If that's not enough, you are going to find yourself competing for a job with a ton of H1b visa holders.
There are no H1B pharmacists anymore. Everything else you said is true.
1. Will pharmacy be still too saturated by the time I become eligible to practice?
Pharmacy is already saturated, and EXTREMELY saturated in the major cities where 90% of people want to work. Only you can know if this is "too" saturated for you.
2. Is the pharmacy scope of practice going to become more widespread (mid-level providers)?
No. Pharmacy missed that boat. NP's have taken all the pie, there is none left for pharmacy.
3. What is the pharmacist quality of life?
It depends on what you consider "quality of life"? 99% of pharmacists will work evenings and/or weekends. I'm fine with that, but obviously, some people would find that a detrimental "quality of life." Expect to spend 12 -14 hours on your feet if you work retail, or 8 - 10 hours sitting if you work hospital.....both settings have different, but real health risks. Both hospital and retail are stressful, although in different ways...retail tends to be a chronic, moderate-level stress, while hospital tends to be a chronic base-line level of stress punctuated with occasional extremely high levels of stress. Some people are fine with this, other's find the stress extremely detrimental to their life.
4. Is it possible for a pharmacist to make $150k anymore? How suitable is the salary given the amount of debt? (Understandably I won’t be a millionaire but I’d like to make a good amount & 150k seems pretty suitable.)
Not as a regular pharmacist. You would have to get into management to get that sort of salary....and management is a whole different level of stress.
5. What are your thoughts on pursuing a Pharm.D/MBA?
Bad idea. MBA's in and of themselves, are as worthless as JD's (which if you don't know, are pretty worthless.) Where MBA's become valuable, is in networking during the process of getting them. Networking with other pharmacy students working on a PharmD/MBA is pretty close to worthless. Get your PharmD first....and then later if you feel so inclined, get your MBA.
6. Can you briefly describe a day in the life of a pharmacist relative to your specific position?
Hospital--you will sit all day and check order entry on the computer (correctness, DUR's, appropriateness of therapy, etc.) (or if you are in some extremely rural hospital, maybe type in the orders yourself), check IV's/TPN's/manual unit dosing that the technicians have made, maybe check some state other stat orders. Depending on how the hospital is set up, you may check crash carts/omnicell/pyxis as well, but probably not. Maybe in an extremely rural hospital you might still check daily carts. Sign out narcotics for your technicians to deliver. Occasionally (but not every day), go to some mandatory hospital meeting or committee....or do some report or research requested by your director who is going to such mandatory meeting or committee. Constantly going on in the background will be technicians bickering over who does the most work and which pharmacists don't help them enough, as well as nurses calling complaining that they can't find a med in the Omnicell/Pyxis, or that they never received an IV, even though they had signed for it (and when you send a tech up to look for it, the tech will find it sitting immediately outside of the lock box it's supposed to be in, and then the nurse will accuse the tech of having just brought it up. Also, constantly going on in the background, are workplace politics. You might think you had an uneventful day, but the technicians, other pharmacists, managers, nurses, hospital support personal will all be talking about you after you leave (just the same as you were talking about all the people who were off work when you were there....and if you didn't, well then you aren't a team player.) This is the hardest part of hospital pharmacy, being able to play the social political game well enough, that one doesn't end up fired.
Retail--You will stand all day and either physically check prescriptions that the technician has filled, or check prescriptions that have been typed in the computer (again for correctness, DUR's appropriateness of therapy, etc.) Most likely you will be doing both at the same time. While doing this, you will break away to counsel patients or answer any questions they have. Good pharmacists will be doing all 3 at the same time (physically checking prescriptions, checking prescriptions in the computer, counseling patients.) Constantly going on in the background will be the phone ringing non-stop. This is the part that drives many pharmacists crazy. I tune it out and ignore, but not everyone can. Of course, when a technician tells you that you are needed on the phone, you will need to take the call--it could be a janitor calling in a prescription for a physician (no seriously, and it's often difficult to figure out what they want), a patient needing counseling or having a medication question, another pharmacy wanting a prescription transfer, someone wanting to complain and yell and scream (usually because of something that happened when you weren't working, or often something that happened in the front of the store or even at a completely different pharmacy), or someone wanting to get a medication refilled which the technician could have done, but the person didn't trust the technician. Then the next day, you will be at a completely different pharmacy, usually in a completely different city....because retail only hires part-time "floating" pharmacists these days, which means you will fill in wherever needed in your state.
With both hospital and retail, you will go home and pray that you didn't kill anyone, after the fast work pace and constant interruptions. At least that is what I do, I don't know what atheists do (maybe WVU or another atheist can fill in what they do after work, to handle the feeling of dread that they might have killed someone?)
7. What are good specialties of pharmacy that I could look into to see if they interest me? How do you feel about residency?
Specialities are extremely few. People who specialize often don't get jobs in their speciality. Critical Care/Emergency Medicine, psychiatric medicine, poison control, chemo/nuclear are the more common specialties.
If you want to get into hospital (about 30% of pharmacist jobs), you will want to get a residency, as 95% of hospital openings will require that (or recommend it, and then they will hire 1 of the 500 applicants who applied who did have a residency.)
8. Could you provide me with what you starting salary offers looked like if you don’t mind sharing.
For hospital, $90,000.....for retail $110,000 on average.
Expect to get paid considerably less, if you want to work in any major city. If you are willing to work in an extremely high crime area, or in a rural area hours away from a major city, expect to get paid slightly more.
P.S. I genuinely want to know so no bashing & speak to me in a less than respectful manner nor respond if you don’t want to provide genuine and honest answers to my questions.
Why would you think anyone here wouldn't give you genuine and honest answers to your questions?
Reading through this, it sounds more pessimistic than I feel...but it is all true. I don't mind all of this, but not all pharmacists can stand this. Know what you are getting into, pharmacy can be a great profession for certain personality types, but it definitely isn't for everyone.
Edited to fix the quoting which I knew I would mess up.
