Top 10 reasons why I hate pharmacy school

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jj77

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1. The cost of pharmacy school is absolutely unjustifiable...I mean for an extra 40K I could have become a an MD and made 3x as much.
2. The majority of teachers in pharmacy school are terrible. My dog could have taught better than some of these degenerates. It really takes a person with a whole lot of educational experience to read off of a slide!
3. Lack of jobs...If you live in the northeast corridor of the country. Good luck finding a decent job and when I say decent, I do not mean retail.
4. The majority of pharmacists are not satisfied with this profession, especially retail pharmacists. Most hospital pharmacists say the job is doable, but they aren't jumping for joy either.
5. Chances are that you will become moderately to severely depressed at some point while in pharmacy school, its just natural due to the useless info they throw down your throat.
6. The whole IPPE idea. Most pharmacists could care less about you and will use the hell out of you. IPPE=pill counting for free for six weeks. Pray that there is a kirby lester at your site and buy an ice bag due to the chance that your rotator cuff might be blown out from all the slave counting you are about to do! If you're lucky your preceptor might take you out to mcdonalds for all the BS work you just did for them.
7. Rotations to me means another year of donating your money to these money hungry pharmacy schools.
8. Pharmacy school will shove the whole clinical **** down your throat. Everyone will be like I am going to do a residency...Well guess what? Do you really think that there is a lot of clinical jobs out there? HELL NO! Chances are after you do your residency you will be just a glorified staff pharmacist anyways.
9. There are too many useless classes in pharmacy school that are there just to fill up the curriculum. Somebody got paid off by putting the D in pharmD and it wasn't your last exam grade. An extra year of schooling is another 40-50K these money hungry pharmacy schools get to make off of you!
10. Having the dean walk in with his brand new Armani suit that he just bought with your tuition money while you just read the latest journal on the "looming joblessness crisis facing pharmacy graduates".

If I missed anything, and I am sure that I have, please add to this list. Maybe we can make it a top 100 list!

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You can drop out at anytime. I agree with your list, but people should know by now that most pharmacy schools are a straight scam.
 
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For the sake of being constructive, may I ask what your career expectations and hopes were when you accepted a seat in your college of pharmacy?
 
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LOL most students don't realize this until their 4th year. But seriously, you could have found out all of these things by (1) doing research before pharmacy school; (2) work at CVS for a few months; (3) read SDN.
 
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There are certainly plenty of garbage they teach at P1 year. Plus working retail is a nightmare, no argument there. And I despise faculty who "teach" by simply reading off the slides, I simply walk away and study on my own. I don't enjoy most of the activities offered by the student organizations either. If they don't help my resume nor get me connections, then I'm simply not motivated or interested.

But if you were to get a job at a hospital as a staff pharmacist without residency by working as an intern there for 3 years, then I'd say pharmacy would be worthwhile. Doing careful financial planning would make loan payments less of a pain as well. I'm at the point where changing careers would be unfeasible, so I try to make most of it. And hey, pharmacy is one of the few careers that can potentially offer 100k a year! I would be more proud of what I do compared to welding, plumbing, engineering, programming, overseas fishing and oil drilling and whatever.

But then again, I would advise people to consider being a nurse, nurse practitioner or a physician's assistant. More cost effective and time efficient I'd say. At least, pharmacy is doing better than what I heard about law school.
 
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I was hoping this was going to turn out to be a 10 Things I Hate About You List and end with, "but mostly I hate the way I don't hate you not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all." No dice.

  1. Agreed.
  2. Depends on where you go, but just because someone is an "expert" doesn't make them a good teacher. Sadly, this is true with higher education in general, not just pharmacy.
  3. One word: recession. This is pretty much the case in any career field (yes, even medicine...talk to a radiologist lately?)
  4. I've met plenty, but your job is what you make of it. As my grandfather always said, "if work was fun, they'd call it 'recreation' and charge you for it."
  5. Meh - more or less agree.
  6. Keep in mind that your IPPE preceptor isn't getting paid for teaching you (most likely). Plus, if it's a retail IPPE and you're a P-1, you don't really have the foundation to learn a whole lot - maybe some OTC counseling and what not, but that's about it.
  7. From everyone I've talked to, your 4th year rotations are where you really learn pretty much everything important - which is good, because I can't remember a whole heck of a lot from my first semester of pharmacotherapy, so don't write them off just yet
  8. Clinical jobs are on the rise (particularly in ambulatory care), unfortunately, so are the number of new pharmacy schools popping up (see #1).
  9. There is definitely a "fluff" class or two each year, but honestly, I'm thankful for the mental break compared to the meat and potato classes.
  10. fly-like-a-g6-gulfstream-jet-dance-techno-rap-t-shirt_design.png

Anyways, everyone feels like this at some point - you're having a classic "why am I doing this?" moment. If you think med students don't say the same thing, trust me, they do. I asked one of my friends (an M-1) what they thought about me going to med school after graduating, and they said "I hate this. Don't do it." The fact of the matter is, the kind of intensive training that is required to become a pharmacist, doctor, dentist, or lawyer sucks (for the most part). None of the aforementioned careers promise fame or fortune, just a better living than most of the rest of the country.
 
You most likely wouldn't have made 5x as much as an MD.
 
1. The cost of education in general is unjustifiable. Tuition increases have risen well beyond inflation or salary growth. I know some people that spent 50-100k to get their undergrad degree, it's not just pharmacy school. I know some friends that when to medical school have have tuition rates in the 70k+ range per year.
2. That depends on the school and what the individual student is looking for in judging a professor. I love my school and I strongly believe that my school has some of the best faculty out there.
3. Can't argue that, the market is currently not the best right now.
4. I have met pharmacists that enjoy what they do. This is a subjective point.
5. Most people will experience depression at some point in their lives. Pharmacy school is hard, stressful and can take a lot out of a person. It's not easy and you need a good support system. Then again, the same could be said about jobs, relationships and other college programs. That's just life.
6. I do agree with some of the IPPE stuff. I've been on some IPPE rotations where I felt like I've learned a lot and the preceptor went out of their way to make sure I had a good educational experience. I've also been on others where all I did was count pills an run cash registers with the occasional counselling/immunization.
7. I haven't started 4th year, so I can't say too much about APPE. But the students I do know on APPE or have graduated say that they were largely beneficial to them (well, most). It helps solidify what you learned in school and how to use that practically.
8. I'll agree that you get the clinical stuff shoved down your throat a lot. The Pharm.D. is supposed to be a clinical doctorate for pharmacy practice that exceeds the now obsolete BSPharm and other degrees that used to be acceptable for licensure. In reality though, the job market doesn't allow for everyone that wants to do a residency to get one or for everyone that wants to go into clinical pharmacy to work in a clinical setting. My biggest upset is being taught all this clinical knowledge and clinical application without us being able to actually use that in even a clinical setting. You get educated but in the end you still can't make clinical decision on your own or manage patient care without an attending or someone signing off on everything (unless you work at the VA or in a more progressive practice model in some states that allow it). You get the education and knowledge of a practitioner, but you actually can't become one. You might know how to optimize a patient medication order, treat diseases or know the drug of best choice but all you can do is provide a recommendation really. Given the clinical education the scope of practice is rather limited. This is one reason why I've considered going to medical school after pharmacy school.
9. Depends on how you define "useless." Schools have to model their curriculum based on the standards given to them by the accrediting board. They can change around some things but by and large it's to comply with standards. And who knows, maybe someone will use the info presented to them in a course. The Pharm.Ds that taught some of our "filler" courses used what they taught in their careers and it is applicable to them.
10. My dean is awesome. He cares about students and takes the time to listen to us and will even be laid back at times and do fun stuff for charity. Your dean may be different, but not all of them are disconnected rich guys trying to weasel a way to make a profit off of you as a student.
 
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It feels like high school all over again. It's not like you can hope that you'll see new people next year, but you're gonna be dealing with the SAME damn people for the next 3-4 years of your life. Everyone knows everyone and everything about everyone. That...is a double-edged sword and it's rearing its ugly head at my class right now.
 
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It feels like high school all over again. It's not like you can hope that you'll see new people next year, but you're gonna be dealing with the SAME damn people for the next 3-4 years of your life. Everyone knows everyone and everything about everyone. That...is a double-edged sword and it's rearing its ugly head at my class right now.

So true, especially with all the socially challenged people who can't control/express themselves properly.
 
It feels like high school all over again. It's not like you can hope that you'll see new people next year, but you're gonna be dealing with the SAME damn people for the next 3-4 years of your life. Everyone knows everyone and everything about everyone. That...is a double-edged sword and it's rearing its ugly head at my class right now.
This is true with and professional program.
 
1. I agree that the tuition is high and the ROI is only justifiable if Pharmacy is what you enjoy, which is the only reason you should go into the field. As far as physicians making 5x more, think again. The average physician is not making close to that kind of money. My wife is a sub specialist physician and she makes 4X my salary but that is not commonplace.
2. I agree, there are many professors that are not quality instructors. This goes for other professions as well.
3. Agreed, jobs are tough to come by.
4. I love what I do! Great quality of life, challenging, fun and compensation is good.
5. Agreed
6. I ran into this in multiple inpatient and retail experiences but medical students run into this as well. I also had some great preceptors
7. Yeah, but I used them as networking and landed a great clinical job right out of school.
8. I agree there are not enough clinical jobs to support all future residency graduates, students need to consider this and work hard to be the best.
9. There is a lot of useless material, I will give you that.
10. He played his cards well.
 
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lmao this is astoundingly negative. I can understand some of your frustrations, but I'll give my honest assessment of pharmacy school

1. To start off, I don't think you should ever consider just pay in healthcare in general. If you chose medicine, it can't be just about pay. You go to school for four years and then go through a very low paying residency that is extremely labored work. You have to appreciate the skill set as well. This wasn't the case for pharmacy for many years because school was just a four year deal and then you get to work >100k paying job. Not as easy anymore. You have to like it to really be in pharmacy school imo.
2. I went to a local university where the 0-6 program has a good reputation because it's probably the most competitive major that my school offers. My professors and the staff did try to make it an intimate and friendly environment. However, I do have a problem with some of my pharmacy professors. First of all, they really don't do a good job in hooking up students with career fairs or resources to find jobs. There are way too many classes we have to take that are useless to the grand scheme of pharmacy and healthcare as well and some of the labs we took were also not practical either (lol no pun intended). But the biggest dissapointment is how professors teach us as if we're all supposed to be doing a residency but don't adequately prepare you for the process. I did not know about CV building, writing a letter of intent, etc. until my last year of school. This should all have been covered in the first year imo. The next thing is, I've sat in on student conversations w/ professors on how to prepare for a residency, and so much of it really gave me hint that despite how involved my professors are with the pharmacy field, they have no idea about the best way to secure a residency these days. Many professors even refuse to write letters of recommendation when you ask even if you do a fair job on rotations with them. What I'm saying is-professors aren't as helpful or supportive of mentors as they should be in the process and this is disappointing for a career like pharmacy.
3. This is true; there are no jobs and I'm from the northeast corridor so I feel very screwed lmfao
4. well...I've met plenty of people who like pharmacy and plenty who hate it. Also consider that many who have chosen pharmacy didn't chose it because they actually find pharmacy stimulating but the pay was great. Times are changing, the pay is good, but the hours and lifestyle is not as great as it used to be so ya
5. I did become severely depressed during pharmacy school, but that was for a lot of non-school reasons as well. my aunt passed away and I had a friend almost commit suicide. so yea. My GPA plummeted. Plus I didn't have a vision of what I wanted to do after I graduate because I didn't have a job. I firmly believe that when you have the experience, then going through school will be easier b/c then you have a sense of where you can see yourself after you graduate to motivate you to get through school.
6. IPPEs were a good experience for me, I did mine about 3 years ago. My pharmacists really appreciated my help and were very kind. They took me out to lunch and bought me a cake.
7. I actually like rotations, I wish PharmD programs had 2 years of rotations instead of 1 year. I believe rotations really is where you know what you like and dislike in pharmacy (or if you just dislike pharmacy lmao). As far as my retail rotation goes, it was probably my worst rotation. For one thing, my preceptor yelled at me every single day even though I did nothing wrong. She would make me feel like a real idiot if I didn't know what I was doing while knowing I never worked in a pharmacy. She both told me to be more assertive in my role as an intern but then would get angry everytime I would actually do something. She also a couple of times asked me to throw away the trash, which was annoying being an unpaid intern. At the end of it, she really told me I did a poor job and that my internal medicine rotation would be my hardest one and I have to do more to prove myself when in fact, my internal medicine rotation turned out to be my favorite experience so far and everything she scared me into thinking was not true. So you will have good and bad experiences, that's expected.
8. I agree with this too. Pharmacy schools really teach you as if everybody will graduate doing a residency lol, and this is coming from somebody who actually did want to do a residency. Even some of the skills they teach you are things pharmacist will not really ever do. The thing that annoys me about this is that there is so much emphasis on this in the teaching but once you ask your professors to help or mentor you, they won't even write you a letter of rec or help you get to where you want to be. It seems contradictory.
9. I also agree here. There are quite a few useless classes that did not help me learn at all. I believe some classes should not have been graded but instead seminars where the learning could be optimized.
10. lol my dean is cool

Anyway, I'm not sure what reasons you went to pharmacy school, but I think anybody who went with it thinking it's a super easy job where you get a great pay is in with the wrong mindset. I went to a 0-6 program, which I also have qualms about because 0-6 programs admit students, most who don't have jobs upon entrance. Many of these programs will pressure you by talking about how competitive the program is and will make you feel that if you leave the program due to not being sure if it's right for you, it's impossible to get back in. And advisors will be discouraging if you have other interests, especially a minor, which would have been nice in a 0-6 program esp bc you basically skip the undergrad part. All of this is untrue. Had I known this, I would have gotten my BA/BS and considered having time to do more practical work, research, internships, either in public health or a hospital, etc. I didn't get a pharmacy job because I wanted to start working during my intern years, P1-P3. It's way harder to get a job as an intern than as a tech. Not having a job is really what is making me feel incredibly unprepared to be a pharmacist and dislike school and subsequently get poor grades. I went into pharmacy because I love science, anatomy and physiology esp, and was considering medical school. But as a freshman, I thought maybe med school would be too hard for me and I should do pharmacy instead. This is also a really bad reason to go into pharm school imo b/c medicine and pharmacy are very different feels and many people make pharmacy sound like what you should do if medicine is too hard. The job may be less demanding and the pay may be much easier to get compared to an MD job. But the skillset and material you are supposed to learn as a MD is different than what you are supposed to learn in pharmacy. I was surprised at how many MDs told me they found pharmacy really hard; but now I'm starting to get it. After rotations, I too love learning far more about disease and diagnostics than drugs. It's a very different focus. A lot more critical thinking needs to be done before choosing the pharmacy field than "good pay, easy job". Those days seem pretty much over.
 
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the cost of a lot of things is unjustifiable. however, the pharmacy education is not to blame for the cost. we could easily pay off the loan with our salary if not b/c of the gov't or its agency. i would blame the gov't for the high tax rate and that prevents me from using the money to pay off the loan. i would blame the DOE for the high interest rate set on the loan, making it forever to pay off. i blame not for the actual cost of the education for that was priceless.

your other reasons for hating pharmacy is insignificant. ppl say there are better things in life (only b/c they haven't been there). with another 40k you could go to med school (assuming you get admitted). you still have to face with the job search. half of the private practice are failing b/c of low or negative CMS reimbursements. jobs are just as limited.
 
To sosoo...Pharmacy school was half of the cost 6 years ago as it is now and they were giving 40K sign on bonuses. Who is it to blame for that? Do you think your pharmacy salary has doubled in 6 years? YOU THINK that these schools are looking out for your best interest, but the bottom line is that they are in business to make money and that is it! And how are my other points insignificant for hating pharmacy? Can you disprove me? A few of my classmates just got offered 85K to work for rite aid because they know how bad the job market it and they are completely taking advantage of the current situation. Supply and demand...simple economics 101 here. Are profession is only growing at at annual 15% rate which is average compared to most professions, but the number of schools have nearly doubled in 10 years. Secondly, the curriculum that these schools have don't even coincide with the real world. They give you no practical experience to become a competent and fully capable pharmacist. Our profession is near the breaking point! Pharmacists are angry and pharmacy students are upset with the current system in place. Something needs to change because pharmacists are becoming increasingly frustrated with our current working/learning environment.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3687123/
 
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Rite-aid offered them 85k for 40hrs a week? It makes sense Rite-Aid would be the first chain to really dredge the bottoms. As long as people take jobs at that wage they will keep going lower. Ask yourself what would you really be willing to work for in retail?
 
I always feel like the only pharmacist that enjoys working retail when I read these threads. Working 2 years as a tech before going to school really changes your perspective, I suppose.
 
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I always feel like the only pharmacist that enjoys working retail when I read these threads. Working 2 years as a tech before going to school really changes your perspective, I suppose.

I worked 2 years as a tech before school too, and it made me hate chain retail with a passion.
 
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Rite-aid offered them 85k for 40hrs a week? It makes sense Rite-Aid would be the first chain to really dredge the bottoms. As long as people take jobs at that wage they will keep going lower. Ask yourself what would you really be willing to work for in retail?

The last time this came up it was determined that it was a 30 hour/week base.
 
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For those of you who hate retail, did you ever work at a fast food restaurant as a teen? Is it comparable in regards to frustrating customers/patients?
 
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For those of you who hate retail, did you ever work at a fast food restaurant as teen? Is it comparable in regards to frustrating customers/patients?
It's sort of like fast food. The main difference is that if you mess up in fast food, somebody gets the wrong burger. If you mess up in retail, somebody could end up as part of a burger.

Wait...
 
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If I missed anything, and I am sure that I have, please add to this list. Maybe we can make it a top 100 list!

What a joke. Go do something else if you hate it so much.

Regarding people complaining about working in a chain, I think it sucks more as an underpaid intern/tech. The story changes once you get your license/big money to afford a nice lifestyle.

\
 
It's sort of like fast food. The main difference is that if you mess up in fast food, somebody gets the wrong burger. If you mess up in retail, somebody could end up as part of a burger.

Wait...

Lol, actually if you void too many orders or are too slow according to the timer, you get written up and there goes your chance for a raise. I just remembered having to serve and clean up after the most dirty, rude, and entitled trashy people. Sorry, but those 2 years in high school sucked. People would insult my intelligence and take personal shots at me for no reason. I am at a crossroads, so I am still deciding if I really want to accept my pharmacy school admission offer, or switch while I still have the chance. I want to do clinical though, so I suspect the work environment is less toxic.
 
Lol, actually if you void too many orders or are too slow according to the timer, you get written up and there goes your chance for a raise. I just remembered having to serve and clean up after the most dirty, rude, and entitled trashy people. Sorry, but those 2 years in high school sucked. People would insult my intelligence and take personal shots at me for no reason. I am at a crossroads, so I am still deciding if I really want to accept my pharmacy school admission offer, or switch while I still have the chance. I want to do clinical though, so I suspect the work environment is less toxic.

Clinical pharmacy may still be stressful depending on where you work. At my hospital, I can tell the clinical pharmacist is pretty stressed. I remember overhearing the director telling her one day, "I need these projects done before the 11am p&t meeting tomorrow and you also owe me 20 discharge counsels by the end of the week".
 
Clinical pharmacy may still be stressful depending on where you work. At my hospital, I can tell the clinical pharmacist is pretty stressed. I remember overhearing the director telling her one day, "I need these projects done before the 11am p&t meeting tomorrow and you also owe me 20 discharge counsels by the end of the week".

I perform well under pressure, but it appears that possessing intelligence and good work ethic is no longer a guarantee of employment. I feel like I am gambling with my future because I am not sure what role the pharmacist will play in the future clinical environment. It seems like hospitals and insurance companies will rely on the most cost-effective means for the delivery of health services. One camp claims that the pharmacist's role will grow, while the other claims mass lay offs. Maybe I'll end up flipping a coin. I would rather go to school now than wait another two years, but maybe the two year investment will be worth it. I'm sorry for these rants but the cognitive dissonance is killing me.
 
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For those of you who hate retail, did you ever work at a fast food restaurant as teen? Is it comparable in regards to frustrating customers/patients?

In my old town, I participated in a meetup with a woman who was an assistant manager at Steak & Shake. One day, she said, "How do you know so much about fast food? I thought you were a pharmacist." I replied, "I am, but I haven't always been, and the jobs are not as different as you might think."
 
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It sounds like the originator of this thread either is a lousy student or goes to one of the diploma mills. I enjoyed my pharmacy experience. There were a few faculty memebers I didn't care for but overally we had awesome professors. My IPPE and clinical rotations were not "free labor"...for the most part. I think even in my retail rotation I only filled 10% of the time. The most free labor I did was data collection for MUE. Looking back however, there was actually a real purpose to collecting that data that prepared me for the real world. If there were some things I didn't like about pharmacy school, they were mostly issues with curriculum

1. Not enough time for pharmacotherapeutics. There is so much emphasis placed on the clinical side of pharmacy yet we had to learn a new disease state every day.
2. Too much time spent on medicinal chemistry. This should be reserved for PhD students. I don't care what anyone says, I don't see anyone using this stuff in practice.
3. Not enough worthwhile electives. I was lucky that my school offered ICU and Internal Medicine electives. It really helped during my clinicals and first year as a pharmacist. I wish there could have been more electives like this instead of "Pharmacy and the environment"
4. Pharmacy management courses/drug information courses. These are important but I don't think my school did a good job and teaching us how these would really be applied once we graduated. All of the topics seemed so abstract at the time. i wish I could go back and revisit some of these lectures.
 
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It sounds like the originator of this thread either is a lousy student or goes to one of the diploma mills. I enjoyed my pharmacy experience. There were a few faculty memebers I didn't care for but overally we had awesome professors. My IPPE and clinical rotations were not "free labor"...for the most part. I think even in my retail rotation I only filled 10% of the time. The most free labor I did was data collection for MUE. Looking back however, there was actually a real purpose to collecting that data that prepared me for the real world. If there were some things I didn't like about pharmacy school, they were mostly issues with curriculum

1. Not enough time for pharmacotherapeutics. There is so much emphasis placed on the clinical side of pharmacy yet we had to learn a new disease state every day.
2. Too much time spent on medicinal chemistry. This should be reserved for PhD students. I don't care what anyone says, I don't see anyone using this stuff in practice.
3. Not enough worthwhile electives. I was lucky that my school offered ICU and Internal Medicine electives. It really helped during my clinicals and first year as a pharmacist. I wish there could have been more electives like this instead of "Pharmacy and the environment"
4. Pharmacy management courses/drug information courses. These are important but I don't think my school did a good job and teaching us how these would really be applied once we graduated. All of the topics seemed so abstract at the time. i wish I could go back and revisit some of these lectures.

Definitely agree on #2 .. even though I am a sucker for chemistry .. I felt it was a waste of my tuition dollars.

#1 .. I would say TOO much time on therapeutics .. too much time spent on drugs and not enough on guidelines and roles in therapy .

#3 .. My school offered all the electives that I wanted , business and econ wise .. but , if I had wanted clinical care electives, I would have been out of luck .. they only offered acute care and peds , and both were notoriously poorly taught.

#4. Too much fluff, not enough practicality for sure.
 
I worked 2 years as a tech before school too, and it made me hate chain retail with a passion.

2 years??? I worked for 5 months as a retail tech; then i developed my passionate hatred for it.....2 years, I might have been suicidal

I currently working towards my certification to go work in a hospital. (....Although, I'd actually like to work in research or clinical trials......:bookworm::bookworm::bookworm::shy::shy::shy::shy:)
 
2 years??? I worked for 5 months as a retail tech; then i developed my passionate hatred for it.....2 years, I might have been suicidal

I currently working towards my certification to go work in a hospital. (....Although, I'd actually like to work in research or clinical trials......:bookworm::bookworm::bookworm::shy::shy::shy::shy:)

I had a good PIC that I worked with and the DM/pharm supervisors that we had were nice at the time. When they moved my PIC to another store and reassigned our DMs and pharm supervisors, that's when it went down the drain and I decided to jump ship.

The PIC that I liked didn't give a **** about metrics or triple SSS or any of that other bull****. Same thing with the DM and pharm supervisors, they'd send an e-mail about it but they wouldn't enforce it. Then they brought some 30 year old bitch in who demanded that we do everything possible to get our Triple SSS scores to above 90 from our scores of 60-70.
 
OP are you me? I agree with every single thing you said!!
I worked at the school food court and at a fast food store the whole time I was undergraduate. But I never ever hated anything as much as my community IPPE experience. I wanted to quit pharmacy school and anything related to pharmacy that whole time.
I will hate APPE soon. I think I will hate retail pharmacy even now...But residency application process seems to be the 2nd pharmacy school application except it's harder to get this time.
 
Glad to see everyone hates retail.
 
You had me at "cost"

6.8% is unjustifiable for graduate healthcare professionals. Shouldnt be higher than undergrads....
 
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Vote Elizabeth Warren if you want to refinance your student loans at 3.8%.
 
Here, at Albany, our class is made up of students who've attained 4.0's and 90+ PCATS, yet, never worked a minute in the real world. According to them, they are all going to get a residency, a cushy job as a clinician, and will never ever do retail. God forbid they find an unfair question on an exam: they'll vent on Facebook.

All joking aside, OP, I agree with your points.

The number of new schools opening in New York aren't really helping us out either. Oh well. This field is kind of like the teaching profession in NY. Administrators without an ounce of teaching experience are in charge now, running the experienced, "more expensive" teacher out of town, while hiring a hungry young graduate for 1/2 the income. 21st century corporate world is taking over everything. Wait until corporations take over dentistry and medicine. Then, our society is in BIG trouble.
 
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Hello all,

I just graduated in May 2014. Studied for the Naplex and CPJE intensely for 4 months. I have to say, I learned more about pharmacy from the RXprep book than all the years of pharmacy school. No bull**** in the rxprep book, just what you need to practice pharmacy.

The first year of pharmacy school had almost nothing to do with pharmacy, biochem, immunology, US healthcare (one exam question was "what exam does one need to take to become a registered nurse?"), and physiology. Basically, it was a waste, only after 2nd year did the classes actually matter but it was pretty much cram and forget in a vicious cycle. Most of the lectures/exams had so much diagnosis emphasis, I wonder whether I shouldve just became a doctor. Only the last bit felt like it was really drug related. Ex. bisphosphnates. It could be as simple as a list of drugs, indication, SE, consueling pts. But instead we learn all about how bones form and stastics on prevelance of osteoperosis among 55+ year olds, etc for 2/3 of the lecture and finally get to the drugs at the last part.

Worst yet, the class 1 year after me was forced to learn the JNC7 hypertension guidelines after the JNC8 was out for over 3 months. No idea why they would do that......prof too lazy to make new lecture?

Pharmacy school teaches so much crap that isn't needed for real life pharmacy practice. Why did they increase it from 4 to 6 years again?
 
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Hello all,

I just graduated in May 2014. Studied for the Naplex and CPJE intensely for 4 months. I have to say, I learned more about pharmacy from the RXprep book than all the years of pharmacy school. No bull**** in the rxprep book, just what you need to practice pharmacy.

The first year of pharmacy school had almost nothing to do with pharmacy, biochem, immunology, US healthcare (one exam question was "what exam does one need to take to become a registered nurse?"), and physiology. Basically, it was a waste, only after 2nd year did the classes actually matter but it was pretty much cram and forget in a vicious cycle. Most of the lectures/exams had so much diagnosis emphasis, I wonder whether I shouldve just became a doctor. Only the last bit felt like it was really drug related. Ex. bisphosphnates. It could be as simple as a list of drugs, indication, SE, consueling pts. But instead we learn all about how bones form and stastics on prevelance of osteoperosis among 55+ year olds, etc for 2/3 of the lecture and finally get to the drugs at the last part.

Worst yet, the class 1 year after me was forced to learn the JNC7 hypertension guidelines after the JNC8 was out for over 3 months. No idea why they would do that......prof too lazy to make new lecture?

Pharmacy school teaches so much crap that isn't needed for real life pharmacy practice. Why did they increase it from 4 to 6 years again?

you already know the answer to that: greed baby greed :)

there is no need for PharmD for real pharmacy practice, retails or hospitals (look at the rest of the world, they are doing fine with BS Pharm and BS Medicine, doctoral degrees like MD or PharmD in the past were only given when the candidate has completed at least the bachelor degree and successfully defended their thesis of their original research). Only in the US, PharmD degree was suddenly mandated and given out like papers, just so the schools could make more money. Which then lead to the artificial "shortage" because of the transition from BS Pharm to PharmD, which then served for the false reasons for even more new schools to open up to "address the great shortage of pharmacists" as universities started to realize how ludicrous this business of opening pharmacy schools. Then when the saturation started to show its ugly head, they pushed new grads into "residencies"... they can continue to invent and teach so much BS but it is only a matter of time, this house of cards is going to collapse...
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
Hello all,

I just graduated in May 2014. Studied for the Naplex and CPJE intensely for 4 months. I have to say, I learned more about pharmacy from the RXprep book than all the years of pharmacy school. No bull**** in the rxprep book, just what you need to practice pharmacy.

The first year of pharmacy school had almost nothing to do with pharmacy, biochem, immunology, US healthcare (one exam question was "what exam does one need to take to become a registered nurse?"), and physiology. Basically, it was a waste, only after 2nd year did the classes actually matter but it was pretty much cram and forget in a vicious cycle. Most of the lectures/exams had so much diagnosis emphasis, I wonder whether I shouldve just became a doctor. Only the last bit felt like it was really drug related. Ex. bisphosphnates. It could be as simple as a list of drugs, indication, SE, consueling pts. But instead we learn all about how bones form and stastics on prevelance of osteoperosis among 55+ year olds, etc for 2/3 of the lecture and finally get to the drugs at the last part.

Worst yet, the class 1 year after me was forced to learn the JNC7 hypertension guidelines after the JNC8 was out for over 3 months. No idea why they would do that......prof too lazy to make new lecture?

Pharmacy school teaches so much crap that isn't needed for real life pharmacy practice. Why did they increase it from 4 to 6 years again?

I disagree with OP but definitely agree with you about learning more from rxprep than from all the years I spent in pharmacy school. I always browse through my rxprep book in my free time.
I went to a state school and came out with $70,000 in loan. I don't think it's too bad for what I make. I know people who spent more in school and make nothing close to what I make as a pharmacist.
I agree that there is no job but pharmacy isn't the only profession experiencing this.
I hated my first IPPE experience at CVS. I was so scared to go in every time I was scheduled. But I definitely realized that retail is where my calling is at during rotation. My retail rotation at Walmart was so good, I cancelled my infectious disease rotation and did 12 weeks retail rotation instead. I hate hospital environment and I will never leave my retail job for an inpatient hospital job. I might do outpatient but definitely not inpatient. Rotation is also Important because there is just so much they don't teach you in school. I didn't work as a tech and doing a 3 months retail rotation was a blessing.
I enjoy my retail job now even with difficult patients and doctors.
So not everyone share you sentiment about pharmacy. I never wanted to be a physician . Maybe that's why I don't feel like I should be doing more than I'm doing right now. This is exactly what I want to do .
 
to OP, youre my fav pharmacy student. lol at least you are realistic and not naive. i love you, keep it up!
 
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