Second Thoughts...

[nemonemo]

I was recently accepted into a top 10 pharmacy program and am beginning to have some second thoughts. I think I would make a great pharmacist, I have done several personality tests and the top career that comes up is usually a pharmacist or something business related.

When I tell people that I am going to pharmacy school half of the people say... "wow, that's a great field to get into" or "that's awesome!" But... the other half of people say, "oh, you are going to school to count pills?" or "Is that a 2 year program?"

I don't want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and 4 years of my life to only be viewed as a pill counter by the majority of the public. Even my parents think counting pills is all the pharmacists do, they have, however, been supportive. I know that pharmacists do NOT just count pills and they, in fact, do much more. My ultimate goal would be to go into pharmacy administration and be a director of pharmacy at a small hospital, not necessarily a retail pharmacist.

Ultimately, how to I get over the stigma of going to school to be a "pill counter?' I honestly don't know what else I would do.

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[PharmtoCS]

A much bigger reason to avoid pharmacy school would be the job market saturation that continues to get worse each year. There are simply too many pharmacy students graduating from schools each year and not enough jobs. Remember that the majority of pharmacist jobs are in retail and have always been.

There are other professions, i.e. computer programming, finance, accounting, engineering, etc. that pay well, offer a better work-life balance, are in high demand, offer better prestige, and most importantly do not require you to take out $200k+ in loans and spend an additional 4 years in school.

If you really want to go hospital administration then I would just get a degree in health administration. Again, the vast majority of all pharmacist jobs are in retail.

 

[IndiegirlLA]

If I could go back, I would never go to pharmacy school lol. It was probably one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

 

[EastBay80]

I worked at a retail store for a couple years as a pharm tech. I was the one who counted pills and 9 out of 10 pharmacists there came at 12pm, left at 9pm every day and all I saw they did was checking hundreds of the bottles with a scanner.
That is how I imagine to be a pharmacist. I want that job and decide to go for pharmacy school.