Hey guys, I've been anti-residency personally since my P1 year and now I'm board exam passed/pre-actual license. I still do not regret my decision to avoid residency. For me personally, connections made during rotations, in real life and at conferences have carried me through to employment, and all these opportunities are giving me access to entry level big phrama jobs, one connection gives me access to a hospital job at a reputable and large HMO hospital, and one for CVS through a preceptor who loved me when I interned there. Still, it is hard to get in because I live in the highly impacted San Francisco bay area. I'm aware that all these positions could have been mine if I perhaps chose to get underpaid for a year through a residency.
However, I just became really sketched out by the methods in which my school and employers were trying to put residency on a pedestal. From what I could see, it was just additional rotations and you get paid only 50% of what you're worth. You're still subject to the whimsy of someone, perhaps they themselves are freshly freed from being a resident and have a chip on their shoulder.
I think people who have bought into the hype and aren't very interpersonally motivated will pursue the residency tract because it seems to be all academic. Would be interested to know who actually likes their program. Perhaps its just dependent, like rotations, on who has control over you? I know a guy doing managed care residency and is getting paid only 50K with benefits, but loves it. But managed care?! PBMs are causing the demise of pharmacy as a profession.
Who here skipped the residency tract and is working in clinical or industry settings with success?
Also keep in mind every situation is different and one should only do residency training if they have a career path in mind, not just to do one for the hell of it.
Not exactly what you are asking for, but I'll give my personal experiences with a twist to the question you are asking.
This is regarding working inthe clinical seetting with success.
Been a pharmacist for several (15) years, Did not do residency right away, but did themn about 5 years post-graduation.
A LOT more opportunities opened up for me after I did them. I'm not going to say it's right or wrong, just giving an example where residencies completely changed my career (for the better).
I've had 2 clinical specialist jobs over 10 years where I was hired over internal candidates who wanted the job. Why? My background. They even had PGY-1 training. One even had PGY-2 in pharmacotherapy. But it didn't matter.
My current position I would not have obtained without both my residencies and the skills, experience and accomplishments I acquired from my 2 previous positions. And those 2 previous positions would not have been available to me without residency training.
Granted my story will NOT apply to all situations and many successful pharmacists did not do residencies. However, I would not be where I am today without them and I started out during the pseudo-shortage. In today's job market, and with more and more graduates (and more and more residency trained people) IMO there will be
some (not all) career paths completely shut (or VERY difficult to get into) to you if didn't do residency training.
Can people still be successful without them? Absolutely. And to reiterate an earlier point people who decide to do one should do it for a specific (or somewhat specific) career path in mind.
People of the anti-residency crowd, feel free to flame away, but it was my personal experience.
Benefits or not, sounds like a pretty sweet gig.
