clinical pharmacy jobs

Started by kendrick lamar
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kendrick lamar

kendrick lamar

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I hope I'm not duplicating any threads here, but after doing several rotations, the only thing I have really felt like doing in pharmacy is clinical pharmacy where I could actually get to round with doctors. I applied to some residency programs and got an invite at a place I didn't really like after interviewing there and have also heard on this forum that going into a residency program is not necessarily ideal lately considering the market (the residents at the place I interviewed said they're not considering a PGY2 for this reason as well). So my question here is: are clinical pharmacy jobs becoming more saturated or is there a shift where more clinical positions might be opening up? Would working as a staff hospital for a few years enable me to get a clinical position later on?
 
Based on what I've seen in the job hunt, I don't think a one year residency would hurt at all. The benefit of that extra experience is very real, and most of the job postings I've looked at in the last month mention a PGY-1 being very desirable. I'm still not convinced a PGY-2 is necessary. I think they have a place, but I have no interest in specializing in something for another year of less-than-half pay.
 
pharm B said:
Based on what I've seen in the job hunt, I don't think a one year residency would hurt at all. The benefit of that extra experience is very real, and most of the job postings I've looked at in the last month mention a PGY-1 being very desirable. I'm still not convinced a PGY-2 is necessary. I think they have a place, but I have no interest in specializing in something for another year of less-than-half pay.
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Were these clinical jobs or staff jobs? I would think so too, which is why I was considering residency, but I am really trying to figure out of the place I got an invite at is worth trying to rank for match: it's a 100 bed hospital, not teaching, with only 60 physician staff total. They really tried to market the intimate environment at the hospital, which is rare in most hospitals, but in terms of experience, I'm not sure how great it really will be. The pharmacy and the hospital staff also rubbed me the wrong way and in a small hospital, these will be the people I have to bear working with for a year :\
 
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I am at a large Midwestern university affiliated teaching hospital. Our positions are hybrid - not all staffing or all out on your unit. We only hire residency trained newer grads or pharmacists with previous hospital experience. We used to have openings all the time either because we were expanding or because someone had stayed with us a few years to resume build then moved on to greener pastures (to wherever they had wanted to be originally - think larger metro with more clinical opportunities - read: "unicorn job").

It's only changed in the past 2 years due to saturation. If we have an opening we will most likely hire one of own residents or a former student of ours who has since completed a residency. It's become rare for us to hire a "stranger."

Smaller hospitals in our region will still hire without residency or hospital experience but you won't get the same kinds of opportunities for interdisciplinary rounds or professional growth.

Not matching for a PGY1 isn't the end of the world but it will make it more difficult for you to stand out. You could get lucky but the job market is getting tougher every year. It's unbelievable to me that we can be so picky now. It wasn't so long ago we had trouble filling positions due to our location but now we have tons of qualified applicants even when we have nothing posted.

Sent from my GT-N8013 using Tapatalk
 
OmiPharmD said:
Our positions are hybrid - not all staffing or all out on your unit.
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This is the exact kind of model I expect to see gaining traction nationwide. And with the loss of those pure staffing positions, the residency becomes that much more important. I think we're in our own honeymoon period where you can still get in the door without a PGY-1, but it will probably be much more of a requirement in the near future.
 
I wonder then if there will be more residency programs in the future to compensate for more people interested in doing clinical pharmacy or if clinical pharmacy positions will only be reserved for those who are able to obtain a residency. I have spoken to a lot of people and they have told me that each year there are an increasing number of pharmacy students interested in doing a residency but not enough spots for residency, thus making it more competitive each and every year. Also, at the hospital I was at, central pharmacists were mostly verifying orders and would sometimes round with doctors the day after they were on-call-is that what you mean by hybrid? I know there was one recent hire who got the position after she completed a residency. Two other people I know got hired as pharmacists after working 2+ years in retail and then switching over. I am wondering whether I should consider a staff position at the hospital I did my rotation at (my preceptor was very motivating in me trying to get a residency and told me their hospital doesn't require residency but it certainly is a plus), so I think she may be able to put in a good word for me if I apply (I went to the job site and see two staff pharmacist openings there) but I'm not sure if even the central pharmacy would prefer somebody with experience/residency over me despite being a student there because I don't have much job experience unfortunately due to a lack of intern positions in my area. I would want to work as a staff pharmacist only if I can work my way up and eventually gain greater clinical responsibilities, but I am not sure if the aforementioned route would work better for me or would it be best to re-apply for residencies for the next cycle
 
Just go out and ask! Use your hospital rotations as a spring board. I wouldn't recommend a residency.
 
kendrick lamar said:
Also, at the hospital I was at, central pharmacists were mostly verifying orders and would sometimes round with doctors the day after they were on-call-is that what you mean by hybrid?
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By hybrid I mean not M-F day shift out on the floors rounding with physicians. We work weekends (every 3rd) and rotate through 2nd shifts. The number of 2nd shifts is based on seniority. These are the shifts that you will be in a central or satellite pharmacy. On clinical days you are scheduled out on a specific unit.
 
My experience has been, hospitals are moving to get rid of pure clinical positions, and moving to hybrid positions as OmniPharm described. I'm not sure why someone would have told you that a residency is not ideal (unless they mean grab any job you can get, before the next crop of pharmacists graduates?) You probably won't command a higher salary by doing a residency, but it will undoubtedly open more doors. Any place hiring a clinical pharmacist is going to give precedence to someone with a residency over someone who doesn't have one (all else being equal)
 
One disturbing thing I did find was, at my hospital the clinical pharmacist doesn't make much more than us.

Clinical pharmacist makes $120k salaried. I see her at the hospital for more than 8 hours on multiple occasions a week. Not to mention the meetings that they get sent off too. Less break time too.

A pharmacist with the same amount of experience makes around $110k/year on the evening shift and clocks in at 3 and clocks out at 11 with a 1 hour break.
 
BidingMyTime said:
My experience has been, hospitals are moving to get rid of pure clinical positions, and moving to hybrid positions as OmniPharm described. I'm not sure why someone would have told you that a residency is not ideal (unless they mean grab any job you can get, before the next crop of pharmacists graduates?) You probably won't command a higher salary by doing a residency, but it will undoubtedly open more doors. Any place hiring a clinical pharmacist is going to give precedence to someone with a residency over someone who doesn't have one (all else being equal)
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Yea, I meant some people, and a lot of people on here too have been iffy about residencies, primarily to grab any job you can get, I would assume.
I would want a clinical position, but my concern would also be on how available these positions are. I don't have a retail job as a back-up and could only consider a staff hospital job and reapply to the next cycle of residencies or just work as a staff pharmacist for a few years and hope to get bumped to clinical pharmacist status
 
If your heart tells you to get a residency, then do it. Yes, clinical jobs are getting more competitive. But its not to the point where no one is hiring. My friends are still getting hired for clinical positions (either with or without residencies in cities.). I wouldn't worry about the external job market. I looked at the VA website recently (USAJobs.gov search for pharmacist), and there were about 70 listings in big cities and rural areas. Americans are only getting older and more obese. I would worry about putting yourself in the best position to be successful by working hard etc. If you put in the work, everything will work out in the end. Scared about doing a residency? Go to a rural area where residencies are not required, get some experience and move to your desired location if possible. So go for it! Sorry you're talking to a lifelong optimist lol.
 
I did a PGY-2 and not a day goes by that I'm not glad I did.

Other people who didn't do residencies and found jobs they enjoy will tell you you don't have to.

But I've never once regretted it.

I'd really hate to regret having not done it.
 
Sparda29 said:
One disturbing thing I did find was, at my hospital the clinical pharmacist doesn't make much more than us.

Clinical pharmacist makes $120k salaried. I see her at the hospital for more than 8 hours on multiple occasions a week. Not to mention the meetings that they get sent off too. Less break time too.

A pharmacist with the same amount of experience makes around $110k/year on the evening shift and clocks in at 3 and clocks out at 11 with a 1 hour break.
Click to expand...

Usually the salary is about the same or the clinical pharmacist makes slightly more, depending on the hospital.
 
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We weren't really hard-pressed in pharmacy school to do a residency. It was more like, who here is doing a residency? Raise your hands. We were kind of lead to believe that you could just be a clinical pharmacist if that's what you wanted to do, though, so the material was presented as if you were the clinical pharmacist. I don't believe anyone really bought into that since they all wanted to do retail anyway.

I felt more pressure from directors at career fairs who wanted me to do a residency at their hospital.
 
Sparda29 said:
Really? The schools and everyone else had us believing that clinical pharmacists started around 135k and the DOP started around 180k.
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I make a couple dollars an hour more than a non specialist who graduated te same time I did. It's not a huge difference in pay.

If anything, if I went into academia for a true unicorn job, I would take a significant paycut.
 
I did two residencies and currently work as a "regular" staff pharmacist and not as a "unicorn" clinical pharmacist rounding up on the floors full time. I do not regret doing my residencies even though I am chosing not to do a full time clinical job. My career aspirations may change but you can never take my education/residencies away from me. Plus when I moved to a large city several years ago I was hired as a staff pharmacist over hundreds of others. Literally hundreds.
 
Hi wanted some insight regarding clinical hospital jobs in Tidewater area especially (Virginia beach,Norfolk) how is the pay and also retail appreciate any help thanks.
 
The role of the clinical pharmacist is a joke. If you want to do clinical...you should definitely do MD, PA, or NP. Why would you spend your whole day chasing around doctors? I have rotated at a few large hospitals and was not impressed at all with the "clinical" pharmacists.
 
Lnsean said:
The role of the clinical pharmacist is a joke. If you want to do clinical...you should definitely do MD, PA, or NP. Why would you spend your whole day chasing around doctors? I have rotated at a few large hospitals and was not impressed at all with the "clinical" pharmacists.
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Honestly, they chase me down more than I chase them. Damn phone rings constantly.
 
As far as pay goes, purely clinical pharmacy jobs have usually paid around 10k less than retail ones (at least in my area). Unless insurance billing structure changes I don't see that as going up much.
 
Lnsean said:
The role of the clinical pharmacist is a joke. If you want to do clinical...you should definitely do MD, PA, or NP. Why would you spend your whole day chasing around doctors? I have rotated at a few large hospitals and was not impressed at all with the "clinical" pharmacists.
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You probably haven't met a good clinical pharmacist and seen what they can accomplish. I haven't either. *Almost all* of the clinical pharmacists that I know are just needy people willing to "fight" for "specialized" positions. I have a lot of respect for my DOP, though. She's very loyal to our department and a total hard***. I just didn't realize that about her until we were in a crisis situation...

Edited to correct: *Almost all* of the clinical pharmacists that I've known are self-serving. Excuse me, I do work with one clinical pharmacist who actually cares about people!
 
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If women gave up their fight for equality in the 1800s... We as pharmacist have to start somewhere. Look at when pharmacist first started. No physician respected us. Look at us now. How will health care professionals and patients perceive us in ten years? Lets not be so short sighted people.
 
rxgolfer said:
If women gave up their fight for equality in the 1800s... We as pharmacist have to start somewhere. Look at when pharmacist first started. No physician respected us. Look at us now. How will health care professionals and patients perceive us in ten years? Lets not be so short sighted people.
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I think you misunderstood what I previously wrote. Look... the self-serving clinical pharmacists that I know really just want better, more "specialized" positions for themselves because of greed. They aren't innovative or cutting-edge people who want to better healthcare or crusaders who wear their hearts on their sleeves because they want to help and save others.
 
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At least for the SF Bay Area, clinical pharmacists (inpatient, general or specialty) are about +$5-8 ish/hr over retail pay ($68-70/hr vs. retail last I heard was ~$61-63/hr) for FT benefitted positions. Non-benefitted per-diem is $75-$80/hr on the hospital side.

Funny I was brought up to believe that retail pay > hospital pay, but my ensuing reality is kind of opposite.

I dunno, I like my job and get paid well...and I'm not exactly chasing physicians down either, I'm usually hanging out at a nurses station when I'm in a unit so they're the ones flagging me down for the most random crap. If you have to constantly chase physicians, something's wrong at your hospital.
 
I'm also in the camp that says purely academic clinical positions in the hospital are going to be one of the first items to be cut in this brave new world of lower reimbursement rates. Production numbers need to be met in addition to clinical duties, so I think unicorn jobs will become even more rare going forward.

The exception will be emergency medicine due to the sheer difficulty in obtaining prospective review in an emergent setting and traditional measures of productivity will be difficult to obtain.
 
confettiflyer said:
I'm also in the camp that says purely academic clinical positions in the hospital are going to be one of the first items to be cut in this brave new world of lower reimbursement rates. Production numbers need to be met in addition to clinical duties, so I think unicorn jobs will become even more rare going forward.

The exception will be emergency medicine due to the sheer difficulty in obtaining prospective review in an emergent setting and traditional measures of productivity will be difficult to obtain.
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LOLOLOLOLOL... I love it!
 
The only time I wish I had a purely clinical position is when I'm Precepting.

I hate that I don't have any protected time with the students and that patient care and pharmacy workflow does actually depend on what I do.

Makes it hard not to be super frustrated with less than awesome students, and I feel bad that I don't have the time to help improve them more.
 
confettiflyer said:
At least for the SF Bay Area, clinical pharmacists (inpatient, general or specialty) are about +$5-8 ish/hr over retail pay ($68-70/hr vs. retail last I heard was ~$61-63/hr) for FT benefitted positions. Non-benefitted per-diem is $75-$80/hr on the hospital side.
Click to expand...

Whaat!? Not my clinical position, although I am hoping to get some of my loans taken care of. Didn't know private sector made that much.
 
confettiflyer said:
I'm also in the camp that says purely academic clinical positions in the hospital are going to be one of the first items to be cut in this brave new world of lower reimbursement rates. Production numbers need to be met in addition to clinical duties, so I think unicorn jobs will become even more rare going forward.

The exception will be emergency medicine due to the sheer difficulty in obtaining prospective review in an emergent setting and traditional measures of productivity will be difficult to obtain.
Click to expand...

This is very true. As health services become more commoditized, it's really about how fast you can churn the wheel to collect payments.
 
bacillus1 said:
Whaat!? Not my clinical position, although I am hoping to get some of my loans taken care of. Didn't know private sector made that much.
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This is pretty close to what I'm making in SoCal.

It's golden handcuffs. I was looking at a position back east and it would be a $40K paycut to go to a major city...
 
bacillus1 said:
Whaat!? Not my clinical position, although I am hoping to get some of my loans taken care of. Didn't know private sector made that much.
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You have a gov't job with a pension, that's why....I have/get to sock away $18k/yr in a 403(b) to achieve the same thing (among other things).
 
Heheh.. golden handcuffs . Never thought i'd be in that situation. I didn't realize until recently that the offer I accepted was designed to prevent me from leaving the company, ever. Guess you have to take the good with the bad.
 
njac said:
This is pretty close to what I'm making in SoCal.

It's golden handcuffs. I was looking at a position back east and it would be a $40K paycut to go to a major city...
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I'm in the same handcuffs. It's just different circumstances, I guess. The cost of living is so low here combined with a strong demand for *good* pharmacists that it makes it very, very difficult to leave. I've already tried, and it was a no-go.
 
PharmDstudent said:
I'm in the same handcuffs. It's just different circumstances, I guess. The cost of living is so low here combined with a strong demand for *good* pharmacists that it makes it very, very difficult to leave. I've already tried, and it was a no-go.
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Same. I think I would need to take a 40-50k paycut to take a similar job in a major metro if I left today. And that's before annual raises. 10 years from now I don't see how i'll be able to negotiate for ~200k for if my wife wants to move back to her home state. :/ And that's not even taking into account COL differences. I think i'd need to be making nearly that much to even match my starting salary out here where rents are ~$600 for a luxury 2 bedroom

But who knows what the pharmacy job market will look then.

PharmDstudent, are you heading for a director path ?
 
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type b pharmD said:
Same. I think I would need to take a 40-50k paycut to take a similar job in a major metro if I left today. And that's before annual raises. 10 years from now I don't see how i'll be able to negotiate for ~200k for if my wife wants to move back to her home state. :/ And that's not even taking into account COL differences. I think i'd need to be making nearly that much to even match my starting salary out here where rents are ~$600 for a luxury 2 bedroom

But who knows what the pharmacy job market will look then.

PharmDstudent, are you heading for a director path ?
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Awwwwwwww.... I would love to, but directing 12 hours a day 3 days a week is all that I can handle right now with my family and personal problems. Thank you for the compliment!
 
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In my metro area, the area of clinical pharmacy that has been growing the most has been emergency dept. pharmacists and ambulatory care pharmacists. All the health systems in my area have been expanding these roles.
 
PumpkinSmasher said:
"
In my metro area, the area of clinical pharmacy that has been growing the most has been emergency dept. pharmacists and ambulatory care pharmacists. All the health systems in my area have been expanding these roles.
"
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Healthcare is and will be heavily commoditized no matter how you look at it. It's just pure economics as measures to cut costs will pressure even the most innovative business models. Don't kid yourself with the "clinical" pharmacist role ( I know there are exceptions).
 
Lnsean said:
Healthcare is and will be heavily commoditized no matter how you look at it. It's just pure economics as measures to cut costs will pressure even the most innovative business models. Don't kid yourself with the "clinical" pharmacist role ( I know there are exceptions).
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Like when innovative business models provide enhanced cost effectiveness!

My friend at Kaiser helped the org retain $500,000 last year. .. never dispensed a single prescription .. yet she probably added more value than a full time dispensing rph (obviously ignoring the fact that KP pays itself)

Why do you think clinical pharmacy is expanding? Because it's not economically feasible to just lick and stick anymore, when the quality of pharmaceutical care will be affecting reimbursement schemes.

ACO and PPACA = to a certain degree, the more clinical pharmacists you hire, the better your CMS reimbursement gets.
 
type b pharmD said:
Like when innovative business models provide enhanced cost effectiveness!

My friend at Kaiser helped the org retain $500,000 last year. .. never dispensed a single prescription .. yet she probably added more value than a full time dispensing rph (obviously ignoring the fact that KP pays itself)

Why do you think clinical pharmacy is expanding? Because it's not economically feasible to just lick and stick anymore, when the quality of pharmaceutical care will be affecting reimbursement schemes.

ACO and PPACA = to a certain degree, the more clinical pharmacists you hire, the better your CMS reimbursement gets.
Click to expand...

They're going to want 600,000 next year...fyi. The problem is you have non-health professionals running the show.
 
type b pharmD said:
Like when innovative business models provide enhanced cost effectiveness!

Why do you think clinical pharmacy is expanding? Because it's not economically feasible to just lick and stick anymore, when the quality of pharmaceutical care will be affecting reimbursement schemes.
Click to expand...

Yup.... ED and am care pharmacists save money, traditional production line pharmacists (aka staffing) are a cost center that need to be minimized. So the most economically productive model states that you have your pharmacists provide money saving clinical services AND the minimally legally required distribution tasks in order to abide by applicable law. That's it.

It's also dependent on company culture...pharmacists are only as effective as other practitioners allow them to be. If your org constantly roadblocks pharmacy, pharmacy won't save you any money; if your org is fairly progressive (like KP), opposite can be true.
 
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