Should I go to pharmacy school?

[PAtoPharm]

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No, I knew you only failed one class, but I thought you were dismissed from the school because of failing that class (or at least the test) twice. But obviously, AA was your first choice, so I wish you success as you return to it (have you been accepted yet? I haven't been around here much this summer, so I don't know.) Now if I remember correctly, the stress of the test mimicing a real world anethesia crisis is what caused you to fail, so you decided to go to pharmacy specifically because you thought it would be non-stressful (even though I and many others told you pharmacy is a very stressful career.).....so what are you going to do different in order to handle your stress? I remember recommending to you a couple of years ago that you talk to a counselor or take some kind of stress-managment class. Have you figured out how to handle your stress, so you can pass the class this time?

Practice every day and remind myself that it could be worse -- I could still be in pharmacy school working towards an uncertain future that would see me moving to an undesirable area of a state I would never want to live in if I didn't otherwise have no choice but to move there to get a job

 

[Abby Atwood]

You're right, $150k is not a standard starting salary for AAs/CRNAs (but it is offered more commonly in BFE areas), but $80k-$100k is way too low. The only area of the country that pays anywhere close to $80k-$100k is parts of south FL, which may pay as low as $110k. To get a more accurate idea of what AAs and CRNAs actually make, browse over some of the jobs that are currently listed and make note of the salaries you see:

GasWork.com - Search - Anesthesiologist Assistant Jobs

Not only are there no jobs with listed salaries that offer as low a $80k/year, but make note of the fact that the "max" listed salaries for most jobs are higher than the max salaries paid by retail chains to even their most experienced pharmacists, and that they're WAY higher than the max salaries earned by hospital pharmacists pretty much anywhere outside of CA. Coming on here and describing your opinion-based method of refuting my claims regarding AA starting salaries as your idea of "fact checking" is a joke.

Wow, I didn't think about the fact that there are actually 3 and not 2 years of didactic training for pharmacists. Yeah, there's no way in hell I could imagine forcing myself through two more years of this crap.

I think you are messing up anticipated salaries because you keep putting AAs and CRNAs in the same basket. As other people have pointed out, CRNAs have a lot more education and are generally higher paid. Although some positions seek either or, odds are that those positions are going to prefer the more educated CRNA vs the less educated AA.

My fact checking of your posts is not opinion based. These are the actual facts; however, I'll let you believe and say whatever you want as long as you don't step on my toes. You can say that the moon is made of cheese and I won't correct you as long as you don't end the post with, "therefore pharmacy sucks." When you start acting like a jerk, I will point out that you are wrong about everything. 🙂

How did you make it through a year of pharmacy school without knowing that there were 3 years of didactic education for the program? I don't really know what's up with you, but I'm pretty sure that you were never a pharmacy student.

 

[PAtoPharm]

I think you are messing up anticipated salaries because you keep putting AAs and CRNAs in the same basket. As other people have pointed out, CRNAs have a lot more education and are generally higher paid. Although some positions seek either or, odds are that those positions are going to prefer the more educated CRNA vs the less educated AA.

My fact checking of your posts is not opinion based. These are the actual facts; however, I'll let you believe and say whatever you want as long as you don't step on my toes. You can say that the moon is made of cheese and I won't correct you as long as you don't end the post with, "therefore pharmacy sucks." When you start acting like a jerk, I will point out that you are wrong about everything. 🙂

How did you make it through a year of pharmacy school without knowing that there were 3 years of didactic education for the program? I don't really know what's up with you, but I'm pretty sure that you were never a pharmacy student.

Brilliant trolling. You insist that "these are the actual facts," but you state these "facts" as if they are simply taken to be true without citing any sources or evidence. What is especially clever about your trolling is that you insist on attempting to correct statements I make regarding the AA/CRNA career that you have no evidence for being false, and you also insist on disputing statements I make regarding the pharmacist job market that you know are true. It's not even worth my time to argue with you anymore. I have so much more to look forward to than what pharmacy would've provided. At least I won't be one of those posters who pushes through pharmacy school, graduates, then returns here only to say "Wow, I should've quit when I had the chance after all." Just not even worth it

 

[Abby Atwood]

Brilliant trolling. You insist that "these are the actual facts," but you state these "facts" as if they are simply taken to be true without citing any sources or evidence. What is especially clever about your trolling is that you insist on attempting to correct statements I make regarding the AA/CRNA career that you have no evidence for being false, and you also insist on disputing statements I make regarding the pharmacist job market that you know are true. It's not even worth my time to argue with you anymore. I have so much more to look forward to than what pharmacy would've provided. At least I won't be one of those posters who pushes through pharmacy school, graduates, then returns here only to say "Wow, I should've quit when I had the chance after all." Just not even worth it

This one's an easy read:
Salary Comparison Between AA and CRNA

You have to use internet archive to access one of their sources, but here you go
Health care income ranges
May 2016 National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates

Why are you pretending that you attended pharmacy school when you never attended pharmacy school? Was your application rejected? Did you even apply? Are you actually a student right now?
Very weird

 

[gwarm01]

I think I'm going to start posting exclusively on the PA forums.

 

[nutripharma]

Brilliant trolling. You insist that "these are the actual facts," but you state these "facts" as if they are simply taken to be true without citing any sources or evidence. What is especially clever about your trolling is that you insist on attempting to correct statements I make regarding the AA/CRNA career that you have no evidence for being false, and you also insist on disputing statements I make regarding the pharmacist job market that you know are true. It's not even worth my time to argue with you anymore. I have so much more to look forward to than what pharmacy would've provided. At least I won't be one of those posters who pushes through pharmacy school, graduates, then returns here only to say "Wow, I should've quit when I had the chance after all." Just not even worth it

You're proving me right. Honestly, they will never give up with you and it's probably enjoyable. Unless you have this much time, STOP DEFENDING YOURSELF. Anyone who has enough time to read through your posts and find errors will never stop. Not saying give up, just saying give yourself rest - you deserve one. You also have to realize that you're continuing and argument on someone's thread and that defeats the purpose of these threads. They have a question and they want an answer. I've been in your position before and I realized later that it was trivial who hates me on an online (semi)anonymous forum. They don't live in your life, and they don't know who you are. If they do, you got a problem there.

 

[PAtoPharm]

You're proving me right. Honestly, they will never give up with you and it's probably enjoyable. Unless you have this much time, STOP DEFENDING YOURSELF. Anyone who has enough time to read through your posts and find errors will never stop. Not saying give up, just saying give yourself rest - you deserve one. You also have to realize that you're continuing and argument on someone's thread and that defeats the purpose of these threads. They have a question and they want an answer. I've been in your position before and I realized later that it was trivial who hates me on an online (semi)anonymous forum. They don't live in your life, and they don't know who you are. If they do, you got a problem there.

I'm just surprised that it's not more obvious to more people here that the others are doing the most egregious, intentional trolling. At the end of the day, I guess it's "their" forum, and that's what you can expect to get.

Edited to add: @nutripharma, a clear example of what I mean is when Abby Atwood quotes smercer3's post in which he says that he figures that CRNAs would be preferable to hire to AAs, and she agrees with his opinion and proceeds to reference how she only speaks in terms of "facts," such as when she declared it to be a "fact" that CRNAs are hired over AAs because it is of two SDN posters' opinions that that should be the case. Are people really falling for this crap? I can't be the only one who sees through the BS

 

[Abby Atwood]

I'm just surprised that it's not more obvious to more people here that the others are doing the most egregious, intentional trolling. At the end of the day, I guess it's "their" forum, and that's what you can expect to get.

I think people would be fine with you if you were talking to people instead of at them. It would also help if you didn't flip out all the time. Finally, you may have to be honest about something or stick to your area of expertise. I would be really interested to hear about why you lied about attending pharmacy school for a year.

I was really nice to you because I thought you were some kid that got kicked out of a second professional program after a year of study. I don't have a guess about who you are now. 🙂

 

[Mounjaro]

I think people would be fine with you if you were talking to people instead of at them. It would also help if you didn't flip out all the time. Finally, you may have to be honest about something or stick to your area of expertise. I would be really interested to hear about why you lied about attending pharmacy school for a year.

I was really nice to you because I thought you were some kid that got kicked out of a second professional program after a year of study. I don't have a guess about who you are now. 🙂

 

[owlegrad]

I think we are being gaslighted here. "I am not the troll, all of you are the trolls!"

 

[Jbrl]

I'm just surprised that it's not more obvious to more people here that the others are doing the most egregious, intentional trolling. At the end of the day, I guess it's "their" forum, and that's what you can expect to get.

You gotta get another hobby, man.

 

[Z-Qualizer]

I think people would be fine with you if you were talking to people instead of at them. It would also help if you didn't flip out all the time. Finally, you may have to be honest about something or stick to your area of expertise. I would be really interested to hear about why you lied about attending pharmacy school for a year.

Wait... @PAtoPharm is this true???

 

[PAtoPharm]

Wait... @PAtoPharm is this true???

Of course not. See one of my other recent posts; I'm not responding to her anymore. She's just a troll. For example -- she'll quote someone else's post in which they say that in their opinion, they think CRNAs are more qualified/better trained than AAs to provide anesthesia and that they would expect hospitals to preferentially hire CRNAs over AAs, and she'll agree with their sentiment and say that she also thinks this would be the case. Even though these are all 100% opinion-based statements, she'll state in her next post, "I only post facts here, and I've already established the fact that hospitals hire CRNAs preferentially over AAs when they can, so there you go." She also posts decade-plus old salary stats for healthcare professions and insists that those figures are relevant as average/median incomes of AAs practicing today. Ironically, if you post a link to a jobs website that actually has real-life AA/CRNA jobs posted with starting salaries, PTO, etc. advertised, she either doesn't comment on it or refuses to view the source.

So yeah, I stopped responding to that user. Just not worth my time. I think their goal is to get an outburst out of me so that I'll say something really ugly and get banned. Or maybe they're really that misinformed. Either way, it's not even worth it to respond

 

[Abby Atwood]

Of course not. See one of my other recent posts; I'm not responding to her anymore. She's just a troll. For example -- she'll quote someone else's post in which they say that in their opinion, they think CRNAs are more qualified/better trained than AAs to provide anesthesia and that they would expect hospitals to preferentially hire CRNAs over AAs, and she'll agree with their sentiment and say that she also thinks this would be the case. Even though these are all 100% opinion-based statements, she'll state in her next post, "I only post facts here, and I've already established the fact that hospitals hire CRNAs preferentially over AAs when they can, so there you go." She also posts decade-plus old salary stats for healthcare professions and insists that those figures are relevant as average/median incomes of AAs practicing today. Ironically, if you post a link to a jobs website that actually has real-life AA/CRNA jobs posted with starting salaries, PTO, etc. advertised, she either doesn't comment on it or refuses to view the source.

So yeah, I stopped responding to that user. Just not worth my time. I think their goal is to get an outburst out of me so that I'll say something really ugly and get banned. Or maybe they're really that misinformed. Either way, it's not even worth it to respond

Preference for a CRNA is an opinion, but pay grade and training for CRNA vs AA is fact not opinion. I posted some older stats because they help make your case and I wanted to be fair. The PA category from the 2016 BLS survey includes AAs, but AAs typically make more than the average PA. If I only posted those numbers it would look like your anticipated salary would be 100K average. You may make a bit more than that.

I think the person was asking whether you lied about attending pharmacy school. I don't think they really cared if I was accurately representing average salaries for AAs.

Addendum: It is reasonable to ask given that you couldn't remember how many years of pharmacy school you had left when you supposedly quit school last month. 🙂

 

[WildWing]

This thread does not meet the standards of professionalism that we require on SDN. Closing thread.