intern hours help

[MLR2011]

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Hi everyone, I'm new here. I'm finishing up my P3 year in Boston, MA and have not yet worked in a pharmacy, unlike pretty much all of my peers. Rather than being a pharmacy intern, I've spent my last summers volunteering abroad and have held jobs down as a tutor for pharmacology and working as a pharmacokinetics intern for a local consulting firm.

In the last month I have applied everywhere for every pharmacy intern position- hospital, retail, everywhere and no one has even called me back. A lot of my peers have told me that most employers would not want to hire me because they will only get a year of part time work out of me, thus it is pointless to train me. Is this true?? I'm really not sure what to do as I need the hours for licensure and also want the experience because I may want to apply to a post-graduate program like a residency or fellowship. I've also thought about contacting all of the directors of pharmacy in the area and offering to work for free as long as somebody will be my preceptor. good or bad idea?? I would greatly, greatly appreciate any feedback. Thanks! 🙂

 

[bacillus1]

Hi everyone, I'm new here. I'm finishing up my P3 year in Boston, MA and have not yet worked in a pharmacy, unlike pretty much all of my peers. Rather than being a pharmacy intern, I've spent my last summers volunteering abroad and have held jobs down as a tutor for pharmacology and working as a pharmacokinetics intern for a local consulting firm.

In the last month I have applied everywhere for every pharmacy intern position- hospital, retail, everywhere and no one has even called me back. A lot of my peers have told me that most employers would not want to hire me because they will only get a year of part time work out of me, thus it is pointless to train me. Is this true?? I'm really not sure what to do as I need the hours for licensure and also want the experience because I may want to apply to a post-graduate program like a residency or fellowship. I've also thought about contacting all of the directors of pharmacy in the area and offering to work for free as long as somebody will be my preceptor. good or bad idea?? I would greatly, greatly appreciate any feedback. Thanks! 🙂

Offer to work in retail at tech pay? That might work, if you're desperate enough.

 

[confettiflyer]

final worst case scenario... apply to residency/look for a job in states with no intern hour requirement (IL and NJ come to mind), and after a year, reciprocate out to the state of your choice.

 

[MLR2011]

bacillus- i've applied to all of the retail tech jobs, but no replies!! I always thought I would have no problem getting a retail job because I speak Spanish fluently... but no.

confettiflyer- that definitely has been my back-up plan. I think it would work since I'm interested in an industry fellowship and most are in NJ and thankfully there they accept all of your hours from clerkships. However, I'm still not sold on a fellowship and would at least like to start getting some experience in whatever practice setting. and if I were to apply to a residency, don't they want lots of hospital intern experience anyways??

thanks so much for the suggestions!

 

[MLR2011]

Hi everyone- I'm curious what your thought of are emailing local pharmacy directors directly and offering to VOLUNTEER as an intern. Is that considered appropriate?? Im starting my clinical rotations soon, but still don't have any intern experience-- I would like to gain a little bit before I apply to a residency program. Has anyone else done this? or know of anybody who has? Thanks

 

[eightball]

MLR2011, please help me understand this...you need WORK intern hours for licensure in Mass? I thought APPE hours at your school during your P4 years should suffice, no?

How many hours do you get during your P4 rotations at your school?

 

[MLR2011]

The MA board of pharmacy accepts 1000 of the ones done on clinical rotations and leaves it up to you to do the other 500 outside of school. I'm not originally from MA and don't necessarily plan on staying here.... but I would like to keep my options open. I'm also interested in applying to a residency and from what I understand having intern experience is important. right?

 

[psychoandy]

you go to MCP right? Don't your forced volunteering/IPPE hours count as intern work hours?

Also, if you tell any employer that you're going on rotations, no one is going to bother training you only so you can work weekends and maybe holidays for a year. However, if you're still dead set on this, I would not apply for a tech position; I would find a placement person at your school and see if they can hook you up. Students are in a really gray area and going thru websites/HR usually doesn't work very well; it's more about who you know, honestly.

Finally, intern work experience just for the sake of putting it on your resume is a bad idea if you're about to go on rotations, and I feel like most people will see thru it. At this point, I really wouldn't even bother, unless you need money, which it doesn't sound like you do.

edit: oh, i've worked for several years at some boston hospitals, and i've never seen volunteers actually in the pharmacy. but it's worth a try i guess.

 

[MLR2011]

^wow, that's the best advice I've gotten, thanks!

I applied for lots of intern jobs in my P3 year, but quickly found out nobody wanted to hire me because I wouldn't be around for long. (and besides, being a pharmacy intern really requires no special skills that can't be acquired through training, so they didn't care about my CV)

I'm planning on applying to a few residencies in IL or moving to IL when I'm done with school- so getting hours for licensure is a non-issue. Really, the only reason I wanted to have some "outside of school" intern experience was because I thought most residency programs wanted that.

But anyways, thanks again for the advice!! I feel like I can finally focus my efforts towards something more productive. I have two rotation blocks off and have been thinking of going to Bolivia to volunteer in a local clinic- I've been offered an opportunity by a small NGO to work on a HAART adherence program down there.

 

[psychoandy]

Yeah, I wouldn't entirely discount your volunteer experience. It's just helpful to know the basics of how retail/hospitals work, and you can't just learn that from school.

However, in my limited opinion (and actual residents/RPhs can feel free to correct me) I feel that the type of people that run residency programs (pseudo-academians as Z calls them i believe) LOVE people that look good on paper and do "untraditional" things like volunteering abroad. I almost think that they dislike intern experience, since that affects the holier-than-thou metric that is GPA.

Oh yeah, and as far as fellowships go, if you have an actual rotation in a pharma company (or better yet FDA), it will look way better than any retail/hospital work experience, even though students on rotation do absolute scutwork. But I think it's a little late for that.

 

[kbv]

talk to your professors. they're usually CVS/Walgreens/...pharmacy managers-staff pharmacists or Hospital specialists/staff pharmacists... they have a broad network. some would love to have you working for free.