prospect of pharmacy

[yeeseng]

i was talkin to my pharmacist at work and he says there may be a decrease in the job market for pharmacists when i graduate from pharm school because of mail-in order taking so many of our customers. he feels that eventually retail pharmacy will be a field where there's only one pharmacist at each store and the hours will be from 9-5 and only one retail pharmacy in the area will be a 24 hour pharmacy store for emergency only. This would reduce not only the pay for pharmacists, but also the number of jobs available. i'm kinda scared. has anyone else heard of this?

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[PharmD Is Me]

Nah, I think it's possible, but not likely to happen. Too many people, and so many drugs. The job of a pharmacist is growing and other healthcare providers are now realizing that a pharmacist is very important to helping a patient. Before, pharmacists were thought to only sit there and dispense medications in a drug store, or put in orders so nurses can get their drugs. Now, pharmacists are very highly respected and get called on all the time to assist in dosing and reviewing charts and counseling patients. There are so many people getting sick, the hospital I work at has been at it's max for 3 weeks now, and not even decreasing!! I can't even imagine how next year will be like!! So no worries, pharmacists will always be needed.

 

[Farmercyst]

i was talkin to my pharmacist at work and he says there may be a decrease in the job market for pharmacists when i graduate from pharm school because of mail-in order taking so many of our customers. he feels that eventually retail pharmacy will be a field where there's only one pharmacist at each store and the hours will be from 9-5 and only one retail pharmacy in the area will be a 24 hour pharmacy store for emergency only. This would reduce not only the pay for pharmacists, but also the number of jobs available. i'm kinda scared. has anyone else heard of this?

I'd say he sounds like a teller in the banking industry around the time of the start of ATMs. Or a more recent addition Online-only banks. Both are everywhere, but I have yet to see a branch subsisting on only one teller because everyone's flocking to the much easier ATM or the online bank. In my opinion I want face-to-face interaction. I want to see who I'm dealing with, and quite frankly, who's at fault if someone messes up. Mail order will be a substantial business, and it will grow, but it's highly unlikely to reduce the demand at your brick-and-mortar retail pharmacy all that much.

 

[rxforlife2004]

i was talkin to my pharmacist at work and he says there may be a decrease in the job market for pharmacists when i graduate from pharm school because of mail-in order taking so many of our customers. he feels that eventually retail pharmacy will be a field where there's only one pharmacist at each store and the hours will be from 9-5 and only one retail pharmacy in the area will be a 24 hour pharmacy store for emergency only. This would reduce not only the pay for pharmacists, but also the number of jobs available. i'm kinda scared. has anyone else heard of this?

Well, it is possible...but the demand of pharmacists will always be there...no matter what. There have been numerous debating whether machine will replace the job of a pharmacist and my simple answer for it is NO. The machine can't and won't be able to verify medication orders, and they can't be able to follow up with medical doctors, insurance, etc...In hospital, you can't replace a pharmacist who can dose, adjust renal antibiotics, following up with peaks/troughs of a patient who is bacteremia, or sepsis, aiming for Vanco trough of 10-20....Machine won't be that smart. EVen if it is that smart, it won't be able to reason for electrolyte adjustment for a patient who is on TPN with "weird" responses on Calcium level that only an experienced clinical pharmacist will know and adjust the level appropriately.

So the bottom line is: If a pharmacist is no longer needed....that day...a medical doctor won't even be around either. Period. If such day happens, then you examine your dad/mom, go to the drug lockers around the corner of street A &B and dispense yourself. If things go wrong, blame on u....

Finally, there must be always someone out there to be blamed on when things go wrong...and you can't blame a machine!!!!that's where us-the pharmacists step in place....Yeah, sad but true...Medication errors....pharmacists get the blame. So there you go

 

[soyroger]

...decrease in the job market for pharmacists when i graduate from pharm school because of mail-in order taking so many of our customers.

Here's an excerpt from the Sept. 24, 1906 issue of "American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record" that talks about mail order pharmacy.

"Nor is the damage done to existing trade relations confined to the retail business, for the jobber [wholesaler], too, will be eliminated when the mail order houses [e.g., Sears, Roebuck & Co.] have succeeded in driving the retail trade out of existence."

Roebuck? man is that old. Obviously, since Roebuck has gone bye bye and retail pharmacy is alive and doing well 100 years later I doubt there's much to worry about. Sometimes worries come and go like fashions and I'm not too worried about it since we're still in a pharmacist shortage in the US. Check out the research that the Dean of Touro has done on the shortage issue, it's interesting.