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- Thread starter UncleChester78
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No one here is going to give you a helpful answer. I recommend you do your own personal research (you might have heard of google before) and don’t have this doom and gloom echo chamber speak for you.
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Looks like you answered your own question - 3 times!!
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I would disagree with you. There is a lot of pessimism on this forum, but there is a reason. The pharmacist market has changed dramatically. If the OP understands the market and accepts it as well as what its like being a pharmacist, then by all means go right ahead to pharmacy school.
OP your status says pre med, something change?
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And the pessimism as well is coming from the nature of the job changing. As you'll find out soon enough (and for us 10+ and especially 20+ year pharmacists), simply having a job is not enough after a while if you have the worst customers, get thrown under the bus by supervision, and are in fear of losing your license from the misfill probability from the increasing volumes. We're paid well, but the expectations and the unmeasurable aspects of career satisfaction are things this doom and gloom group talks about.
Put it this way, a lot of the pharmacists I knew who have 10 years on me (I'd say 70%) do not work in the same career field if at all from when I finished training. That's not changing jobs between CVS and Walgreens (two different chain pharmacies), that's like changing from chain to institutional, or from pharmacy to medicine, or from pharmacy to stay at home/<24 hours PT (which is actually something that the majority of the women I knew did though they were the higher income in the household). The ones who make it at 20 years are exceptional, because they are the exception as everyone else just doesn't make it for some reason.
By all means, make LB and all those other pharmacy faculty some great money. This is not to discourage people who really just want to be a pharmacist, but I would seriously reconsider if my debt load exceeded my projected three-year post tax salary (that's currently around $180k-200k for most pharmacists at FT wages). That's because the other expenses and priorities, housing and children, start becoming an increasing matter.
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Whatever your reasons are for pursing a career in pharmacy, we can all agree that job security is not one of them
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The reality of coming out of grad school with 200k+ in loans at 7% interest and no job lined up is certainly something to be echoed. In my area the retail giants aren’t even hiring.
You’re ignorant & stupid to ignore these warnings.
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As I mentioned in the pre-pharm forum, the writing has been on the wall for the last 10 years. Those who saw the warnings signs in 2010 yet still decided to go to pharmacy school were faced with staffing cuts and increased metrics to work them to the bone. Those who still decided to go to pharmacy school in 2013 and said “it’s not that bad” are now facing relocation to the middle of nowhere, wage freezes and more cuts by Walgreens, cuts by Kroger, part-time hours while struggling to pay off astronomical student loans, and a possible takeover by Amazon. Those who still decided to go to pharmacy school in 2014 will be facing all of those plus a massive wave of grads from all the new schools in Southern CA set to graduate their first classes this year.
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Do many students come out at 200K tho?
I spoken to some, but many of my group of friends came out no loans or Well under 100K
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Well under 100k? Which school and what is the actual tuition?
I’m on mobile so I can’t see the date this study was published but iirc it’s 2012 (correct me if I’m wrong), you can extrapolate tuition estimates based on their results... over the past 8 years tuition had increased on average 54% including both public and private schools. If you’re applying now and just getting started... it ain’t gunna go well for you in pharmacy.
Pharmacy Student Debt and Return on Investment of a Pharmacy Education
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Average loan burden for my school was about 150k last I checked. An established state school in a low cost of living area with fairly low tuition. I think the kicker is most people have to finance their living expenses.
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deleted898085
It depends on where you live or where you will want to live.
I'm in Las Vegas, P1. My pharmacist said that he graduated in 2015 and had to float for 9 months before having his own store, that it's super saturated now here. One of P3 students, who will graduate next month, said CVS is not hiring. She's still looking for a job. Another got hired at Walgreens, and they guarantee 24hrs/w and he has to work in Utah one day a month.
I wish I know more stories from class of 2018. I wish school has a survey for class of 2017 about who got a job and who's still unemployment.
My school tuition is $160k for 3 years, rent here is $500/room.
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We have two main pharmacy school buy me - the half that go to the private school all have over 200k with a sizeable percentage over 300k. Those that go to the public school have an average of 100-125k
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Wow that is awful. Tuition in MT, ND,SD corridor 13K-18K ish annually.
Yikes!!! I'd assume you can work part time and make good money to pay bills there in school though.
300K...why do they do it man?!
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Yet if you go over to the pharmacy school forum they are worried about PCAT scores and interviews. Talk about having no idea of how screwed the rest of their life is going to be taking out massive loans and no chance of full time employement.
If you love pharmacy then by all means do it. I'd never discourage anyone from doing what they love. Go work as a tech for a chain and try it out first. However, if you're going into pharmacy for money or job security, those days are long one. I'd say a lot of healthcare is changing. The easy money is actually in tech/compsci/math wiz if you're good.
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For the dear love of all things that make sense. Unless you can honestly say pharmacy / being a pharmacist is your dream and no matter the hardships and obstacles ahead you need it (aka doubt it), do something else. The pessimism and complaining is not unjustified!
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I'm working as an intern, 12-20hrs/w, $19/h
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Hospital operator HCA spends big to keep nurses on board
I think it's working conditions that have to improve if they want more talent. They could pay me 250K to manage a Wags and I would still tell them to get bent w/o other concessions.
I think it's working conditions that have to improve if they want more talent. They could pay me 250K to manage a Wags and I would still tell them to get bent w/o other concessions.
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Just do compsci man! The pharmacy job market is as risky as it can get, and highly likely it will go even worse, much like law.
For people who advocates "differentiation", plz elaborate how, if not going outside of the pharmacy domain?!
Residency nowdays won't guarantee anything. What's the way of "differentiating" yourself? PGY-3?
For people who advocates "differentiation", plz elaborate how, if not going outside of the pharmacy domain?!
Residency nowdays won't guarantee anything. What's the way of "differentiating" yourself? PGY-3?
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Differentiate means that there is no one script that everyone can follow to be successful. There are a lot of different things that someone can have or do to differentiate themselves from others. Some of those things have a better chance of a good return on invest, but all have risks. Nothing in life is a guarantee (and all "guarantees" wont last forever).
Here's an incomplete list of ways pharmacists can differentiate themselves from each other (in no particular order):
interpersonal skills
dual degree programs
residency
fellowship
research experience
certification
MBA, MPH, Mwhatever
leadership positions
management experience
entrepreneurship skills
desire to do rural health / work with underserved populations
IT skills
I don't advocate for anyone to go into pharmacy unless they want to be a pharmacist, and unless they recognize the challenges that the profession faces. Hopeful pharmacists that think that just having a pharmd will guarantee them a good paying job for 40 years as long as they just maintain their license have a tough reality to face. In order to stay relevant to the profession and in order to ensure my employability, i have to continually find innovative ways to move the profession forward while advancing my own personal growth. Otherwise, i will be left behind by those who do. This is probably true for any profession, and the sooner folks realize this, the less disappointed they will be when a job isnt handed to them on a silver platter just because they checked off all the boxes they were "supposed" to check off.
"Differentiation" is a word used by pre-pharms and pharmacy students to make them believe that their perceived talent and work ethic will make them safe from saturation.
It's tough to differentiate yourself with residency since that has become standard and not an exception.
If you want to impress people, then do something impressive. Take on interesting projects, show progressive growth in responsibility and roles, don't be afraid to shake things up and change jobs if you feel stagnant.
The hardest part remains getting your foot in the door.
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Had a thought
For those of us on the forum who were pharmacists during the pharmacist shortage, what made you choose your workplace? Just like most of us cannot go without work, the pharmacies could not go without staff.
We cannot offer OT or sign on bonuses to get and keep work but we can "flip the script" and use some of our employers tactics.
1. Be the ultimate in flexibility
2. Be responsive, fast
3. Be cheap
4. Be easy to work with.
I took one full time position over another because the second wanted me to do a second interview, which was ok, but the timing put me in a bind with my rent payments.
One retailer was quick and responsive when I applied, another never responded. Both needed help.
I still think the market is tough a hundred applicants for a single job.
For those of us on the forum who were pharmacists during the pharmacist shortage, what made you choose your workplace? Just like most of us cannot go without work, the pharmacies could not go without staff.
We cannot offer OT or sign on bonuses to get and keep work but we can "flip the script" and use some of our employers tactics.
1. Be the ultimate in flexibility
2. Be responsive, fast
3. Be cheap
4. Be easy to work with.
I took one full time position over another because the second wanted me to do a second interview, which was ok, but the timing put me in a bind with my rent payments.
One retailer was quick and responsive when I applied, another never responded. Both needed help.
I still think the market is tough a hundred applicants for a single job.
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well i do agree with u on persistent self-evolution. but from the list u provided, other than residency, pretty much everything else goes outside of the pharmacy domain.
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With relative pay parity (no less than 80% or no more than 120% of the median) and the place is not in danger of closing (so a place like Kino Community in Tucson would have failed on both counts in 2004):
1. Oversight/coworkers not sociopathic or too overtly in cliques (this was a major problem in AZ when I started mainly on families with children/other people and religion). Money won't make a difference in those circumstances as getting marginalized is career ending.
2. Workplace enrichment (I am not doing the same thing all day every day, which retail has a problem with and hospital can have a problem with if you don't rotate between the different roles in the basement)
3. (Hospital specific) Relationship with DoN and nursing staff is not in a hot war (cold war is fine).
4. Presence of older pharmacists who RETIRED from the workplace. Means people were not dissatisfied enough to leave at worst.
5. Scheduling is agreeable and management does not play games with it.
My classmates had a list made in 2004 for which hospitals in AZ would have been worth working at (and the ones that we would not work for). With a couple of exceptions, that list has remained mostly intact, but enough people have figured it out such that there are few/no positions. In AZ, if you see a hospital regularly recruiting (as in you see an ad over the years, not just incidentally), that's a red flag in and of itself.
I am at MCPHS commencement. They are graduating 650(!!) PharmDs. Into a state where even CVS and Wags are barely hiring. It’s just going to get worse year after year.
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I agree it's outside some of the more mainstream or common domains of pharmacy (i.e. retail or hospital staffing roles), but some of these things are still within the domain of pharmacy, depending on how you define it. If we define pharmacy domain solely based on whether the job is limited to licensed pharmacists only, I agree that a pharmacist license isn't an essential or legal requirement for many of these things (although some of these fields still require some kind of clinical licensure, even if it isn't specific to pharmacy). If we define the domain as anything in which a pharmacist's education adds value / provides a good foundation for additional training, then my list makes more sense. Being a pharmacist translates well to certain business ventures (e.g., owning your own pharmacy, climbing up the corporate pharmacy ladder, starting a consulting business), certain research, policy, and admin areas (e.g., drug safety/risk mitigation, formulary management, pharmacoeconomics), public health activities (e.g., drug supply integrity, national drug stockpile maintenance [which in some cases actually does require a pharmacist license], pharmacovigilance).
To your point, I will emphasize to other pre-pharmers who may be reading this, I would not recommend pursuing a pharmacy degree for the specific goal of primarily doing work that does not require a pharmacist license. If you want to primarily do non-clinical research, or non-clinical administration or business, or non-clinical anything, then avoid pharmacy school. Save yourself the time and money, and get a non-clinical degree (if any degree at all is necessary for what you actually want to do). Pursue a pharmacy degree because you want to be a pharmacist first, i.e. do clinical work that requires a pharmacist license (and I do consider retail to be clinical). Then think of ways that you can progressively take on more responsibility doing clinical work, and/or how you can diversify your skill and take your pharmacist experience outside of the common domains of pharmacy. You can start exploring these different pharmacist pathways and start getting the experience and connections you need while still in school (e.g., engage with pharmacy organizations, volunteer as a research assistant, get a pharmacy intern job, set-up unique APPE rotations for your electives, get as many diverse experiences and network with as many different pharmacists as you can).
Honestly, one really easy way for pharmacy students to differentiate themselves is to show up and show some engagement. I am much more likely to support a student's professional development (i.e. put more effort into helping them get a job) if they show genuine enthusiasm towards being a pharmacist. A student who recognizes the challenges of our work, and is able to articulate thoughtful ideas on how to tackle those challenges, is already several steps ahead of many students I've interacted with. (I probably should have added "maturity" to my list.)
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Wow, that's some quite detailed explanation. Thanks!
I understand that the whole purpose of self-evolution or "differentiation" is for long-term career growth 3-5 years after graduation, you made it sound easy, but to be honest, a lot of worth-mentioning hardcore skills (outside of mainstream pharmacy) take months and mostly like years to develop, so students have to realize this urgency super early while in school and develop concrete road maps themselves to guide the evolution. It's quite hard. First, the direction of "differentiation" has to be suitable, if the market demand isn't there, or the field is too niche, the return on time investment might be too low or too risky, so probably it isn't worth to begin. Second, it will undoubtedly take extraordinary effort to develop a required skill set, making it so much harder for full-time students or grads. Speaking of myself, I am pretty much doing a DIY CS + X degree path right now while in school, and that X is obviously pharmacy. It's very time-consuming and certainly takes a lot of sacrifices to develop a skill outside your comfort zone, like outside of domain you learn in school. From what I see, most profs and schools are very deliberate in terms of painting the rosy picture of the pharmacy career prospect and instilling that idea into their students, making it even harder for most students to take the extraordinary step and stick with it. Third, a lot of fields you mentioned above tend to fall into the category of "requiring experience to get more experience" type of career track. I am not saying they are impossible to break into, but a direct entry seems quite difficult to me.
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Yes, this is definitely a marathon, and finding a way to differentiate yourself is not a one-and-done deal. Once you start on one path of "differentiation" it makes it harder to switch to something else (though not impossible), so there is certainly an opportunity cost to consider. DIY CS + PharmD sounds like a lot of work, but if it's something you enjoy doing and you have a good plan in place that keeps you motivated, it could work out well for you. Heck, it's just great that you are at least doing something and not having the mentality of doing the bare minimum. My one other piece of advice about differentiation, and professional development more generally, is try to develop good relationships with a handful of mentors. Mentors can be people who are already doing the kind of work you want to be doing, or folks with more life experience in general who you trust, that you can check in with every now and then to make sure your plan still makes sense. It doesn't have to be a huge thing you spend a lot of time on, but it's important to have a few of those relationships and to maintain them every now and then.
Why differentiate yourself to get a job where you will still be treated like something you scrape of the bottom of your shoe. You are flogging a dead horse if you think you will still get a job with respect and you’ll still get the same pay packet as the ones who don’t differentiate themselves. A bit like have a go on a space hopper, not much advancement for the amount of effort you put in.
The idea of differentiating yourself is so you won't have to go into the type of job where you are just another replaceable cog. I'm five years out of school and have had employers compete to get me, negotiate higher pay on every job (without fear of the offer being rescinded), relocation expenses, working in highly desirable areas. I was a middle of the road student and a fairly unenthusiastic pharmacist, my best skill perhaps being humor and a bit of personality. You just have to make the right moves.
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It really depends on how much differentiated you are and how kind of unique skill set you possess outside of the mainstream. The purpose of differentiation is actually NOT to get the same job that treats like crap. The unique skill set can open new doors or offer a realistic back-up plan at least. You can leverage the skill set to advance or transition to a new position that offers better long-term working condition, better pay etc, and when things really don't work out for you, that skill set can be career safety net and prepare for a ticket out. I have JD friends who hate their jobs and transitioned to cs, and they have been enjoying the transition so far. If you don't like a job, do something to move to a better one or be prepared to start all over in a new field. Maintaining the status quo and hoping for the best hardly will work out for anyone.
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So the point of differentiation is to give yourself skills and enter a different market then mainstream pharmacy. Nothing wrong with that, in fact I am a big believer of professional development. But to change the mainstream pharmacy market there is going to have to be a shortage of pharmacists again. Since pharmacists won't unionize it will depend on the market correcting itself. And, since pharmacy students generally live in the land of make believe it will take serious unemployment to drive the message home. A economic hit to retailers could accomplish this.
You cannot differentiate yourself in retail you are just a cog in the machine. The chains would rather hire a new graduate with 200k in debt that will work for 80k-90k than an A+ pharmacist who wants 120k+. Retail is a dream for employers because you know that new graduates, especially if they were interns in your computer, can easily starting working with little downtime. CVS or Wags do not have to worry about teaching new graduates how to do their jobs.
You can come up with x1000 graphs, diagram etc
but have you seen anyone being offered with $80k salary full-time status?
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DPTs make 80k, fyi.
The average pharmacist's debt is >150k nowadays. My cousin is taking out $360k to go to school on the West coast. He'll take the best job he can get, and he's not alone in that sentiment. This would be OK if we were supply constrained, but we're not; supply is on pace to overtake demand. Big corps love to take advantage of that. We're already seeing downward pressure on wages and hours for new grads, and displacement for veterans.
The great pharmacists will always have a place somewhere and will do well, but it's like driving - most people assume they're better than average. Better to go to a field with better prospects, on average.
Edit: debt statistics are public for those wondering, found here
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Some hospitals in some regions are starting to offer < $40/hour which puts you at around $80k.
A doctorate does jack to protect your job security when anyone with a < 2.5 GPA and single digit PCAT who qualities for $200k+ in student loans can get into pharmacy school.
and where are those locations?
I work in Houston TX area, there are plenty of job openings in the surrounding cities, with starting salary of $115k to $125k per yr.
Correct, with a couple of qualifications: 80-90K/yr seems to be the average salary for DPTs with between 5 and 10 years of experience. Travel PTs easily get above 6-fig, but that lifestyle is not for everyone. However, I think the stress level at work is fairly low for most PTs, except for those in "patient mills" who are routinely double- or triple-booked. I am a DPT and have at least half-a-dozen cousins who are pharmacists, and we often talk about work and salaries (we're very open) at family get-togethers.
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How does your cousin think this is a good idea?
You can get a free bachelors from starbucks coffee nowadays I hear.