regretting decision to go into pharmacy

[LasagnaBoy]

Hi,

I am in my first year of Pharmacy school, and I am starting to reconsider whether or not I made the right choice in coming to Pharmacy school. Although this is not a major reason, a major disadvantage I see is that I do not get much consecutive vacation time. Is this true? The reason I want more consecutive vacation time is because traveling is something I really want to do since I did not do much of it growing up, and I would love to visit as many countries as I can once I begin my profession. From what I hear about retail pharmacy, your vacation time is often broken up into chunks. For example, say you have 28 days of vacation in one year. It would be hard to take off for all 28 days in a row; instead, you would have to break it up into chunks here and there.

My question is, what ARE some jobs in pharmacy that give good vacation time that you can take off in a row (uninterrupted)? I cannot think of any besides academic pharmacy. However, I am scared of going into that because I know that in academics, it is very competitive and you should not count on getting a teaching/research position at a first-choice location (for example, UCSF). For personal reasons, I would either want to be in San Francisco or New York, and if it is that important to me I end up at either of these cities, is academic pharmacy even worth going into since it will be entirely too competitive to get residencies in those locations?

I have worked in both hospital and retail pharmacies, and I realize now that I cannot see myself working in either of these long-term.

I am very confused. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks so much guys!

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[fenixtnlfan]

I don't think vacation time should be one of your major deciding factors about pharmacy. It's pretty hard to find any job where you can get long periods of time off unless you've worked at the company for a long time. Remember this is America...we like working and buying things Move to France...lol

Now I'm not positive on academic positions, but I think most of them are tied with you doing research. Those positions are very hard to get as you said. Plus, getting grants is getting tougher every year.

I suggest talking to some of your professors about the kinds of jobs they do and how they got there. The nice thing about pharmacy is there's a lot of different jobs out there.

 

[Allure]

You've worked at both hospital and retail pharmacies, and yet you are just now finding out that you won't have a lot of vacation times? That being said, it's totally untrue. I worked with pharmacists that did 7-on/7-off. So they only need to take a week off to have 3 weeks off in a row. And if they really wanted to, they can take 2 weeks off and have a 5 weeks off in a row. This was a hospital setting, so they had more pharmacists to pick up hours for the ones that were on vacations. I don't know if it would be possible for retail.

My classmate's fiancee travels a lot for her job. She is also a pharmacist and I think he mentioned once that she is in industry. So maybe you can look into that, except you will travel for work and not for fun.

As far as academia goes, if those are the only 2 places that you're willing to relocate, I'd say you can forget that option unless you know someone in the school that can hook you up.

Another option is to open your own pharmacy, make tons of money, hire a bunch of pharmacists to work while you're traveling.

 

[penguins429]

You've worked at both hospital and retail pharmacies, and yet you are just now finding out that you won't have a lot of vacation times? That being said, it's totally untrue. I worked with pharmacists that did 7-on/7-off. So they only need to take a week off to have 3 weeks off in a row. And if they really wanted to, they can take 2 weeks off and have a 5 weeks off in a row. This was a hospital setting, so they had more pharmacists to pick up hours for the ones that were on vacations. I don't know if it would be possible for retail.

My classmate's fiancee travels a lot for her job. She is also a pharmacist and I think he mentioned once that she is in industry. So maybe you can look into that, except you will travel for work and not for fun.

As far as academia goes, if those are the only 2 places that you're willing to relocate, I'd say you can forget that option unless you know someone in the school that can hook you up.

Another option is to open your own pharmacy, make tons of money, hire a bunch of pharmacists to work while you're traveling.

The thing with a 7 on 7 off position is that you work 80 hours in 1 week ... so in order to take off an entire week, you would actually have to take off 80 hours ... so depending on how many weeks of vacation you get every year, this wouldn't be something you can do too often ...

Still, with a 7 on 7 off job, you can pretty much go on a vacation every other week if you really wanted to ...

 

[soyroger]

I don't think academics is going to be very conducive to taking long periods of time off, at least not at the graduate level. From comments I've heard from professors they are here during the summer too, doing research and working on the curriculum. It's not too often anyone reaps the rewards of hard work at the beginning of their career. The only pharmacist I know who takes month long vacations graduated a long time ago, has white hair, sold his own independent pharmacy years ago, and basically works part time but could be retired.

However, the great thing about this career is that you can move into different areas throughout your career. You can start with a residency and work in a hospital, work retail, go into per diem or relief pharmacy, go back to hospital, work in industry...or even apply for Epic's new venture. Pharmacy is very versatile if you're willing to accept change and adapt.

 

[Allure]

The thing with a 7 on 7 off position is that you work 80 hours in 1 week ... so in order to take off an entire week, you would actually have to take off 80 hours ... so depending on how many weeks of vacation you get every year, this wouldn't be something you can do too often ...

Still, with a 7 on 7 off job, you can pretty much go on a vacation every other week if you really wanted to ...

At the hospital where I worked, they can accumulate a lot of vacation hours and the hours carry on. So we didn't have to use up all of vacation hours in that year period. The pharmacists did 11 hours/night for 77 hours/week and got paid for 80 hours. Some of them had enough hours that they can take a few months off if there is coverage for them, which is pretty nice.

 

[confettiflyer]

I'm sure you can be in the retail float pool forever and just give notice that you'll be gone for 6 months at a time....though once the pharmacist surplus presents itself, a company just might not want to deal with you.

 

[Rfour]

^^^ That's what I do. Although if you work in a high demand area you'll never run out of places to float to. It would be difficult to maintain health insurance through your employer if you like taking off indefinately but you can do what I do and just purchase a high deductible health insurance HSA policy.

What's cool too about floating is you can works loads of OT in the winter time then take the summers off or just work fewer days.

 

[confettiflyer]

I'm hoping to do that before any kids come along...I don't think they'd appreciate the breadwinner of the family being gone for 6 months at a time and raking in only $50-60k working part time.

 

[bananaface]

If time off/lifestyle is your reason for rejecting pharmacy, going into medicine instead would be like trying to get out of the hole by digging deeper. If you want vacation whenever you want vacation, work for a pharmacist relief agency.

 

[patmcd]

You are going to be very hard pressed to find a job that will let you take that much time off in one shot. Your best bet would be working for a temp pharmacy agency.

 

[confettiflyer]

I'm just wondering what you'll do when you have a wife/kids. Chances are, unless your wife doesn't work, she won't be able to take the time off with you unless she too is a relief pharmacist or perhaps a freelance writer.

 

[LasagnaBoy]

I am not thinking about going into medicine any longer. That was before I decided to go into pharmacy. Well, I will worry about the wife and kids later, but for now, I would like to be able to have the option to take 2-3 months off at a time to travel. What is relief pharmacy, by the way? I have never heard of it.

 

[Farmercyst]

Some shots in the dark. Drug Information, Poison Control. Not sure about industry positions like MSL, or such. Oooh, how about management, Epic always seems to be on vacation. Wait, maybe golf is work for him, I forget. If you get high enough up in an international company they might pay for your travel. It may not be as fun, but it's certainly cheaper that way.

 

[SGPharmD]

I am not thinking about going into medicine any longer. That was before I decided to go into pharmacy. Well, I will worry about the wife and kids later, but for now, I would like to be able to have the option to take 2-3 months off at a time to travel. What is relief pharmacy, by the way? I have never heard of it.

I don't think that vacation time should be the reason why you think pharmacy isn't for you. And quite frankly, I don't know of any profession or any job for that matter that would allow you to take off 2-3 month of vacation time in 1 sitting, except for teaching. There's an option, you could get your PharmD and teach at a school, however they usually like to hire people with long life experience in pharmacy/industry not right out of school.

Anyway, I do work with a Pharmacist that is Indian and she goes to India every year for a month for religious reasons. That is her vaction time. I'm pretty sure she doesn't take off any other time unless she is ill or needs a personal day. She has also worked for our company for like 7 years. So if you work in a compassionate/flexible pharmacy, you may be able to work something out with them. But don't expect to be able to take 2-3 months off at a time to travel. That's inapproprate when you can just take a week or 2 vacation like everyone else does. Especially when they can easily replace you.

 

[Farmercyst]

I don't think that vacation time should be the reason why you think pharmacy isn't for you. And quite frankly, I don't know of any profession or any job for that matter that would allow you to take off 2-3 month of vacation time in 1 sitting, except for teaching. There's an option, you could get your PharmD and teach at a school, however they usually like to hire people with long life experience in pharmacy/industry not right out of school.

Anyway, I do work with a Pharmacist that is Indian and she goes to India every year for a month for religious reasons. That is her vaction time. I'm pretty sure she doesn't take off any other time unless she is ill or needs a personal day. She has also worked for our company for like 7 years. So if you work in a compassionate/flexible pharmacy, you may be able to work something out with them. But don't expect to be able to take 2-3 months off at a time to travel. That's inapproprate when you can just take a week or 2 vacation like everyone else does. Especially when they can easily replace you.

You might be able to work it in a union job. I know I got 2 weeks vacation/year + "holiday credits" at my last job. I had enough saved up to take the last 7 weeks off before I started school.

 

[LasagnaBoy]

Well, how many of these pharmacy jobs offer you vacation time in a row (say, 2 weeks will actually get you 2 weeks in a row and not 14 days broken up here and there)?

I am not reconsidering pharmacy only because of the vacation thing. I also cannot see myself working in a community pharmacy long-term as a full-time job. It is just too much repetition (I know I would get restless). While I do not want a job that constantly changes everyday (I would get too stressed out), I don't want a job that is too rigidly fixed in routine. Are there other fields of pharmacy that lend to this? Also, for these fields, is the job mobility as favorable as in retail?

 

[Sevarious]

Vacation can be what you make of it. A friend of mine who is a recent grad and a new hire at a hospital got three weeks of of time off for an international trip. He worked over the holiday season and then took his vacation during an off-peak time. If you play things intelligently (meaning not taking vacation when everyone else is) you'll have no problem securing lots of vacation time.

Academic jobs aren't going to give you months off at a time. Most academic jobs require that you produce papers and get grants in order to keep your job. Most successful academics work their butts off to get where they are. If you're content on eternal post-docing you can probably take a month off a year. Good luck being able to afford an international vacation on a post-doc salary though.

Yes, I'll agree that community pharmacy sucks. But there are plenty of other career options then just retail. Scan the boards here, ask around at school and keep an open mind. Do not underestimate the power of the PharmD.

 

[pharmdch]

I don't mean to be offensive, but welcome to the labor force. Aside from primary and secondary education, I'm not aware of many jobs in any industry where it's a trivial matter to take off an entire month at a time.

That said, a 7-on / 7-off schedule, as others have suggested, would probably be your best bet. Every other week you could travel anywhere you like. Granted, that's not really long enough for globe-trotting, but it's sufficient to travel anywhere on the continent. And if you need two weeks, you can occasionally work it out with your partner.

Otherwise, quit pharmacy school and become a flight attendant.