MPJE WTF?

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I see you Touro NY with 50% pass rate.

New York City has two pharmacy schools and 4-6 local ones when they decided to open a campus here a few years ago.

It was obvious to everybody, even when they market was okay, that NYC couldn’t support three pharmacy schools.

I trained interns and rotation students from there and was shocked at how bad they were. I had one 5th year that didn’t know what Aleve was. I had another that couldn’t tell me the difference between an ointment and cream. I was also in their campus interviewing their first batch of grads for pharmacist positions and it was clear that it was an absolute waste of my time.

Forget pill pushers, a lot of them lacked common sense and had an IQ less than someone from my local DMV. One or two of them had personality but unfortunately went into the wrong field AND school.
 
I studied for 2 days for mpje. Not that it matters how long it took to study for it but seriously how could these numbers represent the future of our profession? This just means that people are ill prepared and irresponsible. Also, schools need to be held responsible. What are yall doing?!
 
VictorOfHungerGames said:
I studied for 2 days for mpje. Not that it matters how long it took to study for it but seriously how could these numbers represent the future of our profession? This just means that people are ill prepared and irresponsible. Also, schools need to be held responsible. What are yall doing?!
Click to expand...

ACPE needs to be held responsible, too. They fell asleep at the wheel.
 
DagS132 said:
how many schools shutting down this year? Or are going to shut down once all the 2020 applicants graduate?
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I was told by my former professor that schools are cutting seats and professors salaries. Some will lose accreditation and eventually will have to close down. But the real problem is once these professors are out of jobs, it just means that theyre gonna add to the saturation problem unless these reimbursements and pbm issues are resolved and more pharmacists are hired.
 
VictorOfHungerGames said:
I was told by my former professor that schools are cutting seats and professors salaries. Some will lose accreditation and eventually will have to close down. But the real problem is once these professors are out of jobs, it just means that theyre gonna add to the saturation problem unless these reimbursements and pbm issues are resolved and more pharmacists are hired.
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Yikes. So it seems like shutting down schools further adds to the saturation problem. Sounds like nothing is going to change the trajectory of this profession....
 
VictorOfHungerGames said:
I was told by my former professor that schools are cutting seats and professors salaries. Some will lose accreditation and eventually will have to close down. But the real problem is once these professors are out of jobs, it just means that theyre gonna add to the saturation problem unless these reimbursements and pbm issues are resolved and more pharmacists are hired.
Click to expand...
Professors too? Wow
 
VictorOfHungerGames said:
I was told by my former professor that schools are cutting seats and professors salaries. Some will lose accreditation and eventually will have to close down. But the real problem is once these professors are out of jobs, it just means that theyre gonna add to the saturation problem unless these reimbursements and pbm issues are resolved and more pharmacists are hired.
Click to expand...

Literally the last candidate I would hire is an ex-pharmacy school professor. Could you imagine dealing with that level of ego and pretention on a daily basis?
 
These schools should create MPJE review sessions afterwards for a couple hundred bucks per student to rake in a little more out of their pockets before they kick them out into the job market. Easy money
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
Literally the last candidate I would hire is an ex-pharmacy school professor. Could you imagine dealing with that level of ego and pretention on a daily basis?
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100% agree. I wish I could show you the social media post of one of my professors towards community pharmacists. She was bitching that after she picked up her kids eye drops and the pharmacist was too brief in her opinion with the counsel. Made me livid, she clearly lives in a bubble.
 
projektreverb said:
100% agree. I wish I could show you the social media post of one of my professors towards community pharmacists. She was bitching that after she picked up her kids eye drops and the pharmacist was too brief in her opinion with the counsel. Made me livid, she clearly lives in a bubble.
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What the hell does she want on an eye drop? That is about a 10 second counseling session.
 
DagS132 said:
Yikes. So it seems like shutting down schools further adds to the saturation problem. Sounds like nothing is going to change the trajectory of this profession....
Click to expand...
Doesn't seem like it unless we get a handle on PBMs. And even if we do, who knows how long it will take to change back to normal and market corrects itself. I love my job right now but the uncertain future scares me. Maybe it's time to abandon ship and look for another profession...
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
What the hell does she want on an eye drop? That is about a 10 second counseling session.
Click to expand...

Exactly, TF you expect. Honestly it seems like she wanted to be BFFs with the pharmacist. I wish I could post the screenshot here to show how petty she sounded.
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
What the hell does she want on an eye drop? That is about a 10 second counseling session.
Click to expand...

She was probably expecting the pharmacist to ask these questions:
1) What did your doctor tell you this eye drop is for?
2) Where does your doctor tell you to use this eye drop?
3) What did your doctor tell you to expect from this eye drop?
4) Has your doctor demonstrated how to squeeze a drop from the bottle?
…and so on, all the while with a cheering smile and a soothing tone.
 
RxPal said:
She was probably expecting the pharmacist to ask these questions:
1) What did your doctor tell you this eye drop is for?
2) Where does your doctor tell you to use this eye drop?
3) What did your doctor tell you to expect from this eye drop?
4) Has your doctor demonstrated how to squeeze a drop from the bottle?
…and so on, all the while with a cheering smile and a soothing tone.
Click to expand...

Don't forget, the pharmacist should always ask the patient to repeat everything back to them slowly so we know they fully understand. The patient should also bring in a bag of all of their grandmother's prescription bottles so the pharmacist can do a one-on-one MTM.
 
Aznfarmerboi said:
I see you Touro NY with 50% pass rate.

New York City has two pharmacy schools and 4-6 local ones when they decided to open a campus here a few years ago.

It was obvious to everybody, even when they market was okay, that NYC couldn’t support three pharmacy schools.

I trained interns and rotation students from there and was shocked at how bad they were. I had one 5th year that didn’t know what Aleve was. I had another that couldn’t tell me the difference between an ointment and cream. I was also in their campus interviewing their first batch of grads for pharmacist positions and it was clear that it was an absolute waste of my time.

Forget pill pushers, a lot of them lacked common sense and had an IQ less than someone from my local DMV. One or two of them had personality but unfortunately went into the wrong field AND school.
Click to expand...
Cohen is now the dean and its still bad lol
 
rxkrafted said:
These schools should create MPJE review sessions afterwards for a couple hundred bucks per student to rake in a little more out of their pockets before they kick them out into the job market. Easy money
Click to expand...

My school does that. I refused to go and pay for it out of principle....charged us the most in tuition for P4 year, and we were only on campus for one day after completing each rotation (the sites/preceptors saw none of that money). I swore they took the last bit of money out of me they'd ever get once I finished my last APPE.
 
VictorOfHungerGames said:
Doesn't seem like it unless we get a handle on PBMs. And even if we do, who knows how long it will take to change back to normal and market corrects itself. I love my job right now but the uncertain future scares me. Maybe it's time to abandon ship and look for another profession...
Click to expand...

I love my job too overall....it's retail but my company is pretty awesome and pays well. However, I am also worried about depending on this field for the next 25-30yrs of my working life as my family's main source of income. I hope not to have to abandon pharmacy completely, but at least have other streams of income to fall back on.

A good friend of mine is wanting to get me in on real estate investing with him. He has started buying lots and building duplexes on them, and the rent for one of the units pays for the whole duplex. He has two duplexes so far/is pretty early on in it, but it's intriguing. I'm waiting a bit to see how that goes and need to save more money for a few years to consider it, but it's clear I dont want my pharmacy job to be the only thing I depend on.
 
Wickett said:
My school does that. I refused to go and pay for it out of principle....charged us the most in tuition for P4 year, and we were only on campus for one day after completing each rotation (the sites/preceptors saw none of that money). I swore they took the last bit of money out of me they'd ever get once I finished my last APPE.
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Our school got the review book for free. Professor was writing in the law as well. It was a easy pass when some professors work for the broad of pharmacy lol

What a 130 year old school does
 
Lubeckd said:
Our school got the review book for free. Professor was writing in the law as well. It was a easy pass when some professors work for the broad of pharmacy lol

What a 130 year old school does
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Luckily I'm in Texas and worked full time before school in a pharmacy, so the law exam was pretty easy/I didnt need the review.
 
Wickett said:
Luckily I'm in Texas and worked full time before school in a pharmacy, so the law exam was pretty easy/I didnt need the review.
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many foreign grads and other new york colleges to over college to try and get the review book. working helps with the naplex a lot, with identifying color warfarin. our compounding was also made by the professors. When we go into the exam it helps a lot

www.nytimes.com

Columbia College of Pharmacy Is Closing Down This Summer (Published 1976)

Coll of Pharmaceutical Sciences, beset with financial problems and threatened with loss of accreditation, to close this summer after 148 yrs; asst dean Dr Joseph A Romano and dean Stephen Gross comment (M)
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

we also have some professors from Columbia university (yes the ivy league) that used to train pharmacists out. Some of them were our professors. It no longer exists. And many of the oldest pharmacies come to our alumnis. Its a strong network, but quality wise we got a lot of slackers in studying. Though these slackers end up owning their own companies
 
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so I just took a MPJE in a state I have never practiced in, I haven't worked retail in 13 years. I studied a couple of days - read the fed review guide, skimmed state law - and scored a 88. There is absolutely no reason a new grad has this low of passing rate - the school truly has not taught them
 
I failed two mpje last year. Both scored 74. So pissed... so I cannot blame those rate myself.. cause I suck too.
(I did not study. But that`s no excuse)
 
Dred Pirate said:
so I just took a MPJE in a state I have never practiced in, I haven't worked retail in 13 years. I studied a couple of days - read the fed review guide, skimmed state law - and scored a 88. There is absolutely no reason a new grad has this low of passing rate - the school truly has not taught them
Click to expand...

I have precepted students who didn’t know what misbranding is. Or adulteration. Makes me wonder if they are taught anything at all about passing MPJE.
 
VictorOfHungerGames said:
I studied for 2 days for mpje. Not that it matters how long it took to study for it but seriously how could these numbers represent the future of our profession? This just means that people are ill prepared and irresponsible. Also, schools need to be held responsible. What are yall doing?!
Click to expand...
No standardization in the pharmacy curriculum. Some schools teach what is required to pass the MPJE exam
 
I will be honest, I know a guy, smart as heck, one of my best students ever- I work with him now, but he failed the law exam and graduated from a highly reputable school. He admitted he took it for granted, and was cheap and didn't attend a test prep. When he re-did it, he passed with flying colors. So there are many reasons - in no order
1. Schools don't educate properly
2. Schools educate but students are just poor
3 schools educate, but students don't take it serious
4. combo of above
 
zelman said:
Failing the MPJE doesn’t mean you’re a fool. But not studying sure does.
Click to expand...
I passed 3 before without studying.
I feel like a real fool right now though haha

I know we are not suppose to disclose mpje questions but there were quite a few hospital security related questions I could not make sense of.
 
TerryTerry said:
I passed 3 before without studying.
I feel like a real fool right now though haha

I know we are not suppose to disclose mpje questions but there were quite a few hospital security related questions I could not make sense of.
Click to expand...
i had none - that is weird
 
Dred Pirate said:
I will be honest, I know a guy, smart as heck, one of my best students ever- I work with him now, but he failed the law exam and graduated from a highly reputable school. He admitted he took it for granted, and was cheap and didn't attend a test prep. When he re-did it, he passed with flying colors. So there are many reasons - in no order
1. Schools don't educate properly
2. Schools educate but students are just poor
3 schools educate, but students don't take it serious
4. combo of above
Click to expand...

I honestly think that certain states (especially if you didn't practice there) have gotcha's on some of them. AZ's is extremely easy to in-state, but out-of-state takers don't remember that there's a bunch of odd regulations for the rural areas (kits, non-pharmacy personnel access). I can see someone failing MPJE once on the state portion if the state requires passage of both federal and state to pass (AZ used to be that way), but only once as a failure. FWIW, I thought the hardest ones I took was either the NY or the TX ones because of the unusual way they wrote their practice statutes and regulations and never practiced in either state.
 
I wonder how much these increasing failure rates can be attributed to the "flipped classroom" and "team-based learning" schools push for now.

You don't get 15 minutes to discuss the question with classmates during the NAPLEX/MPJE.

In my days (in the past decade) you were expected to be cold-called and prepared out of fear of looking like an idiot.
 
Licensed in three states, passed the MPJE twice and a state administered test for the other one. I think the key was to purchase or acquire a review book / class notes from an in-state law professor and putting in the study time. The laws are often very similar with only minor differences, so you will find yourself in a situation where there are multiple reasonable answers to a question.

I will say I feel lucky that my school proctored our law exam at the end of P3 year, immediately after we finished our law exam.
 
Rockinacoustic said:
I wonder how much these increasing failure rates can be attributed to the "flipped classroom" and "team-based learning" schools push for now.

You don't get 15 minutes to discuss the question with classmates during the NAPLEX/MPJE.

In my days (in the past decade) you were expected to be cold-called and prepared out of fear of looking like an idiot.
Click to expand...
I have to admit I am not a big fan of the new model some schools are using - not necessarily because the idea is bad (real world experience is necessary) but
1. There is a such a wide variability in quality of education at experiential sites - I think the local school here uses about 6 or 7 main sites (not counting the 100's of sites for p4 year) - and they are not all shared faculty - therefore quality suffers.
2. Pharmacy students are not med students - honestly, they don't put the same out of classroom time into learning the material. As any med student how many hours they studied - especially during their intern years, then ask the same question to a pharmacy student - it is way less (and I put myself into that category) - the quality is just not the same and in order for that educational style to be effective - you have to be a self directed learner.
3. we don't have the various step exams - if you flunked out after year 2 or 3 - #2 above would be different
 
Aznfarmerboi said:
I see you Touro NY with 50% pass rate.

New York City has two pharmacy schools and 4-6 local ones when they decided to open a campus here a few years ago.

It was obvious to everybody, even when they market was okay, that NYC couldn’t support three pharmacy schools.

I trained interns and rotation students from there and was shocked at how bad they were. I had one 5th year that didn’t know what Aleve was. I had another that couldn’t tell me the difference between an ointment and cream. I was also in their campus interviewing their first batch of grads for pharmacist positions and it was clear that it was an absolute waste of my time.

Forget pill pushers, a lot of them lacked common sense and had an IQ less than someone from my local DMV. One or two of them had personality but unfortunately went into the wrong field AND school.
Click to expand...

Ha I interviewed at NYC Touro Pharmacy. It's in harlem but wow the price is really bad and it's 4 years. I can't imagine anyone going there that isn't extremely wealthy. They also had a pay-for-grades scam happen a few years ago which didn't surprise me in the least.
 
VictorOfHungerGames said:
I studied for 2 days for mpje. Not that it matters how long it took to study for it but seriously how could these numbers represent the future of our profession? This just means that people are ill prepared and irresponsible. Also, schools need to be held responsible. What are yall doing?!
Click to expand...

The second state I did MPJE for was not one I wanted to get licensed in (forced by work). I studied for like a day and a half and got a 77. Needed a 75. . . which means I studied a little too much. 😀😀😀

Also, who cares about MPJE? I just look that stuff up if I don't know. I'm not a darn lawyer.
 
To summarize:

Compared to 2019, more students took the exam but a smaller percentage did not pass.

Gandolf could not make this up and memes cannot make it better. Schools are clearly not doing their jobs and no one is holding them accountable for the second rite of passage.
Rockinacoustic said:
I wonder how much these increasing failure rates can be attributed to the "flipped classroom" and "team-based learning" schools push for now.

You don't get 15 minutes to discuss the question with classmates during the NAPLEX/MPJE.

In my days (in the past decade) you were expected to be cold-called and prepared out of fear of looking like an idiot.
Click to expand...

My reason for not doing this: too many matriculated students; not enough "qualified" (I mean PGY1- and/or PGY2-trained) professors to teach them. That is my two-cents. I also failed the FL MPJE twice and I am retaking it this year (again). The schools do not prepare you well for the FL state MPJE; furthermore, the schools will only send you materials when you fail. It's kind of like credit cards and student loans when you fall behind on your payments. It is not known whether or not the school will remove the supporting materials and/or access to them once you pass both exams.
.
 

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mentos said:
Wrong! Memes definitely make this better.
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Solutions to problems, such as methods to increase MPJE test scores, would help: not memes. If you have a solution to address the decrease, maybe we can talk privately.
 
Secret_Informant said:
Solutions to problems, such as methods to increase MPJE test scores, would help: not memes. If you have a solution to address the decrease, maybe we can talk privately.
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If schools are graduating chimpanzees who can’t pass the MPJE, would you try to figure out how to get them to pass? No. The solution is for schools to require aptitude for admission and competency for graduation.
 
Secret_Informant said:
Solutions to problems, such as methods to increase MPJE test scores, would help: not memes. If you have a solution to address the decrease, maybe we can talk privately.
Click to expand...

Here's a solution, stop opening pharmacy schools. In fact let's shut them all down, every last one for at least ten years. There is no need for any new pharmacists for at least a decade.
 
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