Post your ideas for the most ridiculous certifications and residency ideas that new grads can use to set themselves apart from the unwashed masses. And remember- academia is watching. If the idea is good (AKA DUMB) enough, you could get a REAL residency named in your honor!
Here’s another up and coming “must-have” credential for pharmacists: BCPRS (Board Certified Pre-pharm Recruiting Specialist).
Pharmacy schools will figure out soon enough that prospective pre-pharms are scared off from applying due to the perceived saturation, and need to find a way to stay profitable. This will spur the evolution of the next-generation pharmacy school which will be rightsized to meet current market demands.
You will see the entire pharmaceutical sciences/research departments of each pharmacy school be axed in favor of the creation of a “Clinical Innovation” department whose sole purpose is to recruit pre-pharms to fill seats because the ROI is insane - why hire faculty to write research proposals and apply for ~$50-100k grants when you can hire a team of Alex Barker Jr’s to lead the recruitment of pre-pharmers at $200k+ profit a pop?
These specialists will have been trained through the BCPRS program to use any and all tactics to convince pre-pharms to sign on the dotted line. This includes:
1. Creating “poster child” job hunt/residency placement stories from alumni to use as advertising material by cherry picking from the 20% of alumni who do end up finding employment after graduation.
2. Having a sub-team of social media specialists who create dummy accounts on online message boards like SDN to “defend” the profession and bleach/censor threads about the perceived saturation and where this profession is heading, or make posts as fake pre-pharmers to lull real pre-pharmers into a false sense of how many of their peers are truly applying to pharmacy school. Wolf in sheep’s clothing, as they say.
3. Maintaining oversight of the admissions interview process, including training interviewers on what can/can’t be said and being “culturally sensitive” to pre-pharms so that they will be convinced that this is a happy-go-lucky profession and that everything is fine and dandy.
4. A renewed emphasis on research and publications about the expanding role and need for pharmacists in the _______ setting because what more convincing way is there for schools to prove the “flexibility” of the profession by pointing to publications?
5. Developing an accelerated 0+6 PharmD program at your school of pharmacy. Undergrad pre-pharm applicant pool drying up? No problem, you can always tap into younger, more naive high school students to sign on the dotted line. But teenagers must be dealt with differently than college students. It’s the wild,wild west here and a gold mine of opportunity. Imagine the possibilities...
