APhA president- we need an additional 100,000 pharmacists!

[Whereismynorco]

yup non-CMR cases are $10 (Outcomes) or $12(Mirixa pro) and CMR cases $50(Outcomes). I do not know how much Mirixa Pro pays for CMR.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Amicable Angora]

I never once said anything for any school or program to have some form of guarantee to get a job at a certain location. I was responding to Chapman's post about the fact pharmacists want to be able to find a job in a certain city or state and are unwilling to leave the state. I would find it very hard to believe that doctors, nurse practitioners, and similar healthcare professionals would simply be okay with a market that forced them to move to different states just to find a job. I don't think it's unreasonable that when people look at pharmacy they expect (or have expected) to be able to stay within their home state when you factor in the type of job you have, the demand for said job as far as there is one in every town and multiple in bigger towns/cities, the amount of education and cost of education. That is not the case anymore and it should be clear to most people, and to simply throw aside peoples frustrations with how much the market has changed by saying it's your fault you won't move etc. is ridiculous in my eyes. Anyone going into pharmacy now or in the last few years has no excuse in my eyes, the writing is on the wall.

Just want to clarify I never said anything about schools should guarantee it, just a reasonable expectation of someone looking into the career and has been one until recently. I feel that the APhA should be fighting for working conditions like California has fought and the nursing lobby has fought. Unfortunately they don't care and come up with lame excuses and reasons for not caring all in the name of patient care....which is directly affected by the working conditions.

This is so true, especially since reputable schools regarding any kind of major usually have the connections and local reputation to facillitate local job finding.

 

[zelman]

DEAN FIGHT!

 

[rxdawg21]

DEAN FIGHT!

Great article and that Dean truly gets it. Some excerpts I particularly enjoyed.

Pharmacies should be able to charge a legitimate professional fee of at least $10 to $15 for every prescription. Fees could be scaled up for more advanced services, thus supporting increased staffing through a practice model in which MTM could be seamlessly integrated into the workflow, rather than being forced as an add-on to an already heavy workload.


Consider how various stakeholders have been affected. State and national pharmacy organizations have benefitted from increased revenue generated by annual membership fees and meeting registrations. Employers, whether retail or institutional, have found it easier to fill positions and no longer have to worry about salaries spiraling higher. Universities have enjoyed increased tuition revenue sufficient to fund new buildings and hundreds of new administrative and faculty positions.

The only stakeholders bearing a heavy burden are rank-and-file pharmacists, especially new graduates, who enter the workforce carrying an average debt of $150,000 in student loans. They have suffered decreases in job availability, stagnant or declining wages, and limited mobility. It's no wonder that fewer students are choosing to apply to pharmacy school.


Just getting that first paragraph integrated, if that happens I would gladly start an independent pharmacy. The last two paragraphs show why no one is fighting for us, especially our own organizations, clear conflict of interest.

 

[Digsbe]

I fear the only way to really implement these types of changes would be to unionize. Organizations aren't going to care for us, they care for the donors and those with the money are likely not the individual pharmacist contributions.

 

[monkieez]

Great article and that Dean truly gets it. Some excerpts I particularly enjoyed.

Pharmacies should be able to charge a legitimate professional fee of at least $10 to $15 for every prescription. Fees could be scaled up for more advanced services, thus supporting increased staffing through a practice model in which MTM could be seamlessly integrated into the workflow, rather than being forced as an add-on to an already heavy workload.


Consider how various stakeholders have been affected. State and national pharmacy organizations have benefitted from increased revenue generated by annual membership fees and meeting registrations. Employers, whether retail or institutional, have found it easier to fill positions and no longer have to worry about salaries spiraling higher. Universities have enjoyed increased tuition revenue sufficient to fund new buildings and hundreds of new administrative and faculty positions.

The only stakeholders bearing a heavy burden are rank-and-file pharmacists, especially new graduates, who enter the workforce carrying an average debt of $150,000 in student loans. They have suffered decreases in job availability, stagnant or declining wages, and limited mobility. It's no wonder that fewer students are choosing to apply to pharmacy school.


Just getting that first paragraph integrated, if that happens I would gladly start an independent pharmacy. The last two paragraphs show why no one is fighting for us, especially our own organizations, clear conflict of interest.

I wish this Dean was our APhA overlord, I mean president. The first step to be an effective leader is to have true perspective.

 

[knight on horse]

Unlimited immigration, cheap labor, siphon off the wealth of the middle class. All according to plan

Don't be a helot

 

[Dred Pirate]

I'm all for being showed the error of my ways. So far I have only heard antidotal evidence, that I have responded to with different antidotal evidence.

Send me a link for a research study that shows there are thousands of pharmacists out of work, or even one that shows it is impossible to find a job. I'm not being pejorative. I'd be welcome to see such a study.

I talk to the pharmacists recruiters from all the major chains, and they have told me the market is tight, but they still have jobs available.

And the question I would have to ask is, why would the chains continue to send recruiters to pharmacy schools if there weren't any jobs left?

So if I am out of touch, that means the pharmacy recruiters are out of touch as well.

you are completely out of touch.

I am a preceptor and help hiring Rph's. When I moved to my area 10 years ago I could get any job I wanted. The chains hired me without an interview. I could work as many extra shifts as possible. Now, I work at a hospital and we average 60-90 applicants for every open position. The chains are not even hiring anybody for full time hours. I talk to all of the students that rotate through my hospital. Most of them cannot find a job (other than residency) right out of school unless the relocate to an undesirable location. Even then, it is difficult. We have way to many new grads and school like yourself are adding to this every day.

https://pharmacy.unc.edu/academics/the-pharmd/student-body-profile/

This is two years old - but it is, according to US News and world report - the number 1 pharmacy school in the country, and 22% of grads didn't have a job by the time they graduated. I went to a far less prestigious school and 100% of us had jobs when we walked.

Recruiters are going to lie to you - they will do whatever it takes to get on the good graces of someone in order to get a referral. I used to get recruiters call me 3x a week, now they call maybe once every 6 months.

By pumping out more grads you are allowing the chains to abuse the pharmacists they do have. They give them less than 30 hours so they do not have to give them benefits, and make it so that many RPh's cannot meet the metrics and they have an excuse to fire the veterans and hire new grads who will take any job that comes their way because they are so desperate.

 

[sunakuma]

People seem to be getting the issue of being able to get a job, mixed up with the desire to get any job I want, anywhere I want. That's not the norm in any other industry, so why are people expecting that to be the norm in pharmacy? You may have to move to another city or state in order to find a job that suits you. But what's so horrible about that? I moved from California, to Minnesota, to Tennessee in order to further my career and wait for the perfect job opportunity back in California.

The other issue is that many community pharmacists continue to limit themselves to looking for another job in a community pharmacy. However, there are different jobs for pharmacists out there. Even office-based jobs that have regular hours and good working conditions.

There is a whole huge world of pharmacy out there. Take advantage of it.

According to many pharmacists, and SDNers, pharmacy used to be a field that you can get any job you want, anywhere you want, and work as many hours you want.
I believe it is the norm in most medical field, at least the doctoral professionals such as physicians, dentists. They are still in much better position than pharmacy.
What is so horrible about having to move for a job? For people with family, spouse, kids, that is a huge commitment to root out and move, just to find a job. And think about this, you are now opening a new pharmacy school that charge outrage amount o tuition, in such a tough market, and expect people to accept that it is okay to have a tough time finding jobs at place they want, after 4 year post bachelor's studies, and over 200K loan. And you may not even able to find a full time job at that point when you graduated.

And, you are opening this school at orange county, so that people can graduate and work there. How likely are they able to get a job at local area near Los Angeles nowadays? This is a super saturated area, one of the most desired area for people to live.

I don't understand what you are talking about community pharmacists limiting themselves to only community pharmacy job. According to most data available, about 70% pharmacy job is in retail. How likely can even half of them, get a non-retail job nowadays? Are there any more new jobs coming out like you mentioned? Can you point to me where is the whole huge world of pharmacy out there? Where are those office based job with regular hours? How many of them are out there? How is the requirement to get those job? (3-5 years of experience? PGY1-2 preferred? Super stellar, well connected candidates?) Show me some job search result in different areas to see how much jobs are out there, especially those office based job.
Not everyone can get one of those rare unicorn jobs. And that is not okay for a Dean like yourself to actually lie about those thing. I think that as a pharmacist, especially a leader, should have integrity, honesty, and care for the professional as a whole.

 

[lord999]

How stupid is this guy? I have a bridge to sell him...


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile app

Knowing LB, not stupid, just ambitious and completely believes in the system like most of the incumbents in that position. When LB was a grad student (senior to my class), he was considered one of the hardest working and intelligent ones we had, but it was all for him. Same kind of character as what you would see in Deerfield, Bentonville, and St. Louis. Look, pharmacy has always been like this from Don Franke to Linda Strand in terms of having unrealistic expectations on forecasting and professional roles. It didn't matter then, it doesn't matter now to genuine practicing pharmacists, the ones like most of you who get the real work done without the academy's ability.

I am not talking about the pharmacists who work in the real world and also teach part time.

I am talking about the professors like yourself who do not work in the real world...the ones who have their own little clinic, the ones who round with the medical team. They are not being compensated for the "work" they are doing. They are just volunteers like you had stated:

And BM, I kinda resent that remark about my own little clinic as I'm envious of having that sort of real estate . It's *(&#ing hell to petition the Space and Laboratory Committee for even a basement office nowadays without Indirect above $50k or so. A space for my own little clinic would be a real dream come true for me. That's actually why I spend almost all my time in the civil service as at least resources aren't a problem.

I would say though that it will not be possible to reform its educational mission internally since pharmacy never really internalized the lessons that Medicine did in the early 20th Century. I've seen some really outstanding people try (Strand, Hepler, Francke and others), but it never works out. We will need another Flexner Report or something that damning if the problem is really going to be addressed. Pharmacy is not the same between the 50s and the 70s, and definitely different today than the 90s.


The question is not whether clinical pharmacy can pay. It can, but that answer is irrelevant. The better question to ask is whether or not what clinical pharmacy does can't be sold for cheaper at comparable quality by other healthcare practitioners (nurses, PAs, etc.)? For me, that answer is the following:
1. For almost all ambulatory care, nah, I can't see pharmacy doing this at a level that they won't be undercut by another healthcare professional at a lower cost for comparable outcomes.
2. Same goes for inpatient that is not tied to ordering.
3. Real product-based specialty practice like infusion, nuclear, and if the laws hold, compounding, have a workable future.
4. For retail dispensing, ironically I think it'll still be cost-effective. There's just things that a human is cheaper to hire than employing a tech (liability) or a robot (maintenance). It's just that with everything else going on like mail order and the end of tech ratios, every bit of productive labor will be squeezed out of the pharmacists. It's a question of how much productivity can be gotten for the price.
5. Same with hospital, although Joint Commission really protects our jobs.

But, can one make a career out of clinical pharmacy? Yes, if you're really good at it and you take steps to work on your practice (and that's true even in civil service). But it's not even a major category of pharmacist employment even today despite the hype.

In the meantime, we should make our money where and while we can, invest well, and figure that your career third act (your 50s-60s) may very well not be as a direct pharmacist practitioner in the normal sense. You'll live to see the day that the profession inverts.

What breaks my heart though is when I look at students now (P3's at the end of didactic and P4's that are currently on rotation directly assigned to me) and find that they are less prepared to go to work at graduation than my generation (and I thought what we graduated was pretty dismal), have very non-functional ideas about what the idea of work is like (much less, what the practice of pharmacy really encompasses and how you always have to remind yourself to be a respectable worker with good work habits before anyone takes you seriously as a pharmacist), and don't think hard enough about sustainable motivations to practice. With my fed hat, it's frustrating to figure out that I have to deal with Millennial trivialization of work (call ins that are inappropriate, tardiness to the point of patient abandonment, unprofessional communication). I'm not saying that I want to turn back the clock, but I wish the profession did a better job of teaching students on how to be a pharmacist than waste its time concerning itself with the profession of pharmacy. The profession is academic, but not having good workers makes all of our practice lives miserable, and I hate being part of the problem. I really consider the emphasis on clinical to the exclusion of basement institutional practice and oddly enough retail to be both a bad advertisement on what we do and setting wrong expectations on our students. What I would give if there were more classes in the current day for customer relationship management (how to deal with the public) and practice in both sterile and extemp compounding as those are skills that are necessary for career survival and learning on the job is not optimal.

 

[BidingMyTime]

[QUOTE="sunakuma, post: 17950504, member: 761368"
I don't understand what you are talking about community pharmacists limiting themselves to only community pharmacy job. According to most data available, about 70% pharmacy job is in retail. How likely can even half of them, get a non-retail job nowadays? [/QUOTE]

Obviously pharmacists are limiting themselves, he's saying pharmacists need to broaden out and start applying for barrista, or waiter/waitressing jobs, maybe even look into something really unique for pharmacists like serving in a fast-food restaurant. Oh wait, you thought he meant finding other *pharmacist* jobs outside of retail? Obviously he couldn't have meant that, for the reasons you just said.

Coincidentally, I had a dream/nightmare last night where I had no job (not sure why) and was trying to find a new pharmacy job, in my dream I ended up taking a job as a waitress.

 

[gwarm01]

Knowing LB, not stupid, just ambitious and completely believes in the system like most of the incumbents in that position. When LB was a grad student (senior to my class), he was considered one of the hardest working and intelligent ones we had, but it was all for him. Same kind of character as what you would see in Deerfield, Bentonville, and St. Louis. Look, pharmacy has always been like this from Don Franke to Linda Strand in terms of having unrealistic expectations on forecasting and professional roles. It didn't matter then, it doesn't matter now to genuine practicing pharmacists, the ones like most of you who get the real work done without the academy's ability.



And BM, I kinda resent that remark about my own little clinic as I'm envious of having that sort of real estate . It's *(&#ing hell to petition the Space and Laboratory Committee for even a basement office nowadays without Indirect above $50k or so. A space for my own little clinic would be a real dream come true for me. That's actually why I spend almost all my time in the civil service as at least resources aren't a problem.

I would say though that it will not be possible to reform its educational mission internally since pharmacy never really internalized the lessons that Medicine did in the early 20th Century. I've seen some really outstanding people try (Strand, Hepler, Francke and others), but it never works out. We will need another Flexner Report or something that damning if the problem is really going to be addressed. Pharmacy is not the same between the 50s and the 70s, and definitely different today than the 90s.


The question is not whether clinical pharmacy can pay. It can, but that answer is irrelevant. The better question to ask is whether or not what clinical pharmacy does can't be sold for cheaper at comparable quality by other healthcare practitioners (nurses, PAs, etc.)? For me, that answer is the following:
1. For almost all ambulatory care, nah, I can't see pharmacy doing this at a level that they won't be undercut by another healthcare professional at a lower cost for comparable outcomes.
2. Same goes for inpatient that is not tied to ordering.
3. Real product-based specialty practice like infusion, nuclear, and if the laws hold, compounding, have a workable future.
4. For retail dispensing, ironically I think it'll still be cost-effective. There's just things that a human is cheaper to hire than employing a tech (liability) or a robot (maintenance). It's just that with everything else going on like mail order and the end of tech ratios, every bit of productive labor will be squeezed out of the pharmacists. It's a question of how much productivity can be gotten for the price.
5. Same with hospital, although Joint Commission really protects our jobs.

But, can one make a career out of clinical pharmacy? Yes, if you're really good at it and you take steps to work on your practice (and that's true even in civil service). But it's not even a major category of pharmacist employment even today despite the hype.

In the meantime, we should make our money where and while we can, invest well, and figure that your career third act (your 50s-60s) may very well not be as a direct pharmacist practitioner in the normal sense. You'll live to see the day that the profession inverts.

What breaks my heart though is when I look at students now (P3's at the end of didactic and P4's that are currently on rotation directly assigned to me) and find that they are less prepared to go to work at graduation than my generation (and I thought what we graduated was pretty dismal), have very non-functional ideas about what the idea of work is like (much less, what the practice of pharmacy really encompasses and how you always have to remind yourself to be a respectable worker with good work habits before anyone takes you seriously as a pharmacist), and don't think hard enough about sustainable motivations to practice. With my fed hat, it's frustrating to figure out that I have to deal with Millennial trivialization of work (call ins that are inappropriate, tardiness to the point of patient abandonment, unprofessional communication). I'm not saying that I want to turn back the clock, but I wish the profession did a better job of teaching students on how to be a pharmacist than waste its time concerning itself with the profession of pharmacy. The profession is academic, but not having good workers makes all of our practice lives miserable, and I hate being part of the problem. I really consider the emphasis on clinical to the exclusion of basement institutional practice and oddly enough retail to be both a bad advertisement on what we do and setting wrong expectations on our students. What I would give if there were more classes in the current day for customer relationship management (how to deal with the public) and practice in both sterile and extemp compounding as those are skills that are necessary for career survival and learning on the job is not optimal.

That's a good point about schools focusing almost entirely on clinical pharmacy. True, 100% clinical jobs are so rare, yet most pharmacy students seem to think those are the only jobs worth having and that's what they plan on doing. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a student say something like "are you clinical or just staffing?" It's funny how much can be conveyed with a single word. Students who have achieved nothing are belittling pharmacists because their jobs involve verifying orders and dispensing medications. Ridiculous, especially since a lot of these kids are too stupid or incompetent to work in a busy hospital pharmacy themselves.

 

[Dalteparin]

That's a good point about schools focusing almost entirely on clinical pharmacy. True, 100% clinical jobs are so rare, yet most pharmacy students seem to think those are the only jobs worth having and that's what they plan on doing. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a student say something like "are you clinical or just staffing?" It's funny how much can be conveyed with a single word. Students who have achieved nothing are belittling pharmacists because their jobs involve verifying orders and dispensing medications. Ridiculous, especially since a lot of these kids are too stupid or incompetent to work in a busy hospital pharmacy themselves.

Yes, this irks me too! Kid, it's wonderful that you can calculate that gentamicin dose for a trough that's exactly in the center of the therapeutic range and a peak that's not too high. However, your kinetics wizardry won't matter if the patient never receives the dose because you mismanaged your time and never got around to actually checking the dose and sending it to the floor.

 

[sakigt]

That's a good point about schools focusing almost entirely on clinical pharmacy. True, 100% clinical jobs are so rare, yet most pharmacy students seem to think those are the only jobs worth having and that's what they plan on doing. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a student say something like "are you clinical or just staffing?" It's funny how much can be conveyed with a single word. Students who have achieved nothing are belittling pharmacists because their jobs involve verifying orders and dispensing medications. Ridiculous, especially since a lot of these kids are too stupid or incompetent to work in a busy hospital pharmacy themselves.

I hear that as well. Its all fun and games until your tech calls out and you need to make Crofab. Ruh-roh.

 

[Dred Pirate]

Yes, this irks me too! Kid, it's wonderful that you can calculate that gentamicin dose for a trough that's exactly in the center of the therapeutic range and a peak that's not too high. However, your kinetics wizardry won't matter if the patient never receives the dose because you mismanaged your time and never got around to actually checking the dose and sending it to the floor.

or when you realize all those calculations are guestimates at best. I can look at a patients height, weight, age, SrCr and indication and come up with a vanc dose in about 2-3 minutes. The smart kid can spend 10-15 minutes doing calculations, and most likely we come up with the same answer OR I will likely come up with a better dose that gets closer to our goal.

 

[Pharmd = Phake Doctor]

Yes, this irks me too! Kid, it's wonderful that you can calculate that gentamicin dose for a trough that's exactly in the center of the therapeutic range and a peak that's not too high. However, your kinetics wizardry won't matter if the patient never receives the dose because you mismanaged your time and never got around to actually checking the dose and sending it to the floor.

Our staff pharmacists do this dosing stuff on top of their dispensing duties. I still don't understand why this is considered such a difficult skill.

 

[Topcat15]

Our staff pharmacists do this dosing stuff on top of their dispensing duties. I still don't understand why this is considered such a difficult skill.

Amen to this. I interviewed at a hospital that described the extent of their clinical services as anticoagulation monitoring, vancomycin and aminoglycoside dosing, and some antibiotic stewardship. They would only consider candidates with a PGY1 "or equivalent training." **** me, who would need a whole year of extra training to learn how to do stuff that fourth-year interns do on rotations?

 

[beautifulrobot]

Consider how various stakeholders have been affected. State and national pharmacy organizations have benefitted from increased revenue generated by annual membership fees and meeting registrations. Employers, whether retail or institutional, have found it easier to fill positions and no longer have to worry about salaries spiraling higher. Universities have enjoyed increased tuition revenue sufficient to fund new buildings and hundreds of new administrative and faculty positions.

The only stakeholders bearing a heavy burden are rank-and-file pharmacists, especially new graduates, who enter the workforce carrying an average debt of $150,000 in student loans. They have suffered decreases in job availability, stagnant or declining wages, and limited mobility. It's no wonder that fewer students are choosing to apply to pharmacy school.

It's interesting how one major stakeholder - patients/consumers - is left out of this discussion...

 

[beautifulrobot]

It's interesting how one major stakeholder - patients/consumers - is left out of this discussion...

To elaborate, unless you can prove that society is harmed by the changes in the pharmacy profession, or until you give consumers and society at large a reason to care about pharmacy schools pumping out more graduates than there are jobs, they wont care and things wont change for the better. Nobody cares that a pharmacist's job is stressful, that wages are stagnant, or that new grads have tons of debt and have a hard time finding a job in their ideal location. In fact, they are quite happy to have cheaper access to pharmaceutical care. Also, having a surplus of pharmacists, leading some to have to relocate to less desirable locations to make a living, helps increase access to care in rural and underserved communities, which benefits society as well. The feds are happier, because the government (VA, IHS, BOP and other agencies that need pharmacists) and military benefit from having a bigger pool of qualified applicants to choose from and they don't need to provide as many incentives to recruit pharmacists away from the private sector.

One might argue that unless you can somehow show that increasing the supply of pharmacists is detrimental to society, all this complaining about pharmacy schools pumping out new grads is quite selfish and even unethical. If the working conditions of pharmacists are so terrible that they endanger the public, then new labor laws need to be enacted. If these new schools are pumping out completely incompetent pharmacists that are endangering the public, then increased oversight of the accreditation process and a more rigorous licensing examination process needs to be implemented. But if all you have to argue is that the new schools are making the hiring process more stressful and you have to relocate to find a job, so what?

 

[PharmtoCS]

Our staff pharmacists do this dosing stuff on top of their dispensing duties. I still don't understand why this is considered such a difficult skill.

Ditto. I pretty much mastered pharmacokinetic dosing over the course of one rotation, and I consider myself nowhere close to the caliber of top students. There is no reason you would need a whole year of residency to learn how to dose vancomycin and aminoglycosides.

 

[BidingMyTime]

Ditto. I pretty much mastered pharmacokinetic dosing over the course of one rotation, and I consider myself nowhere close to the caliber of top students. There is no reason you would need a whole year of residency to learn how to dose vancomycin and aminoglycosides.

I've always thought of vancomycin/aminoglycoside dosing as basic pharmacist duties--seriously, anyone who is a licensed pharmacist should be able to figure this out (OK, if someone hasn't done this for years, they would be rusty at it and probably take a lot longer....but its really not that difficult to figure out when one has basic pharmacist knowledge.)

 

[steveysmith54]

One might argue that unless you can somehow show that increasing the supply of pharmacists is detrimental to society, all this complaining about pharmacy schools pumping out new grads is quite selfish and even unethical. If the working conditions of pharmacists are so terrible that they endanger the public, then new labor laws need to be enacted. If these new schools are pumping out completely incompetent pharmacists that are endangering the public, then increased oversight of the accreditation process and a more rigorous licensing examination process needs to be implemented. But if all you have to argue is that the new schools are making the hiring process more stressful and you have to relocate to find a job, so what?

There are multiple ways to define "detrimental to society". I already see that more and more pharmacy graduates are only able to find part time work and stagnation in wages which. This definitely contributes to the student debt crises as numerous new grads are unable to pay back their pharmacy school loans. One of my former rotation students has been unemployed for 7 month now and has a 300K loan, a decade ago he would have proly had 5 job offers by now. Another student went on PAYE program after finding only a 24 hour retail chain job and pays limited amount of students loans monthly. I hear a lot of stories about older retail pharmacists being fired for being "slower" multiple law suits against CVS for age discrimination. I know CVS and walgreens have had multiple law suits for rph failing to counsel/lethal med errors. Of course these kinds of things get swept under the rug.... APhA and other pharm organizations are keeping their mouth shut and obviously I am not able to do much about it in my position. But after reading all these pharmacists on SDN who are unable to find jobs and claims of unsafe practice etc, DO YOU honestly think these claims are unsubstantiated or made up? Are you looking for video evidence of snapchaps or twitts from within the pharmacy before you realize there might be truth to these stories?

 

[RealRX]

Ditto. I pretty much mastered pharmacokinetic dosing over the course of one rotation, and I consider myself nowhere close to the caliber of top students. There is no reason you would need a whole year of residency to learn how to dose vancomycin and aminoglycosides.

You can also learn how to dose vanc and ag through the RXPrep book. But I don't think most residents just spend an entire year learning how to dose vanc and ag. There are other tasks/projects/presentations/staffing that they need to do.

 

[zelman]

This isn't specific to pharmacy, and is a bigger problem with the cost of higher education in this country and the federal student loan system. Nonetheless, the folks who take out these student loans are adults, and no one is forcing them to go to pharmacy school and to take out these loans. Not to mention that there are still state schools were they can get a better deal for their education (might not be affordable, but still won't put you 300k in the red). And although there is a need for reform and more oversight to how student loans are handled (as evidenced by the examples you mentioned and many others), I don't agree that most pre-pharmacy students are not capable of doing the research on job outlook or having a backup plan in case pharmacy doesn't work out for them. If these adults are truly not able to comprehend the responsibility involved in taking on these enormous amounts of debt (e.g. you better have a really good idea of how you're going to pay back those loans, which includes accepting the risks of the uncertainty of the future, and having a plan that takes into account those uncertainties), the problem isn't an oversupply of pharmacists, rather, the problem is a federal student loan system that makes it too easy for uninformed people to take out loans they can't afford to take. Society would benefit more from changing the rules on tuition costs and student loans than they would from creating a scarcity of pharmacists.

Also, eventually, these students will realize that the risk of taking on 300k debt to get a PharmD isn't worth it, and this problem should correct itself. It's definitely unfortunate for those who are only realizing it now after the fact, but it's not like there aren't any pharmacy jobs out there (e.g., rural, military, etc.). If someone with a PharmD is unemployed for 7 months that is a choice they are making - they rather be unemployed than relocate or take a less than ideal job. If they absolutely can't find a pharmacy job I am sure there are other jobs out there that they would qualify for.




As I mentioned, if the working conditions are so bad that they endanger the public (e.g. increased risk of making lethal med errors), then new regulations need to be put in place. If people were dying left and right due to pharmacists' mistakes, you bet there would be more outrage from the general public and more support for reforms in pharmacy practice. It would be great if we could be more proactive about it, but as history has shown, you often need a significant catastrophe (e.g. the New England Compounding Center meningitis outbreak, the thalidomide disaster, the elixir sulfanilamide disaster, etc.) to get government intervention to stop business greed. Either way, the solution to unsafe working conditions isn't cutting back on the supply of pharmacists - it's addressing the unsafe working conditions.

Overall, these are good points. However, there are still 6 year programs out there, so some 17-year olds are going to pharmacy school. They are not "adults" that you believe should be making that decision. Also, the information that should be rampant about the poor job market is diluted by others saying "APhA president says America needs 100k pharmacists!" It's not so straightforward to see the problems with getting a PharmD when every listicle about "high paying & in demand careers" says pharmacists are #3-ish.

 

[beautifulrobot]

Overall, these are good points. However, there are still 6 year programs out there, so some 17-year olds are going to pharmacy school. They are not "adults" that you believe should be making that decision. Also, the information that should be rampant about the poor job market is diluted by others saying "APhA president says America needs 100k pharmacists!" It's not so straightforward to see the problems with getting a PharmD when every listicle about "high paying & in demand careers" says pharmacists are #3-ish.

I agree the straight from high school to 6 year programs are problematic. Although, from my understanding, they don't have to commit to pharmacy school until after they complete the first two years of undegraduate courses? Honestly, I think we're often doing a disservice to high school seniors by encouraging them to go straight to college, especially if they have to take out loans. So many 17-18 year olds have no idea what they want to do, or what the purpose of going to college for them is, and they end up getting an expensive degree that wasn't a good use of their time, money, and effort (if they even get a degree, I remember lots of folks dropping out of undergrad back when I was in school).

And at least the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook has caught up with the times: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/pharmacists.htm
Again, all it takes is a little bit of research, and hopefully it will only get easier to see through the smoke and mirrors of pharmacy school deans that have an obvious conflict of interest in presenting the truth.

 

[Dred Pirate]

you are completely out of touch.

I am a preceptor and help hiring Rph's. When I moved to my area 10 years ago I could get any job I wanted. The chains hired me without an interview. I could work as many extra shifts as possible. Now, I work at a hospital and we average 60-90 applicants for every open position. The chains are not even hiring anybody for full time hours. I talk to all of the students that rotate through my hospital. Most of them cannot find a job (other than residency) right out of school unless the relocate to an undesirable location. Even then, it is difficult. We have way to many new grads and school like yourself are adding to this every day.

https://pharmacy.unc.edu/academics/the-pharmd/student-body-profile/

This is two years old - but it is, according to US News and world report - the number 1 pharmacy school in the country, and 22% of grads didn't have a job by the time they graduated. I went to a far less prestigious school and 100% of us had jobs when we walked.

Recruiters are going to lie to you - they will do whatever it takes to get on the good graces of someone in order to get a referral. I used to get recruiters call me 3x a week, now they call maybe once every 6 months.

By pumping out more grads you are allowing the chains to abuse the pharmacists they do have. They give them less than 30 hours so they do not have to give them benefits, and make it so that many RPh's cannot meet the metrics and they have an excuse to fire the veterans and hire new grads who will take any job that comes their way because they are so desperate.

@ChapmanPharmacy I responded with something more than anecdotal evidence and you are silent?