Graduating without Work Experience/Hours

[Sparda29]

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As far as experience and internships are concerned, everything being equal, here is the heirarchy of how I hire staff/clinical pharmacists at hospitals.

1. Residency trained pharmacist or pharmacist with hospital experience
2. Extensive hospital experience as an intern
3. Retail pharmacist with no hospital experience
4. Extensive intern experience non hospital

No work experience due to emphasis on school work and grades...those CV and resume get tossed. Why? those tend to lack the ability to see the big picture.

What if the pharmacist with hospital experience had a 2.3 GPA during pharmacy school? Actually, do you even look at GPA when it comes to hiring?

 

[Sparda29]

Is that really any of your business?

Google it or search the forum. There are MANY schools out there that admit in the spring. Explain to me why a school that admits in the spring wouldn't have pharmaceutics I in the spring.

Plus I prefer being anonymous on this forum. Too many of you guys give out way too much info about yourself, it's a surprise some of you haven't been stalked.

Haha, my dean of student affairs figured out what my SN on SDN was after I made a post where I included the details of the exact time I received an e-mail for my acceptance to the school.

 

[Farmercyst]

I have a question - in general, how much intern/work time is considered "sufficient?" I am a married, older student with two very young children, and I will be starting at UMD in the fall. I am not sure how rigorous pharmacy school will be for me (although eek^3 @ pchem) -- and while I am super happy about having this opportunity to go, I definitely don't want to be away from my little kids more than necessary. Is it sufficient to volunteer or intern for a few hours a week and/or to work summers? Or is it really necessary to work, say 10 hours a week as an intern at CVS? I am afraid that would be way too aggressive given my life circumstances.

Thanks in advance!

I know this is a month old, but in the odd chance it comes up again. It's not that difficult to work in a 4 year program. A 3 year, probably more difficult, but most likely not impossible. I'm at USC and have worked since Spring of P1. During the school year I average 8-12 hours per week (more during P2) Over summer 1 I did the CVS summer internship (40 hrs/wk) and worked on campus on occasional Saturdays in between. Summer 2, I went from 2 kids to 3, started working as soon as my wife could get around the house comfortably, I went back to work again doing 20-30 hours per week (we're overstaffed). This summer I'll probably do the first summer rotation, take the 2nd one off to work and take a vacation, then finish 1 semester early to work and study for boards. Right now I'm averaging just under a B+ average. I should have all 1500 hours required to sit for boards even without the school hours.
Disclaimers: 1) My wife is a stay at home mom, so I don't have to worry about who's watching the kids while I'm at work. In a two income household this would be more of an issue. 2.) I'm living off student loans, and COA doesn't cover costs associated with a family, so my max loan amount is the same as a single person living away from home. Hence, I kind of have to work to make ends meet. Even so, I'm only making about 10-15K/year working.

 

[confettiflyer]

Haha, my dean of student affairs figured out what my SN on SDN was after I made a post where I included the details of the exact time I received an e-mail for my acceptance to the school.

Yeah I have a feeling the higher ups know who I am...granted, I've never disparaged my school and defend it to the teeth.

I'd like to think my a-hole behavior on here gives me some street credibility with the young pre-pharms as I've gotten dozens of inquiries privately.

 

[StaviZFingerZ]

for good looking women, I don't look at gpa. for doods, they better have 3.5 or above. but lower gpa can be compensated with lower salary.

What if the pharmacist with hospital experience had a 2.3 GPA during pharmacy school? Actually, do you even look at GPA when it comes to hiring?

 

[StaviZFingerZ]

yup, 16 hours per week during school since the fall of P1 and full time during summer for all 4 years at USC. that was more than enough for my living expense.

I know this is a month old, but in the odd chance it comes up again. It's not that difficult to work in a 4 year program. A 3 year, probably more difficult, but most likely not impossible. I'm at USC and have worked since Spring of P1. During the school year I average 8-12 hours per week (more during P2) Over summer 1 I did the CVS summer internship (40 hrs/wk) and worked on campus on occasional Saturdays in between. Summer 2, I went from 2 kids to 3, started working as soon as my wife could get around the house comfortably, I went back to work again doing 20-30 hours per week (we're overstaffed). This summer I'll probably do the first summer rotation, take the 2nd one off to work and take a vacation, then finish 1 semester early to work and study for boards. Right now I'm averaging just under a B+ average. I should have all 1500 hours required to sit for boards even without the school hours.
Disclaimers: 1) My wife is a stay at home mom, so I don't have to worry about who's watching the kids while I'm at work. In a two income household this would be more of an issue. 2.) I'm living off student loans, and COA doesn't cover costs associated with a family, so my max loan amount is the same as a single person living away from home. Hence, I kind of have to work to make ends meet. Even so, I'm only making about 10-15K/year working.

 

[ForcedEntry]

awww man.. I was just starting to have fun..and he got banned.

Thank you Z

 

[Sparda29]

Yeah I have a feeling the higher ups know who I am...granted, I've never disparaged my school and defend it to the teeth.

I'd like to think my a-hole behavior on here gives me some street credibility with the young pre-pharms as I've gotten dozens of inquiries privately.

Likewise. At my school, I'm known to most of the P1's as Sparda as opposed to my real name.

 

[Transformer]

Likewise. At my school, I'm known to most of the P1's as Sparda as opposed to my real name.

This is True!

Sparda, when do we find out about our experience sites?

 

[Quiksilver]

You know you spend too much time on this vortex when.....

Likewise. At my school, I'm known to most of the P1's as Sparda as opposed to my real name.

 

[Sparda29]

This is True!

Sparda, when do we find out about our experience sites?

I hope by the end of this week. Apparently, the hospital rotations are a little different in that you need to get your clearance and IDs and whatnot from the hospital before you start, so I want to get that whole thing out of the way.

I'm pretty sure I'm getting a site in January because I don't know too many people who are willing to go to the Bronx. A lot of people are gonna apply for Montefiore though, which is the site I'm trying to get as well.

If not, I hope North Central Bronx Hospital or Lawrence Hospital.

 

[CYP3A4]

Pharmacy was a career change for me and there was no way I was going to take a 50% pay cut to work at a Walgreens as I technician while going to school (Especially considering I had little interest in retail pharmacy and hospital tech jobs are not easy to come by) Don't assume that people who didnt get intern hours outside of class are lazy. They maybe had better options!

However, I will admit that not having pharmacy work experience didn't help my job hunt after graduation.

 

[BM2007E92]

Don't get me wrong, working as a tech while in school was invaluable for me; heck I had 2 different jobs (inpatient, then moved on to retail). It taught me a lot of people skills and networked me with various people that helped out when I applied for a job. Still, we shouldn't be requiring this or that many hours while in school.

When I was still a student, it was nearly IMPOSSIBLE finding a technician job in the Chicago area/suburbs. The Chicago area was saturated with pharmacy schools (plus 1 in Madison), meaning a lot of temporary labor. There was so much competition for temporary/part time jobs it was difficult as a student to find work. Moreover, most chains and institutions wanted technicians who could work 8hr shifts on the weekdays, making it even harder to find a job that was weekends only or "after school friendly." When I finally did get a job (lot of praying and through networking with upperclassmen) it was 30 miles away (ended up being worthless-especially on gas!). Eventually I did find work much closer (20 miles away) during my 2nd year, but my point is that with tons of part-time labor and so little technician jobs available, students, especially those in cities with multiple schools, are going to struggle finding work. A lot of them are going to be forced to make long commutes or relocate to rural areas just to satisfy licensing requirements.

My main point is that although experience is invaluable, there are some situations where we can't force a minimum work hour. Particularly in this piss poor economy, some students are struggling to land part-time jobs (like I experienced my first few years in school). Other students have families and other commitments that make it difficult for them to put in so many hours. I say we leave it up to evolution to weed out the inexperienced pharmacists once they're employed instead of legalizing increased intern hours.

 

[genesis09]

What pharmacy school in Milwaukee, asks the pharmacist working in the Milwaukee market? Concordia in Mequon (a far north suburb of Milwaukee) won't open until Fall 2010.

 

[BM2007E92]

What pharmacy school in Milwaukee, asks the pharmacist working in the Milwaukee market? Concordia in Mequon (a far north suburb of Milwaukee) won't open until Fall 2010.

Ooops, I meant Madison...edited post 😀

 

[genesis09]

From talking to UW grads, it seems like the majority of them stay in Wisconsin. I know the Green Bay district is hurting for pharmacists. Every week the scheduler e-mails us in Milwaukee a list of a number of openings. Occasionally, we get e-mails from the Madison district.