***Oversupply of Pharmacists***

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OChemProf said:
I was one of those that mentioned a few of these studies (Pharmacy Manpower, DHS) as defense of my stance toward pharmacy job prospects. I am also going to include a link to at least one of these thorough studies I mentioned (which was posted by somebody else on one of the many "the sky is falling" forums).

http://bhpr.hrsa.gov/healthworkforce/pharmacy/conclusions.htm

This is a fairly detailed study (2004) which discusses the pharmacy workforce and has projection data for different types of scenarios (low growth, normal growth, high growth). They also include areas of their study that are thorough and some of the ways the data could be faulty. I put some faith in this study since they mention and take into account the schools they expect to be open by 2010 (and their prediction is rather close, they predicted ~110 schools by 2010 and I think there are 111(?) now). All educated people understand that projections are just that; a projection....some of the projections will be false and some will be true. But, to discount it completely, without bothering to elaborate on parts that have been proven to be valid or invalid, is particularly disturbing to me. As a scientist, I thought I was entering pharmacy---a scientific field....hopefully, SDN as a whole is not indicative of the normal pharmacy practitioner.
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That's not a 2004 study. It's a 2008 study. You only need to look at the data presented on Exhibit 23 to know that not only is the data outdated, it makes assumptions of pharmacist vacancy based on limited data provided by ASHP and NACDS in 2004. And having participated in those surveys, I will tell you that only a handful of institutions and organizations participate in providing data. And as a scientist, I'm sure you can appreciate what an accurate data means to a study. It's 2010 today. We now know some elements of uncertainty mentioned in the study. The study was uncertain of technological advances in increasing the efficiency of pharmacy prescription processing. Just search Walgreen's Power.

I came on SDN to have a thorough discussion / debate of the many topics being discussed on SDN, but what happens more often than not is that the discussion degrades into a name-calling, your opinion doesn't count because you don't have this title, this experience, etc or the discussion goes off on some wild tangent completely unrelated to the original topic.
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Your opinion of "all competition is good" was asinine. Competition is good for some as it's bad for others. If you own a thriving independent pharmacy in town only to have a 24 hour Wags open up down the street, will you still say "all competition is good?" I don't think so. I do understand "competition is inevitable and the strong will survive." It's not correct to say "all competition is good" in the face of pharmacist oversupply thread while interns and pharmacists are having difficult times looking for a job while you boasting about your "tenure" position. Who's being pompous ?

In this discussion alone, I have been called "innocent", ignorant of the pharmacy job market, etc. I will admit that I don't know enough about the job market or pharmacy in general, but I don't make comments without some semblance of evidence / data to backup these comments.
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What's your data? The study you posted?

It seems that my status as a pre-pharm on this forum has relegated me to "less intelligent" status even though I already have a doctorate with over 10 years experience in the "real world".
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I haven't called you a dummy yet. Also, your 10 year experience and a PhD in OChem is irrelevant to pharmacy job market discussion.

In my humble opinion, the job market has changed drastically in the past 5 to 6 years
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No, past year.

if you went in to pharmacy thinking you would have the best pick of jobs, hours and location in addition to a nice signing bonus, then this job market is probably a big surprise.
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I'm here to warn students and prepharms to be prepared.

To somebody who expects to struggle looking for a job (and has experience struggling to find a job) then this job market is probably no big surprise.
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Finding a pharmacist job will be a struggle.
Members don't see this ad.
 
rxlea said:
Why don't you guys consider working on the reservations with IHS? It pays well, there is a lot of autonomy for pharmacists (including prescribing rights in some places), you can get your loans paid by the government, you have good benefits, you can get a 15K - 30K sign-on bonus, and the work in rewarding and interesting. I would do it in a heartbeat and I will seriously consider it when my time comes. Besides, some of the reservations are not that far from the cities. I just visited Albuquerque and if you're a liberal person, you would probably like it there. The reservations are less than an hour commute for some, cost of living is low (more money for you), and you get commissioned (Lt. Commander I believe).
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OMG Shut your mouth before people find out about New Mexico!:D

I would love to return to NM (if/when) as a Pharmacist (this all of course hinges on getting into a program in the first place) and live in the Albuquerque area. Its where I live now (out east of the city) and I am so sad to be leaving.

Let's see if I can do some damage control: NM sucks, its poor, insular, and there are no jobs for anyone here.....(did that work?:ninja:)

I remember a friend of mine years ago when I was an undergrad at UNM graduating with her BS in Pharm talking about IHS, but I believe she ended up working for Lovelace - she had been a Pharmacy extern there while in school.
 
Gonnaget said:
remember, only you ,whatever is gold will shine, so dont complain
for economic crisi caused serious unemployment,but the economy has started .therefore believed yourself........
good luckes!!!!
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What????
 
Members don't see this ad :)
ABQ is quite saturated as far as pharmacist jobs go.

And, for my friends' sake, I wish I were kidding.
 
ucrx said:
What????
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Here, let me try to translate for you.

Remember, only you, whatever is gold will shine, so don't complain. An economic crisis caused serious unemployment, but the economy has started. Therefore, believe in yourself.
Good luck!
 
Maybe I'm missing something, but if post-Graduates are struggling to find a job why not look for another job in the medical field? I'm sure that you can qualify for consulting, health management jobs, research positions, ect... with a pharmd. A pharmd doesn't only qualify you to fill scripts.
 
klie94 said:
I'm sure that you can qualify for consulting, health management jobs, research positions, ect... with a pharmd.
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mmmm NO.

PharmD is an entry level pharmacist degree. In order to consult, you need experience. Consultants are expert in something. PharmD certainly doesn't provide skills in healthcare management. Research? PhD or MS perhaps.
 
I worked as a consultant after I finished undergrad. I know people that have worked in research with various science degrees, even one with a BS in psychology. Degrees aren't that static.
 
klie94 said:
I worked as a consultant after I finished undergrad. I know people that have worked in research with various science degrees, even one with a BS in psychology. Degrees aren't that static.
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Is that right.. what kind of consulting did you do with what undergrad degree? How much did you get paid? What kind of consulting gig do you think you can land as a fresh PharmD?
 
Management consulting. I get that you feel like proving me wrong or whatever, so you can believe what I'm saying or not-- your choice. I just think that there are more opportunities with the degree than you think there are.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
klie94 said:
Management consulting. I get that you feel like proving me wrong or whatever, so you can believe what I'm saying or not-- your choice. I just think that there are more opportunities with the degree than you think there are.
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wow.. a management consultant... sounds pretty important. Are you still a consultant?

So you think there are more opportunties with PharmD.. can you name some?
 
No I quit to go back to school. I'm going to sign off so you can continue this conversation with someone else or use google to figure out what else you can do.
 
klie94 said:
No I quit to go back to school. I'm going to sign off so you can continue this conversation with someone else or use google to figure out what else you can do.
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Bye.

I actually don't need to figure out what I can do with my PharmD.
 
Praziquantel86 said:
I wanted to address this point in particular. You're making this seem as if we're advocating a double standard by pushing for more competition up front and not at the tail end, which I don't think is true. In nearly every manner of thinking, increasing the standards up front (or placing clearly identifiable barriers at the tail end [multiple difficult licensing exams, residency, etc.]) is a good thing. I think this would accomplish a few things:

1) Ensuring that those entering pharmacy school are truly the brightest and most dedicated to the profession
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What's the point if the vast majority end up working in retail like CVS and Winn Dixie? We're not talking about finding the cure to cancer here. The current caliber of PharmD is more than adequate for retail work. In fact, the doctorate is already overkill for retail and was only done to give schools more tuition $$$. It only makes sense to increase standards when the nature of the work entails it. There's no way you're going to convince me of that for retail pharmacy and you know it.

Seems to me you just want PharmD to be selective after you have already gotten through the door. Selfish, a little?
 
tungsten87 said:
ding ding ding

we have a winnah
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im not sure i agree. when southern cal first decided to start pharmd in 50 and 60s which was soon followed by ucsf, i truly believe it was to enhance the profession. the rest of rx schools followed this trend slowly until pharmd became the minimum entry level degree for pharmacist. the recent openings of diploma mills is another story
 
Its Z said:
im not sure i agree. when southern cal first decided to start pharmd in 50 and 60s which was soon followed by ucsf, i truly believe it was to enhance the profession. the rest of rx schools followed this trend slowly until pharmd became the minimum entry level degree for pharmacist. the recent openings of diploma mills is another story
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well, i'm at least sure you can agree that the pharmd should definitely not take four years to complete. the first year at many pharmacy schools is BS and a review (especially for those who have taken biochemistry/physiology). i did a copious amount of research while applying to pharmacy schools and a key factor in selecting the programs I applied to was curriculum. i probably analyzed the curriculum for at least 50 different pharmacy schools and as i said before, i think it could easily be a three year degree if you cut out the review and fluff classes.

i guess you're right... certain institutions were concerned with making pharmacy a doctorate degree and advancing the profession + increasing the clinical roles of pharmacists but many schools took advantage of this (these diploma mills you speak of) and are simply in it for the dough.
 
rxlea said:
In an effort to prevent repetitive threads on this topic, all threads pertaining to this topic will be moved here.
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thank you so much for condensing all these sky is falling threads btw.. they were really starting to get on my nerves.
 
tungsten87 said:
well, i'm at least sure you can agree that the pharmd should definitely not take four years to complete. the first year at many pharmacy schools is BS and a review (especially for those who have taken biochemistry/physiology). i did a copious amount of research while applying to pharmacy schools and a key factor in selecting the programs I applied to was curriculum. i probably analyzed the curriculum for at least 50 different pharmacy schools and as i said before, i think it could easily be a three year degree if you cut out the review and fluff classes.

i guess you're right... certain institutions were concerned with making pharmacy a doctorate degree and advancing the profession + increasing the clinical roles of pharmacists but many schools took advantage of this (these diploma mills you speak of) and are simply in it for the dough.
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but you're also putting a reliance on the completion of key aspects of your undergrad training on other institution and we all know they are not always equal.

I do understand what you're saying, but in ten years or so you won't be seeing as many, if any, review classes like that
 
Red Dawn is coming out later this year. For those who don't know what Red Dawn is. It was a movie that came out in the 1980s, where the US was invaded by Russia and other communist forces like Cuba, Nicaragua, etc. And the movie told the story of a group of high school teenagers becoming insurgents and fighting the new communist government. I think the 2010 version is going to put China instead of Russia as the main antagonist.
 
Doubt it.

Augmenting human abilities
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the system selects it out for the pharmacist to complete before continuing on to the other batches,
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But humans won’t be going away anytime soon; although reported errors are few, user-friendly interfaces on these machines allow professionals to check and calibrate systems if necessary
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Now, dosing medications more efficiently will allow pharmacists and doctors to think more about their top priority: what their patients need.
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rxforlife2004 said:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100526/ap_on_re_as/as_skorea_ship_sinks

This is it, guys. Based on my prediction, world war III is around 2011. We all die in 2012, so the pharmacy shortage ends, too...
:laugh:
Jk...but seriously, anyone here worrying about WW III can happen soon? I mean...this North Korea vs South Korea is getting more serious now.
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There is some scary **** going on right now. North and South Korea...not good. Iran and nukes...not good. US in Afghanistan for no apparent reason...not good.

The stupidest thing I have ever seen in a long time is this: The New York times publishing a story about a secret military directive signed last September 30 by General David Petraeus. This directive authorized a vast expansion of secret U.S. military special ops from the Horn of Africa to the Middle East to Central Asia and “appears to authorize specific operations in Iran,” according to the New York Times.

If it is a secret directive why is the New York times witting a story telling the whole world about it? All this story did was to further inflame and isolate Muslim countries and make our military special ops job harder and more dangerous. Thanks New York Slimes, great work!
 
Sparda29 said:
Red Dawn is coming out later this year. For those who don't know what Red Dawn is. It was a movie that came out in the 1980s, where the US was invaded by Russia and other communist forces like Cuba, Nicaragua, etc. And the movie told the story of a group of high school teenagers becoming insurgents and fighting the new communist government. I think the 2010 version is going to put China instead of Russia as the main antagonist.
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Red Dawn was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid!
 
MountainPharmD said:
If it is a secret directive why is the New York times witting a story telling the whole world about it? All this story did was to further inflame and isolate Muslim countries and make our military special ops job harder and more dangerous. Thanks New York Slimes, great work!
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But hey, Debbie, we're building a Mosque at ground zero in NYC, that should appease the extremists, yes?
 
MountainPharmD said:
Red Dawn was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid!
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I liked Red Dawn too, although from what I recall of it, it was rather depressing toward the end (The brightest scene in my memory of that movie was the "insurgent" kids with a rocket launcher preparing to ambush a Soviet convoy...)

The biggest problem, for me, in re-making that movie is that conventional warfare is gone.

I remember on my first deployment, my mom asked me if I would be on "the front lines" - There's no such thing anymore. We're far more likely to experience smaller scale, but equally devestating, asymmetrical warfare on our home turf. Dirty bombs, and Starbucks exploding are the way of the 21st century, not mass large-scale incursion.
 
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SHC1984 said:
:laugh: but seriously the worst part of retail is when people come up to you and tell you the nasties stories about their body parts or body fluids! Makes me want to :barf:
I am either going to work at a LOW volume store (I am thinking about Target) or as a mail order pharmacist. I just want to be left alone at my computer to type in, verified and fill my prescriptions!!!
Is that really too much to ask for???
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IMO, you are going into health care for the wrong reasons and your reasoning can be seen as offensive to many on this forum. I would hate to work with you or be a patient of yours, I mean wouldn't you? One of the biggest challenges in the field is patient interaction, this is why I think profit-centered retail pharmacies like CVS is NOT good for the field of pharmacy :\ No offense or anything, just my opinion.
 
Sparda29 said:
Red Dawn is coming out later this year. For those who don't know what Red Dawn is. It was a movie that came out in the 1980s, where the US was invaded by Russia and other communist forces like Cuba, Nicaragua, etc. And the movie told the story of a group of high school teenagers becoming insurgents and fighting the new communist government. I think the 2010 version is going to put China instead of Russia as the main antagonist.
Click to expand...

MountainPharmD said:
Red Dawn was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid!
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Wolverines!! *fist pump*

I was just in Las Vegas, NM recently and they still have the Calumet mural painted on a building wall.
 
bear9288 said:
http://singularityhub.com/2010/05/09/robot-pharmacists-are-picking-your-medications-literally/

bye bye pharmacy
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Why does everyone think that all robots/optimization will reduce pharmacist jobs? That is how it was marketed at first, companies/consultants spewing rubbish about how each new piece of automation will reduce X tech hours and X pharmacist hours. Never happened, so now the companies are marketing optimization as a means of improved patient safety.

Pharmacists have better things to do besides straight drug entry/filling/checking/distribution. I think the point of optimization is not to reduce pharmacy staff in most cases but to allow staff to use their time in a more productive manner.

Edit: This quote was the conclusion of your article....

"The idea isn't to replace humans; it's to reduce human error. Cutting down on waste and ensuring greater accuracy are on every medical professional's to-do list. Now, dosing medications more efficiently will allow pharmacists and doctors to think more about their top priority: what their patients need."
 
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MountainPharmD said:
There is some scary **** going on right now. North and South Korea...not good. Iran and nukes...not good. US in Afghanistan for no apparent reason...not good.

The stupidest thing I have ever seen in a long time is this: The New York times publishing a story about a secret military directive signed last September 30 by General David Petraeus. This directive authorized a vast expansion of secret U.S. military special ops from the Horn of Africa to the Middle East to Central Asia and “appears to authorize specific operations in Iran,” according to the New York Times.

If it is a secret directive why is the New York times witting a story telling the whole world about it? All this story did was to further inflame and isolate Muslim countries and make our military special ops job harder and more dangerous. Thanks New York Slimes, great work!
Click to expand...

Iran with any kind of nuclear technology is very bad... The UN has been way too soft on them, and so have we (US). Silly little slaps on the hand for violating sanctions, not letting UN inspectors in, etc... Especially considering Iran's (recent) history and some of the official statements Iran has made about violence and warfare...

North Korea will probably cool down again fairly soon, that kind of thing has been going on forever... Kim Jong-il has a history of "causing trouble" whenever he feels like he isn't getting enough attention... IMO war in Korea was much more likely back around '03 than it is now.

The whole world has known for decades that the US has covert ops going on in Africa so I don't see how the Times article really changes much - other than getting the general public that never paid much attention to things like that worked up a bit.
 
naus said:
What's the point if the vast majority end up working in retail like CVS and Winn Dixie? We're not talking about finding the cure to cancer here. The current caliber of PharmD is more than adequate for retail work. In fact, the doctorate is already overkill for retail and was only done to give schools more tuition $$$. It only makes sense to increase standards when the nature of the work entails it. There's no way you're going to convince me of that for retail pharmacy and you know it.

Seems to me you just want PharmD to be selective after you have already gotten through the door. Selfish, a little?
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There is degree inflation, I'm not going to argue there. And your right, working at your average chain retail joint might not put you through the mental Olympics every day (not with the pressures to pound out more scripts at all costs, at least). But regardless of those arguments, the PharmD is here and it isn't going anywhere. So, unfortunately, since clinical, hospital, retail, am-care folks, etc. will all have the same degree, they have to be held to the same standards.

It's not selfish at all to want standards to be higher. I would have accepted more rigorous entry standards, and understood why they were there. It's not a right to be in pharmacy school, it's a privilege (which gets harder and harder to see with each day of rotations...but that's another story).
 
Praziquantel86 said:
T It's not a right to be in pharmacy school, it's a privilege (which gets harder and harder to see with each day of rotations...but that's another story).
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this is what i'm afraid of... what year are you?
 
adma826 said:
Wolverines!! *fist pump*

I was just in Las Vegas, NM recently and they still have the Calumet mural painted on a building wall.
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Yes they do :). On a side note: why do all the resturants in vegas close so early. Granted its a small town but i was hungry and did not want fast food.
 
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