NBC: Overworked, understaffed: Pharmacists say industry in crisis puts patient safety at risk

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iamapharmacist said:
At this point, you have to be in the low end of intelligence to become a pharmacist. Think about it. Youre in high school or college, wanting to pick a career that youll spend the rest of your life doing. With all these horrible conditions, you still decide to go to pharmacy school? Ive been pretty much ignoring or treating like theyre not pharmacists if they graduated after 2018 lol.
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why 2018? is that when you graduated lmao
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pharmacystudent1011 said:
Schedule preferences are based solely on each individual. Work environment definitely Walmart > CVS
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Does Walmart have a work environment where you are alone and there is reduced foot traffic? Can I listen to podcasts during my shift? No? Then CVS is better. For my shift at least.
 
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Deja said:
why 2018? is that when you graduated lmao
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No. I graduated in 2016. I said 2018 because im thinking they had to start school in 2014 which is the around the year that saturation became a real problem in my opinion. We havent heard too much about not being able to find a job when i started in 2012. New grads were still getting 5-6 offers and no p4s were complaining at my school about it. It was 2014 when we started seeing some p4s having trouble finding a job right away. Those who applied around that time had to know or couldve done enough research to find out that job market is plummeting fast.
 
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WVUPharm2007 said:
Yeah, I'll stick with CVS night shift.
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I had to pick up a few overnight shifts at my own store (5k/week volume) when I was PIC there, Foot traffic was insane and drive through nonstop. I was alone from 11pm-6am. You must have a mid volume CVS which happened to be 24 hours
 
CEO salaries and bonuses must be brought down back to earth

They must be humbled
 
iamapharmacist said:
At this point, you have to be in the low end of intelligence to become a pharmacist. Think about it. Youre in high school or college, wanting to pick a career that youll spend the rest of your life doing. With all these horrible conditions, you still decide to go to pharmacy school? Ive been pretty much ignoring or treating like theyre not pharmacists if they graduated after 2018 lol.
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I truly cannot imagine what would make anyone want to become a druggist..unless the old man owns a money making operation.. Sometimes I chalk it up to a highly bourgeoisie personality. But that doesn't add up because the whole job is slowly fizzling. Not exactly a goal for your bougie type. Now I read that there is a wait list at UC San Fran??! WHAT could these people be thinking? Maybe a lemming sort of mindset? Just hopelessly mis-informed? Pressure from clueless parents? A long time independent that I know of went from being alone for miles to...three more chains within a mile, with one more on the drawing board. WHAT is it that convinces someone to wander thru 200k and ..what now? six years of school to work for some chain?
 
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APN-59 rph said:
I truly cannot imagine what would make anyone want to become a druggist..unless the old man owns a money making operation.. Sometimes I chalk it up to a highly bourgeoisie personality. But that doesn't add up because the whole job is slowly fizzling. Not exactly a goal for your bougie type. Now I read that there is a wait list at UC San Fran??! WHAT could these people be thinking? Maybe a lemming sort of mindset? Just hopelessly mis-informed? Pressure from clueless parents? A long time independent that I know of went from being alone for miles to...three more chains within a mile, with one more on the drawing board. WHAT is it that convinces someone to wander thru 200k and ..what now? six years of school to work for some chain?
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We need to wait for latest school admission numbers to see any initial trends of the supply of pharmacists.Brick and mortar pharmacy which employs most is shrinking.The question can the other areas of practice make up for it.
 
sfachine said:
We need to wait for latest school admission numbers to see any initial trends of the supply of pharmacists.Brick and mortar pharmacy which employs most is shrinking.The question can the other areas of practice make up for it.
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I was guzzling brewski....bartendress also in med school says that they have pharmacists all thru the system which they like...but also mondo pharmacists looking for those same jobs...
 
BenJammin said:
Short sleeve white coat with a long sleeve undershirt is how you lose all credibility as far as I'm concerned.
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Reading your post just reminded me I have a pair of short sleeve white coats hanging in my closet, still in dry cleaning plastic wrap. I haven't worn them since leaving the traditional pharmacy setting 15 years. I probably should throw them out but for some reason I'm hesitant to. I'm not sure why....its definitely not nostalgia. They're not even from my school since they didn't start white coat ceremonies until a few years after I graduated.
 
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wazoodog said:
I haven't worn them since leaving the traditional pharmacy setting 15 years. I probably should throw them out but for some reason I'm hesitant to.
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Hopefully we won't see you on an episode of Horders 20 years from now.
 
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iamapharmacist said:
No. I graduated in 2016. I said 2018 because im thinking they had to start school in 2014 which is the around the year that saturation became a real problem in my opinion. We havent heard too much about not being able to find a job when i started in 2012. New grads were still getting 5-6 offers and no p4s were complaining at my school about it. It was 2014 when we started seeing some p4s having trouble finding a job right away. Those who applied around that time had to know or couldve done enough research to find out that job market is plummeting fast.
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I graduated the same year, and it was a risk even back in 2012 to go to pharmacy school. The only reason I went through with it is because I had already committed 2 years of pre-pharm in 2012 when I learned about the saturation, and I had already changed majors once before that. I was 25 years old and anxious to get a career started.

If I was coming out of high school today, pharmacy would no doubt be one of the last things I would go to school for right now. There are so many other better options in health care where they are paid just as much. or more, with better job outlooks. Funny thing is, I had this argument with a couple of my techs not too long ago, they acted like I didn't know what I was talking about even as I laid the facts and statistics right before them.
 
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Just think if a pharmacist making $42 and each vaccine is billing out at $40 now federally and you are doing 1 every 5 minutes. That's $4800 a 10 hour shift minus your wages of $420 for a net of $4380 a day! This is why when my boss starts preaching metrics and won't give me more help or some BS bonus I literally ignore them. I'm not making $42 but these newbie are and they riding them like a mule.
 
lane one said:
www.cnbc.com

Goldman's junior bankers complain of crushing workload amid SPAC-fueled boom in Wall Street deals

Junior bankers trade a grueling workload for a shot at eventually earning multimillion-dollar compensation packages as a managing director.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com

100 hours a week for $90K at Goldman.

Someone already mentioned it, but no one's gonna shed a tear for a pharmacist earning $128K. Welcome to working for the man.
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I think the circumstances are slightly different dealing with paperwork sitting at a desk and making clinical judgments that could potentially be life threatening.
 
ValeRx said:
I think the circumstances are slightly different dealing with paperwork sitting at a desk and making clinical judgments that could potentially be life threatening.
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They do much more than that and we do much less than that.
 
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radio frequency said:
Yessss. Thank goodness I don't even wear a white coat now.

You would be a tech if you had a paid off house? That's crazy talk. I would never be a tech after working as a pharmacist. I would much sooner jump ship to a completely different industry than ever work as a tech. And yeah, I have a paid off house.
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Also have paid off house and I would work part time as an RPh before doing anything else. I value my time now more than ever. I'll be ok with working 2 days a week and clear <50k a year lol the only thing i gotta worry about is health insurance
 
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sfachine said:
They do much more than that and we do much less than that.
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Fascinating. I have no idea if a banker does “much more” than that but I do know that I certainly don’t do “much less” than that. I mean every time I evaluate an interaction I am making a decision with potentially life-threatening consequences. No matter how routine it becomes that doesn’t make it less true.

Still if I make a mistake or make a bad call the worst I can do is kill someone. The banker could cause his employer or the shareholders to lose money (Citibank is my favorite recent example: Citibank loses bid to recoup US$900 million mistaken payment of Revlon loan - Global Cosmetics News ).

I’ll let you decide which outcome is worse. :)
 
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grizzlesgrizzlies said:
Also have paid off house and I would work part time as an RPh before doing anything else. I value my time now more than ever. I'll be ok with working 2 days a week and clear <50k a year lol the only thing i gotta worry about is health insurance
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I'm thinking I might try for something like this in the near future. I've got enough saved up that I could be pretty comfortable with slowing down to 50k a year, at least for a little bit. But I also am concerned about the possible inflation coming up...might be better to keep a high income to invest in assets.
 
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Yeap. Just like owlgrad said. When your in the medical field and have a mistake then somebody could be having a funeral. Money is money.
 
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VA77 said:
Yeap. Just like owlgrad said. When your in the medical field and have a mistake then somebody could be having a funeral. Money is money.
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And this is our opinion as healthcare workers.

The general public may have a different perspective on if they’d rather have a little bit more health or a little bit more wealth. If someone loses all their money, they can’t afford our prescriptions we sell to make money, even worse some delete themselves.

The people that make food shouldn’t be paid minimum wage cuz they make a mistake and those shrimp tails in Cinnamon Toast Crunch go to the wrong person with a shellfish allergy and that person may ctrl alt del.

the person making cars shouldn’t be paid minimum wage because if there’s a mistake on my couple ton metal death trap I could die.

Uber drivers can make a mistake ans swerve into the wrong lane.

my Amazon delivery person could mess up and not deliver me my meds...

Lifeguard on the beach dozes off and a kid drowns on his/her life.

kid working a bike rental job doesn’t check brakes, bike doesn’t stop renter slams into car and gets hurt...

Also EVERYONE stop with the belief that PBMs will go away forever and be totally eliminated. There will always be an entity that pays us, they will always want to pay us as little as they can possibly get away with. You remove PBMs you still don’t remove that pressure.
 
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PharFromNormal said:
The people that make food shouldn’t be paid minimum wage cuz they make a mistake and those shrimp tails in Cinnamon Toast Crunch go to the wrong person with a shellfish allergy and that person may ctrl alt del.
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Off topic, but the Cinnamon Toast Crunch guy is most likely a scammer. Lots of stories coming out about him, from women unfortunate to have known him in the past. Quite likely he got a Churro mixed in with his Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
 
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