Debating on what to do... (RN/NP or Pharmd)

Started by Hlin
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BelowTheMean said:
If it helps, a lot of RNs at my place that became NPs now round with the doctors or took over clinics that used to be run by pharmacists. Isnt this what pharmacists went to residency to do? Those pharmacists now are moved around to float while the NP does their whole job. Won't comment on whether or not theyre good as the pharmacist running it but at least they can prescribe and do physical exams is what facilities care about. Also, we have told all 4 of our residents to go look for jobs elsewhere as we will not hire any. Third year in a row not hiring a single resident when before we hired at least half of them for almost a decade. You decide which path, but ill tell you one thing, if you dont pick RN, just dont pick pharmacy either. Do something else. Youll thank me daily in the future. Good luck.
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omg, 4 residents/year 3 years in a row 😱
now i feel lucky, for never attempting residency 😳

but i feel this is so unethical. why keep training residents year after year when the department already knows with certainty that it won't hire any of them? this should be criminal, for slaving residents with half pay!
 
mentos said:
I have a great job that I like that no one else will ever get the chance to have until I retire/die or the company goes out of business which is the most likely scenario. The ship has sailed for positions like mine.

I am answering OP's question honestly and truthfully. You can't tell someone "it's not about the money" when they have a realistic chance of being unemployed with 250k debt. There is no arguing that this is a highly probable scenario. If you don't agree that this is likely what will happen to a new grad in 2024 then you are delusional or lying, because it's already happening now. I'm just keeping it real.

But let's pretend OP does graduate and gets a job at the going market rate which is around $50/hr at 32 hours per week. That is $83,200 before taxes, about $58,240 after taxes or take home of $4,853 per month before health insurance, 401k, rent, car payment, food, utilities etc. A loan payment on $250,000 direct unsubsidized student loans at 6.8% is $2,786 per month for 10 years. That is more expensive than my mortgage. Is it worth it to give up 4 years of your youth, lose 4 years opportunity cost of no income, living in an undesirable area, having little to no job security, and working in harsh conditions to be in this scenario? If so then to each their own.
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Amen.
 
harvoni_rituxan said:
omg, 4 residents/year 3 years in a row 😱
now i feel lucky, for never attempting residency 😳

but i feel this is so unethical. why keep training residents year after year when the department already knows with certainty that it won't hire any of them? this should be criminal, for slaving residents with half pay!
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The idea of residency is for training, not to get a job. Getting a job out of a residency was a bonus, in the past, because of the pharmacist shortage, especially of residency trained pharmacists. Everything is saturated now, so the only thing one can expect from a residency, is the training.
 
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BidingMyTime said:
The idea of residency is for training, not to get a job. Getting a job out of a residency was a bonus, in the past, because of the pharmacist shortage, especially of residency trained pharmacists. Everything is saturated now, so the only thing one can expect from a residency, is the training.
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It's the same situation at the hospital I used to work as an intern at. They accept and graduate 10-12 residents per year, and last I heard it had been more than 4 years since the hospital network had hired even one of their own program grads. About 30 minutes away is another hospital that graduates 4 residents per year.

It really does make me wonder - what are pharmacists doing for work after completing residency and not being able to find a hospital job literally anywhere? Is it common for residency-trained pharmacists to take retail jobs?
 
harvoni_rituxan said:
omg, 4 residents/year 3 years in a row 😱
now i feel lucky, for never attempting residency 😳

but i feel this is so unethical. why keep training residents year after year when the department already knows with certainty that it won't hire any of them? this should be criminal, for slaving residents with half pay!
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If you owned a business would you rather pay someone 100% salary or 50% salary?
 
mentos said:
In that case there would be no money left at all for residents.
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In that case, it would be much better off for those residents to not do residency at all and forgo the half pay for 1-2 years, depending if it's PGY-1 or PGY-2. At least they can save those years and invest somewhere else.

I just got PMed by a 2019 grad who can only find one shift per week in retail, so she went back to school for cs bachelor, literally from year 1 taking intro to cs and linear algebra. Now she is doing a capital market internship at a major bank. I mean, it is far worse for anyone to keep investing time in a training that eventually leads to nowhere. In this case, that's the residency for the half pay.
 
Hedgehog32 said:
It's the same situation at the hospital I used to work as an intern at. They accept and graduate 10-12 residents per year, and last I heard it had been more than 4 years since the hospital network had hired even one of their own program grads. About 30 minutes away is another hospital that graduates 4 residents per year.

It really does make me wonder - what are pharmacists doing for work after completing residency and not being able to find a hospital job literally anywhere? Is it common for residency-trained pharmacists to take retail jobs?
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The LTC where I work routinely gets applicants from residents. No residency is required where I work. But I would almost say a resident is undesirable for us because they have no real work experience. One recently hired former resident was not nice to all of the techs and now no one will help her. She had this high and almighty attitude cause she did a residency, but no one here cares (half the techs don't even know what a residency is). I'm sure she is good at making rounds and writing journal club articles but that's not what we do at work.
 
mentos said:
The LTC where I work routinely gets applicants from residents. No residency is required where I work. But I would almost say a resident is undesirable for us because they have no real work experience. One recently hired former resident was not nice to all of the techs and now no one will help her. She had this high and almighty attitude cause she did a residency, but no one here cares (half the techs don't even know what a residency is). I'm sure she is good at making rounds and writing journal club articles but that's not what we do at work.
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jesus, residency is becoming a liability now for LTC and retail
 
mentos said:
The LTC where I work routinely gets applicants from residents. No residency is required where I work. But I would almost say a resident is undesirable for us because they have no real work experience. One recently hired former resident was not nice to all of the techs and now no one will help her. She had this high and almighty attitude cause she did a residency, but no one here cares (half the techs don't even know what a residency is). I'm sure she is good at making rounds and writing journal club articles but that's not what we do at work.
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If I were doing the hiring, this would be my fear as well, fair or not. A resident is being trained for a job and work environment that is nothing like my job or work environment. I would be afraid the resident would have an attitude or not want to pitch in and help. No thanks.

Alternatively if I were trying to start a residency program or wanted to create a position that involved precepting I might recruit from that crowd.
 
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PikminOC said:
NP have many diploma mill schools and are saturating themselves. This will only get worse. They have online classes and degrees (and this was pre COVID).
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This is the case in my city, which is host to two local universities that both began offering online NP programs a few years ago. However, what's interesting is that even though there's general job market saturation at the local/regional level, the local hospital systems still haven't implemented strict criteria that applicants have to meet in order to be considered for entry-level NP positions, unlike what's happening in the pharmacy job market with its so-called "credentialing war" that has resulted in many/most hospitals strictly mandating the hiring of only experienced and/or residency-trained pharmacists for all inpatient positions (as just one example).
 
Hedgehog32 said:
This is the case in my city, which is host to two local universities that both began offering online NP programs a few years ago. However, what's interesting is that even though there's general job market saturation at the local/regional level, the local hospital systems still haven't implemented strict criteria that applicants have to meet in order to be considered for entry-level NP positions, unlike what's happening in the pharmacy job market with its so-called "credentialing war" that has resulted in many/most hospitals strictly mandating the hiring of only experienced and/or residency-trained pharmacists for all inpatient positions (as just one example).
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With more mid-levels out there, the hospital can get them cheaper as the supply is large and will keep getting larger
 
PikminOC said:
NP have many diploma mill schools and are saturating themselves. This will only get worse. They have online classes and degrees (and this was pre COVID).
Click to expand...

I've heard horror stories of some NP students not being able to graduate because they couldn't find rotation sites. There are too many schools and not enough rotation sites.
 
Hedgehog32 said:
It's the same situation at the hospital I used to work as an intern at. They accept and graduate 10-12 residents per year, and last I heard it had been more than 4 years since the hospital network had hired even one of their own program grads. About 30 minutes away is another hospital that graduates 4 residents per year.

It really does make me wonder - what are pharmacists doing for work after completing residency and not being able to find a hospital job literally anywhere? Is it common for residency-trained pharmacists to take retail jobs?
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Doordash
 
Hlin said:
Hi All,

I just want to first say thanks to whoever can comment and help me 🙂

TLDR: I got accepted to highly ranked pharmacy and nursing schools and I am stuck between the two. I have talked to many nurses and pharmacists already, but I just can’t make up my mind.

Pharmacy: ~240k cost of attendance, job market saturation, but it is not as labor intensive as nurses and can still live comfortably with good money management.

Nursing: ~100k cost of attendance for the specific program that I am doing, higher demand, labor intensive. I will still have to practice as a bedside nurse for a few years before going to back to school for NP.

I am leaning more towards nursing because it is more hands-on and I feel I’d make more impact in patients’ lives. I read a lot of stuff online and majority of the opinions are in favor of nurses i.e. in higher demand and more job diversity.

The things that are holding me back are I do get a little squeamish when I see needles. I heard it is something people can get over with practice. I have also heard they are often overworked and underpaid. They do get a lot of backlash from the patient, patient’s family, and provider. Though they are in high demand, there is also a lot of competition too for new grads, especially in my area.

Curious if there are people who tried out pharmacy and then switched over to nursing or vice versa? Any thoughts welcome!
Click to expand...
 
mentos said:
There's no such thing as a top ranked pharmacy school. No employer cares which pharmacy school you go to. 240k is a ridiculous price. You cannot live comfortably with this much debt on a pharmacist salary, assuming you can even get a job. If you do get a job, it'll probably be at CVS (which is very labor intensive) in the middle of nowhere. Tuition will be even higher and pharmacist wages even lower by the time you graduate. Avoid at all costs.

Nursing will always be in demand. You can work anywhere you want. They will always be well respected and paid well. The nurses union in my state just negotiated hazard pay, they're now getting $10/hr on top of what they already make, some make more than pharmacists now. Pharmacists get nothing.
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I have a good friend who is a nurse. You can get a 9-5 job 5-6 home visits/day and she makes good money, rare weekends and no evenings.
It depends on the State and location, etc. but I think nursing is overall better, different opportunities and not to mention less expensive schooling. It's a shame but pharmacy "professionals" tend to think differently than most other people.
 
Hlin said:
Hi All,

I just want to first say thanks to whoever can comment and help me 🙂

TLDR: I got accepted to highly ranked pharmacy and nursing schools and I am stuck between the two. I have talked to many nurses and pharmacists already, but I just can’t make up my mind.

Pharmacy: ~240k cost of attendance, job market saturation, but it is not as labor intensive as nurses and can still live comfortably with good money management.

Nursing: ~100k cost of attendance for the specific program that I am doing, higher demand, labor intensive. I will still have to practice as a bedside nurse for a few years before going to back to school for NP.

I am leaning more towards nursing because it is more hands-on and I feel I’d make more impact in patients’ lives. I read a lot of stuff online and majority of the opinions are in favor of nurses i.e. in higher demand and more job diversity.

The things that are holding me back are I do get a little squeamish when I see needles. I heard it is something people can get over with practice. I have also heard they are often overworked and underpaid. They do get a lot of backlash from the patient, patient’s family, and provider. Though they are in high demand, there is also a lot of competition too for new grads, especially in my area.

Curious if there are people who tried out pharmacy and then switched over to nursing or vice versa? Any thoughts welcome!
Click to expand...
Have you also considered CRNA school? Nursing route hands down over pharmacy. There is now a saturation of pharmacy residency graduates. Even if you do the two years, you could still get unemployed or just part time after six years of school and 200k+ debt.

Nursing is less debt and offers you more options. CRNA, NP and Nursing informatics.

Also, have you looked into medical school? Improve your stats and shoot for medical school
 
Please watch this podcast by Tony Guerra, a resident trained pharmacist who works in a community college advising pharmacy residents to go for work for a bank? How many Nurses, NPs, and CRNAs are made to work for a bank before getting a clinical job? None

 
Hedgehog32 said:
It's the same situation at the hospital I used to work as an intern at. They accept and graduate 10-12 residents per year, and last I heard it had been more than 4 years since the hospital network had hired even one of their own program grads. About 30 minutes away is another hospital that graduates 4 residents per year.

It really does make me wonder - what are pharmacists doing for work after completing residency and not being able to find a hospital job literally anywhere? Is it common for residency-trained pharmacists to take retail jobs?
Click to expand...
Probably retail jobs and or Uber, McDonald’s, Sports Clips etc. We won’t know because that will not be posted on linked in
 
How has no one brought up the fact havoni rituxan was banned?

Mods at it again. RIP harvoni.... Whoever you were.
 
Rx1992 said:
Please watch this podcast by Tony Guerra, a resident trained pharmacist who works in a community college advising pharmacy residents to go for work for a bank? How many Nurses, NPs, and CRNAs are made to work for a bank before getting a clinical job? None

Click to expand...


to be fair i think his advice is idiotic lol
 
Careful Mentos- don't fight with the troll. She (?) is a prepharm and as such is a protected species. Hate to see YOU get banned for this idiocy....
 
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Rx1992 said:
Have you also considered CRNA school? Nursing route hands down over pharmacy. There is now a saturation of pharmacy residency graduates. Even if you do the two years, you could still get unemployed or just part time after six years of school and 200k+ debt.

Nursing is less debt and offers you more options. CRNA, NP and Nursing informatics.

Also, have you looked into medical school? Improve your stats and shoot for medical school
Click to expand...
Yep super easy to get into med school
 
Hlin said:
Hi All,

I just want to first say thanks to whoever can comment and help me 🙂

TLDR: I got accepted to highly ranked pharmacy and nursing schools and I am stuck between the two. I have talked to many nurses and pharmacists already, but I just can’t make up my mind.

Pharmacy: ~240k cost of attendance, job market saturation, but it is not as labor intensive as nurses and can still live comfortably with good money management.

Nursing: ~100k cost of attendance for the specific program that I am doing, higher demand, labor intensive. I will still have to practice as a bedside nurse for a few years before going to back to school for NP.

I am leaning more towards nursing because it is more hands-on and I feel I’d make more impact in patients’ lives. I read a lot of stuff online and majority of the opinions are in favor of nurses i.e. in higher demand and more job diversity.

The things that are holding me back are I do get a little squeamish when I see needles. I heard it is something people can get over with practice. I have also heard they are often overworked and underpaid. They do get a lot of backlash from the patient, patient’s family, and provider. Though they are in high demand, there is also a lot of competition too for new grads, especially in my area.

Curious if there are people who tried out pharmacy and then switched over to nursing or vice versa? Any thoughts welcome!
Click to expand...


Retail jobs in pharmacy are plenty labor intensive. You have no idea what it’s like to sit down at home after 11-12 hours on the assembly line in Walgreens. Some of the most labor intensive work I have ever done. It’s like doing jumping jacks at full speed for 11 hours straight
 
I would say it's more mental focus to be able to do the same monotonous crap accurately and "compliantly" over and over while being disturbed over and over

You can tell when **** workers tap out after 10 input after 2 hours at the in window... of e-scripts

No country for old dinosaurs off the street

No country for flake zoomers
 
JustFillIt said:
Retail jobs in pharmacy are plenty labor intensive. You have no idea what it’s like to sit down at home after 11-12 hours on the assembly line in Walgreens. Some of the most labor intensive work I have ever done. It’s like doing jumping jacks at full speed for 11 hours straight
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LoL what? It's not like you're working construction.
 
mentos said:
LoL what? It's not like you're working construction.
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Yea I get that - it is absolutely exhausting nonetheless. Saying that busy retail pharmacy is not “labor intensive” is not an accurate description of the true situation. Although it’s not the same as a job which requires heavy lifting - I would propose that filling 500 Rx as a solo pharmacist on your feet for 11-12 hours straight can be just as physically exhausting as moderate heavy lifting all day in many respects. Especially if you work in a counseling mandatory state (and you actually do it).

I am big into yard work. I have performed some extremely intense labor when I owned 1.5 acres of land with a large garden and landscape. I spent 12 hours in heavy labor. I still was not as fully exhausted as many days running around in the pharmacy. In fact I felt great at the end of the day - nothing like I do at the end of a crazy Rx day.

Busy retail pharmacy, and actually doing your job, is very labor intensive.
 
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Sine Cura said:
I would say it's more mental focus to be able to do the same monotonous crap accurately and "compliantly" over and over while being disturbed over and over

You can tell when **** workers tap out after 10 input after 2 hours at the in window... of e-scripts

No country for old dinosaurs off the street

No country for flake zoomers
Click to expand...

What is a flake zoomer?
 
JustFillIt said:
xhausting as moderate heavy lifting all day in many respects. Especially if you work in a counseling mandatory state (and you actually do it).

I am big into yard work. I have performed some extremely intense labor when I owned 1.5 acres of land with a large garden and landscape. I spent 12 hours in heavy labor. I still was not as fully exhausted as many days running around in the pharmacy. In fact I felt great at the end of the day - nothing like I do at the end of a crazy Rx day.
Click to expand...

It's the standing in one place and having to concentrate for hours at a time with no break that does it. You can feel your brain starting to melt after 8 hours, by the 12th hour you're knocked out on your feet and operating on instinct. It didn't use to be this way, we used to actually have time throughout the day to take 10 minute breathers without getting behind. I have started doing a 20 minute stretching routine after certain days working, really helps keep the legs fresh. If only there was a way to revive your mind when you got home.
 
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