Reasons not to go into pharmacy
Started by rxglasshalffull
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I don't think it is easy to find a pharmacy job. My friend just graduated from one of the best pharmacy school (UCSF) and had a lot of experience working in a hospital but she had a difficult time finding a job in the Bay Area (Calif). She finally found a job way outside the city and not in her area of choice.
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Oh no! They had to move! Say it aint so!
It is not just about moving. It is about moving to the boonies for the next few years. You have spent the first half of your prime years in school and now you are going to spend the rest of your prime years in the boonies? And for what? So you can work as a pharmacist?
I get what you're saying.
More than likely it was a rural hospital that was accepting non-residency trained pharmacists. We chose a job that requires our services to be all over the country rural and metropolitan, no matter what happens the city life is gonna fill up, no occupation is immune to that (nope, not even software engineers, just give it another decade or so and their bubble will burst as well...cycles). Yeah, the job market sucks and something needs to be done, but crying about the inevitable isn't going to help.
Just keep educating the pre-pharmers, it is working.
I wrote a long winded post three years ago Explaining why pharmacy was dead as a profession for new grads on the job sticky megathread [ post #1016]
The main prepharm student arguing with me tooth and nail that it was a great career choice seems to have taken my words to heart after all... He enrolled in med school! So looks like Posting how terrible the market MAY actually have an effect on the prepharm kids after all even when they argue and call you a troll.... Luckily user Chemguy79 came to his senses and prob owes me a thank you for not ruining his own life after bashing me so hard ha
Preach on preachers... Pre professionals are like teens... they think they know it all but when all is said and done they really do appreciate your advice after they've grown up a bit and the real world has smacked them in the face
The main prepharm student arguing with me tooth and nail that it was a great career choice seems to have taken my words to heart after all... He enrolled in med school! So looks like Posting how terrible the market MAY actually have an effect on the prepharm kids after all even when they argue and call you a troll.... Luckily user Chemguy79 came to his senses and prob owes me a thank you for not ruining his own life after bashing me so hard ha
Preach on preachers... Pre professionals are like teens... they think they know it all but when all is said and done they really do appreciate your advice after they've grown up a bit and the real world has smacked them in the face
What does PRN mean?
It means as needed.
The reason pharmacy has turned into a dead job is b/c there is no special skill set to being a pharmacist. It will only get worse. There will be consolidation where there is one pharmacist to 10 techs becoming a filling mill.
The reason pharmacy has turned into a dead job is b/c there is no special skill set to being a pharmacist. It will only get worse. There will be consolidation where there is one pharmacist to 10 techs becoming a filling mill.
Do you believe there will be a 2nd "golden age" of pharmacy anytime soon, or never again at this point with all the pharmacists graduating.
I cannot believe a pharmacist just asked this question.
What will most likely happen is that salaries will drop to about $80-90k and average student loans will go up to $250k. Some schools will close when they are not be able to get enough tuition money to break even with expenses as the number of applicants falls. This most likely won't happen for at least 10-15 years though, as salaries have not dropped enough, schools still continue to open each year, and there is still easy access to student loans.
I don't think salaries will drop, at least not to that much anyway. Maybe new grads will be offered less, but I doubt current pharmacists will see a pay reduction. I think it's more likely that they'll just stagnate compared to inflation for awhile.
Like everything else, you have to look at the supply vs demand.
Enrollment depends on two main factors. Easy access to student loans and subpar bio graduates who are making $15 a hour working in a lab. Everyone already knows there is a saturation but they are still applying. What are you going to do with a bio degree? Can't do medicine because they don't have the grades. Don't want to do nursing, NP, PA because they don't want to get their hands dirty. Don't want to become a dentist because they don't want to work inside a mouth all day, every day. Do you want to do that?!
You have to remember...people are naturally optimistic or at least they try to convince themselves things will work out. If you ask 10 people if they are above average, I bet you the majority of people would say yes. So it doesn't matter that joe blow can't find a job because he is just average or he didn't work hard enough.
You also have to remember that there is a lot of propaganda out there. There are organizations like the American Association of College Pharmacy whose sole purpose is to get students to apply. You also have the APhA which is pretty much run by people in academia and supported by big corporations like CVS, Walgreens. They too are misleading students. The funny thing is they get the students to spread their propaganda by getting them all excited about "provider status". Oh it is not here yet but soon, it will be! They never talk about working condition, pharmacy school saturation...all of the things pharmacists care about. Why? Because it would hurt enrollment and their sponsors wouldn't allow it. No wonder working pharmacists are not a member not because we don't care but because the APhA doesn't represent us.
You have "studies" like the pharmacy manpower project that are being used to justify the continued growth of pharmacy school. Until recently, deans were also using the BLS report. I guess they won't be using it anymore since it now reports growth will be just 3% over the next 10 years. I never gave much thought to the BLS report anyways since it only projected growth. It doesn't say anything about supply.
And of course you also have a boatload of subpar students who are now given a chance to complete a doctorate program. It used to mean something to get accepted to a pharmacy school. Now all you need is a check from the government and you are in. Look at schools like California Northstate. They are not having a hard time getting students. Their students can't even get federal student loans so they can't get on income based repayment. Can you imagine having to pay $350 k with 7% interest over just 10 years? The interest itself is already $25 k a year!
What is happening now? Working pharmacists are still get paid well. The new grads are being paid 10-15% less so this will eventually put pressure on other pharmacist salary. Pharmacists are also not changing job because their new salary will be much less. Benefits are gone for part time workers. There is also a lot of consolidation in healthcare right now which will also mean some jobs are going to be gone. It is about doing more with less. It is about cutting the extra fat.
Now it is not the time to take it easy and think you are going to work for the next 30 years. You need to grow and develop or you will be next.
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You can succeed in pharmacy if you look at supply and demand and go where there's demand. Yes, most of my classmates working for chains got offered 118K starting this year, but some of us willing to move to less desirable areas for a few years got bonuses and salaries > 130K. You have to decide what your priorities are.
I think pharmacy school enrollment needs to drop at least 20% for pharmacy schools to started to close. It is pretty cheap to run a pharmacy school. You don't need expensive labs and equipments like dental schools. You don't need a hospital like med schools.
If enrollment continues to drop, pharmacy schools will give out more scholarships (taking money from the subpar students and giving it to more competitive students). Of course they will require that they maintain a 3.5 GPA. This is just a way for pharmacy schools to get competitive students to enroll. Some will lose their scholarships but it will be too late by then for them to pack up and leave. Salary of professors may also drop but where are they going to go? It is not like they can go in the private sector and make money from what they are doing.
The "golden age" of pharmacy wasn't about sign on bonus, easy to find jobs. Those things come and go. It was about recruiting the best students. Graduates that would expand and grow the profession. But then, the Great Recession hit. Pharmacy schools got greedy. Nurses became a provider. The rest is history.
If enrollment continues to drop, pharmacy schools will give out more scholarships (taking money from the subpar students and giving it to more competitive students). Of course they will require that they maintain a 3.5 GPA. This is just a way for pharmacy schools to get competitive students to enroll. Some will lose their scholarships but it will be too late by then for them to pack up and leave. Salary of professors may also drop but where are they going to go? It is not like they can go in the private sector and make money from what they are doing.
The "golden age" of pharmacy wasn't about sign on bonus, easy to find jobs. Those things come and go. It was about recruiting the best students. Graduates that would expand and grow the profession. But then, the Great Recession hit. Pharmacy schools got greedy. Nurses became a provider. The rest is history.
People just don't get this. The chains give out sign on bonus because they want to prevent you from leaving. If you do, you would need to pay everything back plus interest in full. But by then, you have already spent the money. You don't even get the full amount because you would have to pay taxes on it. This is how the chains chain you down.
Ask yourself...why would a company give you a sign on bonus in this saturated job market? Because they can't keep their workers. People would rather be unemployed and sit at home than work in rural Kentucky.
Salaries haven't dropped in the midwest. I see stagnation with maybe 1% increases per year but it will be hard to drop salaries for current pharmacists. The midwest has too many undesirable areas to drop salaries.
Salary drop probably has more to do with region. Starting salaries in many saturated areas are already <$100k. I expect the same to happen in other areas as more schools graduate their first classes. Many of the people that I know are absolutely repulsed by having to relocate to an undesirable area and would rather go on IBR/PAYE and live with their parents until they can find a job in their area.
pro re nata
Can you give an example of an area starting under $100k?
Name of the school?
Larkin. I think it's in the south Miami area.
I'm in a very saturated area and the chains are still offering 100k+
I don't see the chains really dipping below 100k, and they are the largest employers of pharmacists
For sign on bonuses, how many years do they force you to stay at the company without breaking the contract where you have to pay back said sign on bonus? The average length of time I mean.
but would re or nata be the object of 'pro'? accusative vs. ablative?
