Is Pharmacy still a viable career?

[auntjemima]

Hello SDN.

I'm a high school student who is considering becoming a pharmacist. I still have a ways to go, so I decided to do some research, and found a plethora of information about the pharmacy market saturation. I'm here to either confirm or deny my suspicions, and this looks like a trusted forum to do that on.

I am currently in Houston, Texas, where the pharmacist is paid an average of around $120,000/year. I've heard people say that due to the saturation, salaries could lower to around $50,000/year. While in my opinion this is a doomsday-like theory, I am obviously inexperienced and am just using my own intuition.

I would like to make at least 6 figures to support (hopefully) a full family. However, if the saturation is as bad as people say it is, I'm extremely worried about this career path I was excited to pursue.

So, based on my wishes, do you believe that being a pharmacist is still a viable career? I'll have multiple years of education to undergo, and then hopefully much longer with a stable career, so with those in mind, am I just being paranoid or am I researching in the right places?


Thanks guys,
auntjemima

(PS: If I posted this in the wrong section, feel free to move this thread, moderators.)

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[PharmtoCS]

There are alternative careers, i.e. physician assistant, computer programming, engineering, finance, accounting, etc. which you could earn as much as a pharmacist can for much less effort and better quality of life without the $200k+ loans and 4 years of schooling. Your loans will easily eat up $25k/year of your take-home pay.

 

[auntjemima]

There are alternative careers, i.e. physician assistant, computer programming, engineering, finance, accounting, etc. which you could earn as much as a pharmacist can for much less effort and better quality of life without the $200k+ loans and 4 years of schooling. Your loans will easily eat up $25k/year of your take-home pay.

I've pondered these other careers. My parents are willing to pay the majority of my tuition so I'm not too worried about loans but that is a legitimate point- it is a whole bunch of stress and money.

Thank you.

 

[PharmtoCS]

I've pondered these other careers. My parents are willing to pay the majority of my tuition so I'm not too worried about loans but that is a legitimate point- it is a whole bunch of stress and money.

Thank you.

There are better ways to invest the money, i.e. stocks, bonds, less expensive degrees, etc. compared to spending the money on a PharmD.

 

[auntjemima]

There are better ways to invest the money, i.e. stocks, bonds, less expensive degrees, etc. compared to spending the money on a PharmD.

You seem pretty insistent that I avoid getting a Pharm.D when it says on your profile you're a Pharmacy Student. Is there anything that happened to you that you would be willing to share that made you change your opinion on the career path in general, or am I just misinterpreting things? Sorry if I am, just wondering. Thanks for your responses.

 

[PharmtoCS]

You seem pretty insistent that I avoid getting a Pharm.D when it says on your profile you're a Pharmacy Student. Is there anything that happened to you that you would be willing to share that made you change your opinion on the career path in general, or am I just misinterpreting things? Sorry if I am, just wondering. Thanks for your responses.

The job market was already very tight around 2014, yet 4 more schools continued to pop up in California. The growth of 3% over the next 10 years cannot accommodate 15,000 new grads each year.

 

[Saito]

The job market was already very tight around 2014, yet 4 more schools continued to pop up in California. The growth of 3% over the next 10 years cannot accommodate 15,000 new grads each year.

Maybe if you spent as much time looking for a job as you did pasting your same little "warning" on every single thread + reddit you'd have a job.

 

[Nguyen]

Maybe if you spent as much time looking for a job as you did pasting your same little "warning" on every single thread + reddit you'd have a job.

LMAOOOO BURN


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[PharmDoReMe]

Pharmacy is pretty tough and will be getting tougher, especially since you've still got a long way until you'd even graduate pharmacy school. I've learned connections are VERY important, especially in this field.

If you haven't already, try to get a job in the pharmacy field. Try being a pharm tech and see how you feel about the profession.

Continue your research on the field, too. If you are actually excited about the field, I would say pursue it, but you've got plenty of time to decide. If you're going into pharmacy for the money, I would rethink pharmacy.

 

[auntjemima]

Pharmacy is pretty tough and will be getting tougher, especially since you've still got a long way until you'd even graduate pharmacy school. I've learned connections are VERY important, especially in this field.

If you haven't already, try to get a job in the pharmacy field. Try being a pharm tech and see how you feel about the profession.

Continue your research on the field, too. If you are actually excited about the field, I would say pursue it, but you've got plenty of time to decide. If you're going into pharmacy for the money, I would rethink pharmacy.

Thank you for an actual full response to my post. I'm not necessarily going into pharmacy for the money- I have a genuine interest in it. But I would like to make upwards of six figures to support a full family. Do you think it would go lower than $100k?

 

[PharmtoCS]

Thank you for an actual full response to my post. I'm not necessarily going into pharmacy for the money- I have a genuine interest in it. But I would like to make upwards of six figures to support a full family. Do you think it would go lower than $100k?

It is already under $100k in many parts of the country. Many floaters for chains earn under $100k because they cannot get enough hours. The hospital pay rate is also abysmal in some areas, i.e. under $40/hour. I would choose another field, i.e. computer programming which you can earn $100k+ without the $200k+ in loans.

 

[PharmDoReMe]

Thank you for an actual full response to my post. I'm not necessarily going into pharmacy for the money- I have a genuine interest in it. But I would like to make upwards of six figures to support a full family. Do you think it would go lower than $100k?

Definitely. It's already gone lower than 100k in plenty of areas, ESPECIALLY areas of high saturation. Average pay in parts of PA are 80-90k, and I'm guessing that's without any of the fancy sign on bonuses that pharmacists used to get. If you want a steady 100k+ you're looking at retail (like Walmart), easily, which can get exhausting. By the time you enter into the field though, who knows what the pay will be like?

Stoicionetrist is right though. If more money is where you're looking, I would say look somewhere else haha. In pharmacy you'll be working retail if you want 100k, unless you got the connections to have a nice job in the area you want. It sucks, but right now that's life.

 

[PromisedNeverland]

Maybe if you spent as much time looking for a job as you did pasting your same little "warning" on every single thread + reddit you'd have a job.

lol I see all the subreddit posts. I think it's a bot, but you savage

 

[auntjemima]

Definitely. It's already gone lower than 100k in plenty of areas, ESPECIALLY areas of high saturation. Average pay in parts of PA are 80-90k, and I'm guessing that's without any of the fancy sign on bonuses that pharmacists used to get. If you want a steady 100k+ you're looking at retail (like Walmart), easily, which can get exhausting. By the time you enter into the field though, who knows what the pay will be like?

Stoicionetrist is right though. If more money is where you're looking, I would say look somewhere else haha. In pharmacy you'll be working retail if you want 100k, unless you got the connections to have a nice job in the area you want. It sucks, but right now that's life.

Is there any resource that I could be referred to that predicts areas of high saturation within the coming years in the US?

 

[fewaopi]

Is there any resource that I could be referred to that predicts areas of high saturation within the coming years in the US?

http://pharmacymanpower.com/

It's been getting worse and worse imo it's not a very good career anymore. Issues of saturation used to be dismissed by naive students with no experience like some in this thread and never talked about before.

Now there's actual published journal articles and magazine articles about the saturation. The conversation and topic of saturation is now more open and widely acknowledged. I know for a fact that faculty know there's more saturation and discuss it. So why are the students more optimistic and clueless than the faculty? Hell if I know, maybe bias on the buyer saying "I made a good choice!" when they made likely a not so good choice. For every 100 articles about saturation, maybe 0, 1, or 2 talk how great a field it is. So tell me then? What do you think? There's absolutely overwhelming evidence that the field is in decline and will continue to be. Automation, saturation, higher student debt, declining job markets, pressure to lower healthcare costs, you tell me!

Even recent grads on these forums are admitting to the saturation and increasing difficulty of finding meaningful work, let alone work! The job thread is also getting smaller lol. It's certainly not horrible like an English or psych major but if anyone comes in with $$ on their eyes and high expectations, 98% you'll be disappointed. And whether you'll be able to continue working for 20-30 years is another problem to think about.

In short, consider a different career. But you have to do your own homework, not us do it for you. Unfortunately many kids wanting to do pharmacy haven't done any homework at all.

 

[Carol is Alpha]

This is the Aunt Jemima I grew up with.

What happened? They sexed her up. Now who wouldn't want to butter her slamcakes?

 

[auntjemima]

http://pharmacymanpower.com/

It's been getting worse and worse imo it's not a very good career anymore. Issues of saturation used to be dismissed by naive students with no experience like some in this thread and never talked about before.

Now there's actual published journal articles and magazine articles about the saturation. The conversation and topic of saturation is now more open and widely acknowledged. I know for a fact that faculty know there's more saturation and discuss it. So why are the students more optimistic and clueless than the faculty? Hell if I know, maybe bias on the buyer saying "I made a good choice!" when they made likely a not so good choice. For every 100 articles about saturation, maybe 0, 1, or 2 talk how great a field it is. So tell me then? What do you think? There's absolutely overwhelming evidence that the field is in decline and will continue to be. Automation, saturation, higher student debt, declining job markets, pressure to lower healthcare costs, you tell me!

Even recent grads on these forums are admitting to the saturation and increasing difficulty of finding meaningful work, let alone work! The job thread is also getting smaller lol. It's certainly not horrible like an English or psych major but if anyone comes in with $$ on their eyes and high expectations, 98% you'll be disappointed. And whether you'll be able to continue working for 20-30 years is another problem to think about.

In short, consider a different career. But you have to do your own homework, not us do it for you. Unfortunately many kids wanting to do pharmacy haven't done any homework at all.

Thank you for your extensive response to my thread- it's extremely useful.

Also, I have done my homework, which is how I figured out about the decline in the pharmacy market in the first place- just thought I should get a second opinion from actual graduates and current students.

Either way, I appreciate it. I'll check out the resource you gave me.