (like it is for most other kinds of pharmacists)... I guess my area must be an exception for now, or they just have a rare opening that they just happen to have a hard time filling.


Nuclear pharmacy is very narrow/very limited jobs on a level nothing like other pharmacy fields. A major city may have only a handful overall. Even if supposedly guaranteed a job, be prepared to move if that job is terminated at your location/you lose it in general. As in move cross country and pray you find another spot. Also don't underestimate the hours they work....most can't realistically do it long term.
 
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Does your school offer a training program for nuclear pharmacy? There are required classroom hours and practice hours before you can get the additional licensing required to work as a nuclear pharmacist.

I went to one of the few schools nationwide that offered nuclear pharmacist training. I completed the program, got my certificate, even did a summer internship with Cardinal health to get my hours. Unfortunately, I graduated during a huge shortage of Mo-99 that caused a big dip in the business. The lab I worked for was shut down. There were maybe four jobs available nationwide, none of which called me for an interview.

When people say hospital jobs are hard to get and clinical pharmacist positions are barely existent, they are still an order of magnitude more common than nuclear pharmacy jobs. It's a real shame because it was a work environment I really enjoyed. It reminded me of chem lab. You tested your products with spectrometry and chromatography, did decay calculations. It was fun and very low stress.

Anyway, I thought you were dropping out of pharmacy school. Change of heart?
 
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Does your school offer a training program for nuclear pharmacy? There are required classroom hours and practice hours before you can get the additional licensing required to work as a nuclear pharmacist.

I went to one of the few schools nationwide that offered nuclear pharmacist training. I completed the program, got my certificate, even did a summer internship with Cardinal health to get my hours. Unfortunately, I graduated during a huge shortage of Mo-99 that caused a big dip in the business. The lab I worked for was shut down. There were maybe four jobs available nationwide, none of which called me for an interview.

When people say hospital jobs are hard to get and clinical pharmacist positions are barely existent, they are still an order of magnitude more common than nuclear pharmacy jobs. It's a real shame because it was a work environment I really enjoyed. It reminded me of chem lab. You tested your products with spectrometry and chromatography, did decay calculations. It was fun and very low stress.

Anyway, I thought you were dropping out of pharmacy school. Change of heart?

Still thinking about what to do. I really need to make sure that I'll have other options (e.g., DO, DMD/DDS, general PA) to apply to if I do leave pharmacy school. I just don't want to drop out of pharmacy school and have no realistic shot of getting accepted to any of those other programs I mentioned. If I quit pharmacy school and end up being blacklisted from all other health professions programs, I'll just have to get a standard minimum wage job, which would put me in an even worse situation than I'd be in if I were to just follow-through with pharmacy school (I guess)
 
Hey!, so sticking with pharm ?

For now... maybe? LOL. Like I said above, it is a question of whether I'd be giving up my "last resort" opportunity to have a somewhat solid professional career
 
Does your school offer a training program for nuclear pharmacy? There are required classroom hours and practice hours before you can get the additional licensing required to work as a nuclear pharmacist.

I went to one of the few schools nationwide that offered nuclear pharmacist training. I completed the program, got my certificate, even did a summer internship with Cardinal health to get my hours. Unfortunately, I graduated during a huge shortage of Mo-99 that caused a big dip in the business. The lab I worked for was shut down. There were maybe four jobs available nationwide, none of which called me for an interview.

When people say hospital jobs are hard to get and clinical pharmacist positions are barely existent, they are still an order of magnitude more common than nuclear pharmacy jobs. It's a real shame because it was a work environment I really enjoyed. It reminded me of chem lab. You tested your products with spectrometry and chromatography, did decay calculations. It was fun and very low stress.

Anyway, I thought you were dropping out of pharmacy school. Change of heart?

Solid post describing the difficulty in breaking into the nuclear pharmacy arena. Reality is though, it's been like that for quite a few years now

Sorry to hear you were affected by closures, and hope you bounced back quickly with other opportunities.
 
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Honestly I don't know anything about nuclear but it sounds like a good opportunity, especially if they would potentially hire you right out of school. Even if nuclear goes down the tubes you can always go to retail or leverage your experience to get into a new practice setting.

With that being said I assume you are a P1, a lot can change in a couple of years. I would try to have a broad range of IPPEs in various practice settings regardless of what you think you might want to do.
 
So I have done a 1-day shadowing session at the nuclear pharmacy, and at this point, I can say that it definitely seems a field I can see myself working in. However, I'm not attending a pharmacy school that offers all the Authorized User stuff, and the nuclear pharmacist I shadowed said that they haven't had a local job opening in over 20 years, so it's probably more wishful thinking than anything. Oh well, maybe one day.
 
Honestly I don't know anything about nuclear but it sounds like a good opportunity, especially if they would potentially hire you right out of school. Even if nuclear goes down the tubes you can always go to retail or leverage your experience to get into a new practice setting.

With that being said I assume you are a P1, a lot can change in a couple of years. I would try to have a broad range of IPPEs in various practice settings regardless of what you think you might want to do.

That's right, I'm a P1. I'm only expecting things to get worse in the future and I don't attend one of the schools that offers the Authorized User stuff, so I'm not counting on ever being able to work in nuclear pharmacy.
 
That's right, I'm a P1. I'm only expecting things to get worse in the future and I don't attend one of the schools that offers the Authorized User stuff, so I'm not counting on ever being able to work in nuclear pharmacy.

I think UNM offers course/ certification or something of that sort for nuclear pharmacy.
 
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