No, they’re just reallocating billets within the Medical Service Corps (which pharmacist are a part of) from less operationally focused to more operationally focused specialties. So, physician assistants and psychologist numbers are going up while pharmacists and optometrists are going down. The question is being asked ‘why is THIS position an active duty position?’ If it’s required to be one, it remains. And additional staffing standard models are used to determine the number of rotational shore billets needed to support the operational ones. So the Navy had too many active duty pharmacists to support the operational mission per the model and they are course correcting.
There were significant impacts to the Military Health System by the 2017 NDAA the largest of which removes control and oversight of the military treatment facilities from the individual services and instead places them under a joint agency for administration of the Tricare benefit. The services are now refocusing to operational medicine and support of a medically ready force.
The remaining billets will remain. And the conversion is happening over the next 5 years. The plan is still in flux, but the Navy is committed to not kicking currently serving officers out in order to meet their new manpower goal. So instead they are tweaking their recruiting processes and potentially offering early retirement incentives and removing continuation incentives for pharmacists who are on the fence about staying in. Your recruiter is likely awaiting information on FY19 quotas. 2018 quotas are full. And because of the change, they can’t use past performance to predict the future - they just have to wait and see. There may not be any spots. I don’t know. There may be. But it is very restricted right now so they likely aren’t getting warm and fuzzies.
On the other hand, I was just asked to interview an HSCP candidate, so maybe that recruiter is just trying to be on the ball for potential 2019 spots...
The history is like this. For the field (O4+ - Rumsfeld and after) and flag grade (O7+ - Cohen) ranks, most of us came in after the last personnel disaster and started with that "reserve commission"/"permanent active" business (I don't know if you were in that zone yourself, but it was really annoying). So, it's going to be significantly harder for TMA to do anything about those officers, because as junior grades, we already had served a time where we could have been eliminated at any time and had to compete for our actives (and were weeded out mostly on political grounds). Navy and Air Force both used this system, and they really do not have the statutory authority at this point to RIF those under that system out (and I do not believe that can change because of the aforementioned upfront price as getting out of the reserved commission was a very competitive process).
To the OP, look, you might as well do what you want to do irrespective of time. If you really, really want to commission fast with a stable career growth and frontline assignments, be a BSN nurse (ADN's I think still enter as senior enlisted). Nurses have fairly high personnel requirements DoD-wide, and a guy (I'm specific about gender) who can carry 100 kgs pretty much can write his ticket if he wants hazard pay. Making field grade is a given, making flag rank is quite possible and pay is pretty comparable to the civilian world even at the company ranks. That's the advice I would give to someone who wants to get in the uniform quick in the MSC. I do think that nursing is easily the most rewarding straightforward ROI for the MSC, more so than even medicine.
If you want to make the career investment, figure out what you want to do, then figure out whether the uniform is right for you. It's a really sad fate for mismatches. If you want to be a pharmacist, then be one. But if you are only using pharmacy as a means to an end (like a uniform), there are better ways of going about it. For the very ambitious and able, I still recommend them to go for MD/DO training as the skies are the limit (as well as not being subject to promotion caps), and their revolving door prospects are higher than the rest of the professions. While not as clear an ROI as nursing, you really can go the distance with medicine.
Pharmacy has always been undervalued and most pharmacy officers who are ambitious end up doing other things as supplemental duties (supply chain management/logistics, analysis, and research being popular options), and to promote to flag rank, almost always the Chief Pharmacy Officer is a collateral duty on top of some other non-health professions job. I think the last two or three CPO's had some logistics day job as well as being CPO.
The one thing I really dislike about the system is that there is no alternative to leadership (i.e. supervision/management) in the military system for pharmacists. Want to be a staff or clinical pharmacist forever in the military? Nope, that's what civilians are for (and I actually agree with that assessment). Officers are leaders foremost (and officers before pharmacists) and duties are assigned accordingly. There is no career place in the military for someone who wants to thrive in a technical or clinical role for the duration. And most of the time, you spend stamp collecting for the next promotion (ILE, getting your pins, etc.). It's hard to remember the times when you are actively a pharmacist as much as doing the routines that officers have to do to keep their billets and their promotion chances intact.
OP, so, if you are going to stay this path, plan on being a leader. This will not work out well for you otherwise. But you need to take the personal leadership to really evaluate what you really are about (including work history), and decide what is meaningful. We all see both types, those who are satisfied (I even say happy) with their choice to serve a very demanding master, and those who are trapped by the system. Most of that difference is introspection or lack thereof.
