Does pharmacy school prepare you well for your job?

[goheel]

The pharmacist whom I work with told me that most of the stuff he learned at pharmacy school he doesn't use in his job right now. In his words "pharmacy school prepares you for 15% of the job market, which is mostly clinical, but they don't prepare you for the retail jobs, which is 85% of the job market". Does anybody else feel the same way?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Dr JPH]

In my experience, pharmacy school gave you a taste of everything...trying to devote equal tiem to each area. Of course, many pharmacists will end up in retail and there is only so much they can to do introduce you to this "lifestyle" while in school.

If you are interested in retail the best thing to do would be to work in that setting as soon as possible.

See if it is for you. Wasn't for me, that's why I bailed. But check it out before you get too deep.

 

[bgreet]

Yep he was dead on. Pharmacy school does not teach you how to deal with people, insurance, etc. etc. Most of what you learn in pharmacy school is a precursor, if you enter the retail world most of what you will need to know has to be picked up simply from experience. It's similar to a lot of jobs in this regard.

 

[pharmel]

The idea of college generally is to give the individual a solid foundation with which to make educated decisions about the world around them. I do not believe there is a college degree out there that teaches the individual "how" to do a job. Those are called technical degrees. Pharmacy the "job", as with most other professions, is learned by doing.

 

[lord999]

Just sitting in class in pharmacy school can only get you so far. If it wasn't for the clerkships and mandatory internship hours, I think that the training would have been deficient.

Also, none of my rotations will prepare me for my job. It just solidifies the basic set of skills that I can bring to any employer for refinement. You just cannot pick up the level of detail necessary to really run things straight out of school.