A day in the life of a Clinical Pharmacist

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eugeneb181

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as a pharmacist I am planning to work in the hospital, maybe considering clinical pharmacy

could someone describe for me a typical day of a clinical pharmacist ( from hour to hour )

thank you 🙂
 
99.9% pharmacy students today wanna become clinical pharmacists!!!! But the sad thing is there are only 5-10% job availability out there among all pharmacists job
 
yeah but what, 15% of pharmacists complete pgy 2s , so you really only have to be in the top 2/3rds of residents to get one then, if 20% of pharmacy students do pgy1s and 3/4 of them go to pgy 2s, which is an optimistic situation in and of itself
 
type b pharmD said:
yeah but what, 15% of pharmacists complete pgy 2s , so you really only have to be in the top 2/3rds of residents to get one then, if 20% of pharmacy students do pgy1s and 3/4 of them go to pgy 2s, which is an optimistic situation in and of itself
Click to expand...

don't worry soon pgy1 will be required in retail pharmacies :laugh:
 
pharmwannebe2 said:
don't worry soon pgy1 will be required in retail pharmacies :laugh:
Click to expand...

In fact, one of the pharmacy organizations is advocating for just that (I wrote a thread on it before).

But it seems like at least half the people I know DON'T want to do the residency just because they're relatively content with retail and don't want to put in the extra effort with residency...but it looks like a PGY2 will most likely be required for a clinical job...even in am care 🙁 I guess when I apply to these things, I should look for places that have a PGY2 as well just in case I go that route.
 
rxforlife2004 said:
99.9% pharmacy students today wanna become clinical pharmacists!!!! But the sad thing is there are only 5-10% job availability out there among all pharmacists job
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not true. Most of my friends are fine with retail. By the end, people are starting to be more reasonable and most are pursuing other fields. I also find that some people are content with just a regular hospital job too. There are a good 20% that wish to go after some sort of clinical job but as pharmacy school has gone on, this number has dropped.
 
eugeneb181 said:
as a pharmacist I am planning to work in the hospital, maybe considering clinical pharmacy

could someone describe for me a typical day of a clinical pharmacist ( from hour to hour )

thank you 🙂
Click to expand...

it varies vastly from place to place.

come in, print reports, prepare for rounds, go on rounds, come back from rounds and log all your interventions into computer system, check email, work on clinical reports and surveilence, finish reports get some lunch or eat lunch while working on other projects, go to meetings and committees you are on, come back, work on more projects, check email, answer email and drug info questions, work on more projects.

ever see office space? TPS reports.... ya think about that lol
 
Clinical pharmacy is overrated. Central inpatient pharmacy is where it's at. I would trade my clinical shifts for more central shifts in a heartbeat.
 
slimcutt said:
Clinical pharmacy is overrated. Central inpatient pharmacy is where it's at. I would trade my clinical shifts for more central shifts in a heartbeat.
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I agree. Clinical shifts for me are boring. Gimme some orders, access to the patients' labs/findings, and I'm fine. That's where you literally save lives every week. You are like the executive editor of drug therapy.
 
slimcutt said:
Clinical pharmacy is overrated. Central inpatient pharmacy is where it's at. I would trade my clinical shifts for more central shifts in a heartbeat.
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Do clinical pharmacists not handle the central inpatient pharmacy services?
 
wes011 said:
Do clinical pharmacists not handle the central inpatient pharmacy services?
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That's actually a debatable question. It depends on how pretentious the person defining the term "clinical" wants to be with it. Because to me, staffing is the most "clinical" thing one can do. It's just straight up, front-line drug jockeying. Others will say that only the dudes that do residencies/have a decade of experience and go on rounds or sit in the corner and do IV-to-PO conversions (or whatever) are "clinical" pharmacists.
 
I spent months with clinical pharmacists during rotations, and only the oncology specialist did something a run of the mill staffer couldn't do. This was everything from huge teaching hospitals to podunk rural hospitals that happened to have an excellent oncology center.

Do you really need a residency to adjust warfarin, iv-po, med rec, or dose vancomycin & aminoglycosides? Unless you're specializing, I don't see the point.
 
rphello said:
Do you really need a residency to adjust warfarin, iv-po, med rec, or dose vancomycin & aminoglycosides? Unless you're specializing, I don't see the point.
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Nope.....nurses can do it just as well and much cheaper....hell you could teach a pharmacy tech to do it. Its not that big a deal. I did all that stuff whwn I was an intern during my first year of pharmacy school.

I would still rather do all that than work retail. It would be nice to sit on my ass all day and do order entry or adjust warfarin doses. Hell it would be nice to sit for more than five minutes in a row doing anything.
 
rphello said:
Do you really need a residency to adjust warfarin, iv-po, med rec, or dose vancomycin & aminoglycosides? Unless you're specializing, I don't see the point.
Click to expand...

Hell no you don't need a residency. You just need to find a hospital with a manager that doesn't put much stock in them (yes, these places still exist and not just in BFE). 4 out of the 5 pharmacists that we hired last year didn't have residencies and they all do fine clinical work.
 
rphello said:
I spent months with clinical pharmacists during rotations, and only the oncology specialist did something a run of the mill staffer couldn't do. This was everything from huge teaching hospitals to podunk rural hospitals that happened to have an excellent oncology center.

Do you really need a residency to adjust warfarin, iv-po, med rec, or dose vancomycin & aminoglycosides? Unless you're specializing, I don't see the point.
Click to expand...

Not quite. It really depends on your institution. I've rotated/shadowed ID, psych, ICU, oncology, cardiology... the kind of knowledge that they throw around is just way more than any newly grad or staff pharmacists know.

I agree that adjusting warfarin, med rec etc don't need a residency. I got most of that stuff down after just a month of ambulatory care rotation. But a month of ID or oncology rotation would barely scratch the surface of those subjects.
 
PharmaTope said:
it varies vastly from place to place.

come in, print reports, prepare for rounds, go on rounds, come back from rounds and log all your interventions into computer system, check email, work on clinical reports and surveilence, finish reports get some lunch or eat lunch while working on other projects, go to meetings and committees you are on, come back, work on more projects, check email, answer email and drug info questions, work on more projects.

ever see office space? TPS reports.... ya think about that lol
Click to expand...

This made me laugh!! But, I still think I'd rather do that then stand up 14 hours at CVS.
 
xiphoid2010 said:
Not quite. It really depends on your institution. I've rotated/shadowed ID, psych, ICU, oncology, cardiology... the kind of knowledge that they throw around is just way more than any newly grad or staff pharmacists know.

I agree that adjusting warfarin, med rec etc don't need a residency. I got most of that stuff down after just a month of ambulatory care rotation. But a month of ID or oncology rotation would barely scratch the surface of those subjects.
Click to expand...

👍
The clinical pharmacists I have had the pleasure to work with amaze me everyday at work. I do not see a staff/new grad being able to cover for them. This is at a teaching hospital though, I imagine it would be different at a community hospital.
 
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