How quickly things change....

[MountainPharmD]

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http://www.slate.com/id/2217146/?Gt1=38001

I thought this was an interesting article. It shows how quickly things can change. Ten years ago there was talk of a massive physician surplus. It was being blamed on foreign trained physicians flooding the market (sound familiar?), to many med schools (again, sound familiar?).

Looks like the pendulum has swung back the other way. You never know what the future will hold. Pharmacy could find its self in the same situation. It looks like we are heading into a surplus. If a couple of things change like the number of retirees or national health care reform we could see a shortage again.

Just thought I would look at it from a glass half full persective.

 

[solzont]

Too bad medical schools are more difficult to get accredited, more expensive to run and more closely regulated than pharmacy schools.

I do appreciate your effort though 🙂

 

[StaviZFingerZ]

I doubt it.

For the past 15 years, Wags of the world have done a tremendous job in preparing themselves to meet the demands of increasing RX volume. This was a business foresight engineered by corporate think tank. The profiteering academia is nothing more than a pawn in this scheme who transitioned PharmD education into a diploma mill business.

The medical education on the other hand has been less influenced by the corporate business plans. Instead, interest group such as AMA and the medical academia did a better job of protecting their profession.

How many MD/DO programs do we have now? About 150? I believe we had about 110 MD programs 30 years ago? And rarely do we see a "diploma mill" MD program on US soil.

Just 10 years ago, we had 70+ pharmacy schools. How many do we have now?

 

[alterpharm]

Too bad medical schools are more difficult to get accredited, more expensive to run and more closely regulated than pharmacy schools.

I do appreciate your effort though 🙂

I agree, it has come to a point where anyone with a 2 GPA and a pulse can get a PharmD diploma and then go approve prescriptions in retail for $100k+.
Obviously, economics and common sense tell you that this cannot go on forever. Before the salaries and the quality of the graduates takes a serious hit, we need some stricter rules put in.
The biggest thing that needs to change is that the academic standards need to be seriously raised. I would not want anyone below a 3 GPA becoming a pharmacist, let alone any other form of healthcare worker.

Got a pulse?
Got the ability to take ~$100k in loans?
Get into pharmacy school!
Your GPA doesn't matter! Its D for diploma baby!
Come one, come all and become jobless in 4 years!

I say we count the number of pharmacy schools and burn the undeserving half of them to the ground along with the students and professors!
Lets start a union!
If we don't do this soon, we will see nothing but idiots becoming pharmacists and ruining it for everyone...

 

[mimigor]

sad thing is there aren't more residencies in comparison to the increase in med schools...way to make things even more cutthroat in med school

 

[mimigor]

btw does anybody know how to start a new thread? i can't seem to find it

 

[StaviZFingerZ]

btw does anybody know how to start a new thread? i can't seem to find it

Well, you're new to the forum. You can't start a new thread during your first 100 days.

 

[BavarianMWE46]

Just 10 years ago, we had 70+ pharmacy schools. How many do we have now?

There are 117 pharmacy schools now. There are 8 scheduled to open this year, soon to be 125.

 

[StaviZFingerZ]

There are 117 pharmacy schools now. There are 8 scheduled to open this year, soon to be 125.

It was a rhetorical question dood.. but thank you for the info.

 

[Aznfarmerboi]

http://www.slate.com/id/2217146/?Gt1=38001

I thought this was an interesting article. It shows how quickly things can change. Ten years ago there was talk of a massive physician surplus. It was being blamed on foreign trained physicians flooding the market (sound familiar?), to many med schools (again, sound familiar?).

Looks like the pendulum has swung back the other way. You never know what the future will hold. Pharmacy could find its self in the same situation. It looks like we are heading into a surplus. If a couple of things change like the number of retirees or national health care reform we could see a shortage again.

Just thought I would look at it from a glass half full persective.

The half glass full perspective is wrong because physicians are regulated by the amount of fundings into residency programs and thus affecting accrediation of medical schools. Pharmacists on the other hand are barely regulated at all and hence why schools keep on opening. A better comparison to our profession would be law and MBA schools.

 

[prevacid]

i dont think the comparison can be made since the medical field is more strictly regulated in these matters

 

[bigpharmD]

for the people that thinking going the md route is so much better read the publics comments on that article...someone even gives a shout out to pharmacists

 

[type b pharmD]

is he really comparing pharmacists and doctors as far as their education or accreditation status??

seems to me the OP was just showing that things can and do change. personally i'm pulling for the national healthcare thing. 50 million more people covered = gotta create at the very least, several thousand pharmacy jobs.

however, you are not being true to your debbie downer status mountain pharmd

 

[npage148]

Every few weeks I get a brief moment of enlightenment while at work last night. The company literally paid me hundred of dollars to fill about 15 prescriptions and read magazines for several hours. This business model can't continue to work with decreasing profits, increasing operating costs and decreasing reimbustment/4$ fills. It is going to collapse in a grand fashion. It is going to go to central fills and mail-order. It is going to have too. And then the demand for pharmacists will plummet. Sure, salaries may stay the same but you will be competeing with 500 other people for one position. Clinical, MTM, and other knoweldge based areas will still be there, but dispensing is going to contract hard. Then it will matter what school you go too, becasue you will need to stand out, not just be a registered pharmacist

 

[PharmaTope]

I doubt it.

For the past 15 years, Wags of the world have done a tremendous job in preparing themselves to meet the demands of increasing RX volume. This was a business foresight engineered by corporate think tank. The profiteering academia is nothing more than a pawn in this scheme who transitioned PharmD education into a diploma mill business.

The medical education on the other hand has been less influenced by the corporate business plans. Instead, interest group such as AMA and the medical academia did a better job of protecting their profession.

How many MD/DO programs do we have now? About 150? I believe we had about 110 MD programs 30 years ago? And rarely do we see a "diploma mill" MD program on US soil.

Just 10 years ago, we had 70+ pharmacy schools. How many do we have now?

agreed!!!!!!!!

i cannot tell you what a letdown it is to have a really impressive resume only to fin there isnt a damn job within a 50 mile radius of me. looks like ill be leaving pharmacy

 

[StaviZFingerZ]

agreed!!!!!!!!

i cannot tell you what a letdown it is to have a really impressive resume only to fin there isnt a damn job within a 50 mile radius of me. looks like ill be leaving pharmacy

Are you finishing up residency? We have an ID position... ID fellowship is not necessary but strong ID background is.

 

[bigpharmD]

i had no problem finding a job with 2 years of residency done...i had to turn some down because I didnt have time for all of them

 

[Priapism321]

I found a job within a 1-mile radius of where I was at after finishing up my second year.

 

[bigpharmD]

man i am so glad i went the hospital route.....anybody taking the august mcat?

 

[bigpharmD]

here is an article for all of you prescriptive authority people out there

 

[Aznfarmerboi]

here is an article for all of you prescriptive authority people out there

To be fair... the title was way off track and not to mention, the article is a little bit biased. Good news though. This is something that I want to see us continue doing (ID, diabetes, pain management, and anti coagulation).

BTW, what do you guys think about nutritional support? I think that is a bunch of crap and should be left to the dieticians.

 

[bigpharmD]

To be fair... the title was way off track and not to mention, the article is a little bit biased. Good news though. This is something that I want to see us continue doing (ID, diabetes, pain management, and anti coagulation).

BTW, what do you guys think about nutritional support? I think that is a bunch of crap and should be left to the dieticians.

As far as TPNs go I think I am much better at writing it than any dietician...i will rely on them for other things though such as tube feeds, calorie counts etc. I personally think they overfeed everyone and never pay attention to co-morbid disease states such as liver failure etc

 

[MountainPharmD]

is he really comparing pharmacists and doctors as far as their education or accreditation status??

Nope, just saying if those in charge of our profession can pull their collective heads out we may have a chance of turning this around. If pharmacy schools were managed like med schools we would be fine.

......however, you are not being true to your debbie downer status mountain pharmd

I know...I have my moments. I only have 4 months left on my 2 year contract so my attitude is improving. Now if I can just find a non-retail job come September....

 

[BavarianMWE46]

Ok, I'm going to throw some optimism out there...

We are in the largest economic recession of our lifetimes. Millions of people have lost their jobs. Money is hard to come by, yet pharmacists are still making strong salaries and have not had mass layoffs or large unemployment.

Yes, There have been about 50 new pharmacy schools open in the last 20 years, but how many CVS, Walgreens, Rite-aids, hospitals have opened? Thousands, and they need pharmacists to staff their expansion of pharmacy services. Meeting the demand is crucial to prevent them from using the excuse of a shortage as a means to eliminate jobs and increase roles of techs, etc...

This is still a great profession if we could just prevent too many unnecessary schools from opening. Tighten the standards for pharmacy schools and we'll be golden. Even now, almost every pharmacy school, new and old, also have other programs associated with them such as MD, DO, DPT, PA, etc... and the PharmD is still just as valid as any of these. All health-care degree programs have expanded, and health-care is still a strong field with lots of opportunity. There are about 140 PA programs now, and they are still doing fine, and there isn't a PA job on every corner like a CVS. We don't want to be left behind while almost every other health-care profession have expanded to over 100 schools as well, but we need to control it and not let it get out of hand.

More pharmacists with strong allegiance to the profession will increase our overall size and could increase our lobbying power if we could get pharmacists to come together as a single unit instead of many different small organizations. We are THE MOST available health-care professional and our extensive knowledge needs to be utilized.

Don't give up on the degree or the profession. PharmDs are EXPERTS on drugs and optimization of medication therapy. If you are having trouble finding a job, look harder, or think about starting your own pharmacy, clinic, etc. The pharmacy profession is only worth what we make out of ourselves. Value our knowledge, our degree, and our profession and show others in health-care how needed and vital we are for providing the safest and best therapy for patients. Lets expand, push, and fight for the profession. Ok, there is my optimism for the day. Back to the doom/gloom of SDN.

 

[type b pharmD]

More pharmacists with strong allegiance to the profession will increase our overall size and could increase our lobbying power if we could get pharmacists to come together as a single unit instead of many different small organizations.

If there is ever a huge glut of pharmacists without jobs, surely they will have "allegiance" because of their large amounts of loans. Lobbying and organization will probably start moving a lot faster.

 

[BavarianMWE46]

If there is ever a huge glut of pharmacists without jobs, surely they will have "allegiance" because of their large amounts of loans. Lobbying and organization will probably start moving a lot faster.

True. If there are lots of jobless and pissed off pharmacists with $150K in student loans we will organize and push for change in the profession. The problem now is that pharmacists are comfortable in their upper middle class jobs without much threat, and it removes them from what is going on.

 

[themorphinerule]

I think the profession can benefit by continuing to weed out students and pharmacists who under perform. Apparently there is a paradigm shift to "pharmaceutical care" and I know lots of lazy, dumb pharmacists/students who refuse to get on board, but would rather continue sitting around and collecting a fee for counting pills. Maybe they should be the first to go, I don't know... but with all the excitement we're given in Pharmacy school about disease state mgmt and the wealth of opportunity beyond title being created for pharms, yep you guessed it, still a bunch of underachievers who don't want to do or learn 1 oz. more than stated objectives and skate by with C's and D's waiting out their time to become the likes of the aforementioned. That sickens me more than the amount of schools popping up (which itself only "boils" my blood). The fact that so many can fake their way into pharmacy school just to squat on their notion that they worked hard in undergrad to get there and will be damned if they actually put in hard work while in pharm school. Ugh, that bugs me so. And don't get me started on those that only go to pharmacy school because they want the salary-- they make the worst pharmacists hands down and I've come across plenty. But if we are to "save the profession" this is what we should be more vigilant about.

 

[bigpharmD]

I think the profession can benefit by continuing to weed out students and pharmacists who under perform. Apparently there is a paradigm shift to "pharmaceutical care" and I know lots of lazy, dumb pharmacists/students who refuse to get on board, but would rather continue sitting around and collecting a fee for counting pills. Maybe they should be the first to go, I don't know... but with all the excitement we're given in Pharmacy school about disease state mgmt and the wealth of opportunity beyond title being created for pharms, yep you guessed it, still a bunch of underachievers who don't want to do or learn 1 oz. more than stated objectives and skate by with C's and D's waiting out their time to become the likes of the aforementioned. That sickens me more than the amount of schools popping up (which itself only "boils" my blood). The fact that so many can fake their way into pharmacy school just to squat on their notion that they worked hard in undergrad to get there and will be damned if they actually put in hard work while in pharm school. Ugh, that bugs me so. And don't get me started on those that only go to pharmacy school because they want the salary-- they make the worst pharmacists hands down and I've come across plenty. But if we are to "save the profession" this is what we should be more vigilant about.

very good thoughts by a student....i look forward to working with you...

 

[Aznfarmerboi]

I think the profession can benefit by continuing to weed out students and pharmacists who under perform. Apparently there is a paradigm shift to "pharmaceutical care" and I know lots of lazy, dumb pharmacists/students who refuse to get on board, but would rather continue sitting around and collecting a fee for counting pills. Maybe they should be the first to go, I don't know... but with all the excitement we're given in Pharmacy school about disease state mgmt and the wealth of opportunity beyond title being created for pharms, yep you guessed it, still a bunch of underachievers who don't want to do or learn 1 oz. more than stated objectives and skate by with C's and D's waiting out their time to become the likes of the aforementioned. That sickens me more than the amount of schools popping up (which itself only "boils" my blood). The fact that so many can fake their way into pharmacy school just to squat on their notion that they worked hard in undergrad to get there and will be damned if they actually put in hard work while in pharm school. Ugh, that bugs me so. And don't get me started on those that only go to pharmacy school because they want the salary-- they make the worst pharmacists hands down and I've come across plenty. But if we are to "save the profession" this is what we should be more vigilant about.

To be fair, you are still early in pharmacy school. Theres a good chance that the majority of your class will get C's and D's soon in your later year. I was a C student but I believe I am pretty good with management of most cases.

Grades are just that, grades. It doesnt reflect on the student. I got C's because I wasnt into group studying or looking into old exams, etc. That and I was working where I learn more from it than I ever would at school where the professors read off the slides. I believe that I am a better candidate in most materials than somebody who has never worked in their life before and cram everything in to get an A average.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

I think the profession can benefit by continuing to weed out students and pharmacists who under perform. Apparently there is a paradigm shift to "pharmaceutical care" and I know lots of lazy, dumb pharmacists/students who refuse to get on board, but would rather continue sitting around and collecting a fee for counting pills. Maybe they should be the first to go, I don't know... but with all the excitement we're given in Pharmacy school about disease state mgmt and the wealth of opportunity beyond title being created for pharms, yep you guessed it, still a bunch of underachievers who don't want to do or learn 1 oz. more than stated objectives and skate by with C's and D's waiting out their time to become the likes of the aforementioned. That sickens me more than the amount of schools popping up (which itself only "boils" my blood). The fact that so many can fake their way into pharmacy school just to squat on their notion that they worked hard in undergrad to get there and will be damned if they actually put in hard work while in pharm school. Ugh, that bugs me so. And don't get me started on those that only go to pharmacy school because they want the salary-- they make the worst pharmacists hands down and I've come across plenty. But if we are to "save the profession" this is what we should be more vigilant about.

I got Cs in pharmacy school. I have more passion for the profession than most of the people that were in Rho Chi. Many are in retail skating by...others did residencies...but what I'm saying is that school isn't a good barometer of how much you care about pharmacy. It's a measure of how well you jump through stupid hoops.

 

[konkan]

I think the profession can benefit by continuing to weed out students and pharmacists who under perform. Apparently there is a paradigm shift to "pharmaceutical care" and I know lots of lazy, dumb pharmacists/students who refuse to get on board, but would rather continue sitting around and collecting a fee for counting pills. Maybe they should be the first to go, I don't know... but with all the excitement we're given in Pharmacy school about disease state mgmt and the wealth of opportunity beyond title being created for pharms, yep you guessed it, still a bunch of underachievers who don't want to do or learn 1 oz. more than stated objectives and skate by with C's and D's waiting out their time to become the likes of the aforementioned. That sickens me more than the amount of schools popping up (which itself only "boils" my blood). The fact that so many can fake their way into pharmacy school just to squat on their notion that they worked hard in undergrad to get there and will be damned if they actually put in hard work while in pharm school. Ugh, that bugs me so. And don't get me started on those that only go to pharmacy school because they want the salary-- they make the worst pharmacists hands down and I've come across plenty. But if we are to "save the profession" this is what we should be more vigilant about.

Wow what a speech from a pharmacy diploma mill student...Obviously we are very touched and impressed here...

 

[mustang sally]

I think the profession can benefit by continuing to weed out students and pharmacists who under perform. Apparently there is a paradigm shift to "pharmaceutical care" and I know lots of lazy, dumb pharmacists/students who refuse to get on board, but would rather continue sitting around and collecting a fee for counting pills. Maybe they should be the first to go, I don't know... but with all the excitement we're given in Pharmacy school about disease state mgmt and the wealth of opportunity beyond title being created for pharms, yep you guessed it, still a bunch of underachievers who don't want to do or learn 1 oz. more than stated objectives and skate by with C's and D's waiting out their time to become the likes of the aforementioned. That sickens me more than the amount of schools popping up (which itself only "boils" my blood). The fact that so many can fake their way into pharmacy school just to squat on their notion that they worked hard in undergrad to get there and will be damned if they actually put in hard work while in pharm school. Ugh, that bugs me so. And don't get me started on those that only go to pharmacy school because they want the salary-- they make the worst pharmacists hands down and I've come across plenty. But if we are to "save the profession" this is what we should be more vigilant about.

I get what themorphinerule is saying. I don't know that it's so much that people are actually getting the Cs/Ds that's annoying, it's listening to them say everyday, "I already got into pharmacy school, so I don't need to study anymore." I can see that some classes aren't essential, and maybe a lot of people feel like they are going to go into retail, so they don't need to know this stuff. I dunno, I think you probably need to know something to be a pharmacist. Maybe it is this attitude that causes physicians not to take pharmacists seriously?

 

[iphetamine]

or maybe they rely on real experience with some basic knowledge from school. you don't need every single bit of information, you might not remember anything unless you see it or get out a book and revise.

 

[Aznfarmerboi]

I got Cs in pharmacy school. I have more passion for the profession than most of the people that were in Rho Chi. Many are in retail skating by...others did residencies...but what I'm saying is that school isn't a good barometer of how much you care about pharmacy. It's a measure of how well you jump through stupid hoops.

Exactly. 👍