The Sky is not falling thread......

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Old Timer

Old Timer

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I would like all of you who think the pharmacy world is coming to an end and most of the people in school now will be selling apples on a street corner or waiting tables at Denny's need to step back and take a chill pill. The only people who can truthfully speak about what is going to happen are:


  • Miss Cleo
  • [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnwyQFe3wRA[/YOUTUBE]
  • An S.D.N. poster with proven abilities to see into the future. Like they have a paper they wrote in 1999 that predicted that pharmacists salaries would go from the upper $20's per hour to the upper $50's per hour in ten years.
There are three things to consider:


  • The economy is starting to recover from deepest and most dangerous recession since the 1930's. It's not all peaches and cream, but things are improving. Both CVS and Wallgreens are going to start opening stores again. It's not like things are spiraling down and out of control.
  • Nobody knows what effect the health care reform legislation is going to have on the demand for pharmacists. With millions of new people entering the system will the demand for pharmacy services go up?
  • People, companies and societies adapt. As pharmacists salaries sky rocketed, new schools opened to fill the void and make money. Maybe salaries will go down and then people will open up their own pharmacies again. Maybe there will be new avenues to practice. Pennsylvania just passed and the governor just signed HB 1041 which allows:
    [FONT=Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif] The Act expands the scope of practice for pharmacists in the Commonwealth, allowing pharmacists to participate in collaborative practice agreements for the management of drug therapy with physicians. It also allows pharmacists to be employed in a physician's office as an "in house" pharmacist..
    Click to expand...
So in reality, stop whining and pay attention to what's in front of you. Do well and become good pharmacists. Nobody knows what is going to happen:

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbsx_vZTcNI[/YOUTUBE]




  • [FONT=Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif].
 
Old Timer said:
There are three things to consider:



  • The economy is starting to recover from deepest and most dangerous recession since the 1930's. It's not all peaches and cream, but things are improving. Both CVS and Wallgreens are going to start opening stores again. It's not like things are spiraling down and out of control.
Click to expand...
I disagree about CVS and Wag's expanding. Expansion of retail pharmacy rode the real estate expansion. The real estate expansion we have seen will not happen again anytime soon. Like the real estate bubble burst and the correction, it will also happen with the retail pharmacy. What happens to the new Wags in a heavily foreclosed newly deveolped area? Decrease in business and cut in business hours.
  • Nobody knows what effect the health care reform legislation is going to have on the demand for pharmacists. With millions of new people entering the system will the demand for pharmacy services go up?
    Click to expand...
How much increase in volume can current system and improved technology handle?
  • People, companies and societies adapt. As pharmacists salaries sky rocketed, new schools opened to fill the void and make money. Maybe salaries will go down and then people will open up their own pharmacies again. Maybe there will be new avenues to practice. Pennsylvania just passed and the governor just signed HB 1041 which allows:
    Click to expand...
How did diploma mill JD adapt?
 
Old Timer said:
Like they have a paper they wrote in 1999 that predicted that pharmacists salaries would go from the upper $20's per hour to the upper $50's per hour in ten years.
Click to expand...
The magical thing about bubbles is that they pop about as fast as they had expanded. Now that the myth of "housing prices don't ever go down" has been thoroughly eviscerated, maybe it's time for "salary never goes down" to get a whupping. Please don't ignore supply and demand.

Old Timer said:
[*]The economy is starting to recover from deepest and most dangerous recession since the 1930's. It's not all peaches and cream, but things are improving. Both CVS and Wallgreens are going to start opening stores again.
Click to expand...
Open new stores where? We will come to a point where we don't need a pharmacy at every major intersection. The expansionary phase is over. The next stage is mergers and consolidation, which would mean fewer pharmacist positions.
 
Well naysayers, my district is getting three new stores and one store is being converted to 24 hours. That's eight new jobs in my district. There are 10 districts in my region and 8 regions in my area. I'm sure that not everybody is getting that many stores, but the slump is over. Also both CVS and Walgreens have markets where they have little or no penetration and will be adding stores in those areas. I'm not saying it's going to be like before, but the sky is not falling.

As for mergers, how do you think CVS got this big? They did almost all of it by acquisition, from Revco to Eckerds to Longs..

I don't know where it is going to end up. Pharmacists could be the air line pilots of the 21st century. There was a time pilots made 100k per year and now they are in the 40's.

I'm just saying, listen to the Zen master We'll see.
 
I tend to put more stock in Z's opinions and outlook when it comes to the future of pharmacy. He has taken risks and experienced a lot.
 
Old Timer said:
Well naysayers, my district is getting three new stores and one store is being converted to 24 hours. That's eight new jobs in my district. There are 10 districts in my region and 8 regions in my area. I'm sure that not everybody is getting that many stores, but the slump is over. Also both CVS and Walgreens have markets where they have little or no penetration and will be adding stores in those areas. I'm not saying it's going to be like before, but the sky is not falling.

As for mergers, how do you think CVS got this big? They did almost all of it by acquisition, from Revco to Eckerds to Longs..

I don't know where it is going to end up. Pharmacists could be the air line pilots of the 21st century. There was a time pilots made 100k per year and now they are in the 40's.

I'm just saying, listen to the Zen master We'll see.
Click to expand...

Good to hear your district is getting 3 more stores. I think in the long term pharmacy will be fine but people starting out are going to struggle for a bit with this economy. With older pharmacists retiring, the aging population, and more people with health insurance, I think pharmacy will still be a good profession to go into. And if salaries did drop dramatically, which they won't, that would sure as hell create a shortage again. I know you were probably being facetious but it wouldn't be worth it to accumulate 100k plus of student loans to make 40k a year and put up with the BS we deal with on a regular basis. I'd go back to school to be a cardiovascular perfusionist.
 
My hospital created some new positions this year. I think we'll be fine in the big scheme of things but the next few years might be tough. Of course, I'm a mere student and my opinion is lacking in many respects.

However, when in the history of man has there been a significant glut of health care providers for a sustained period of time? The notion, to me, seems completely counter-intuitive.

Also, air-line pilots can't dispense drugs 🙂
 
Unemployment is still 9.9%.. does not count of people underemployed (hours cut, part time), and our CCI % still sucks... going up a bit but still kinda meh... More houses are being foreclosed than ever since there are no tax credit as an incentive to buy a house, and also Alt-ARM/Option-ARM recasts are due this year and next year.

401k still about 25% below the peak, means more pharmacists delaying their retirement...

Our GDP% increase was a fake recovery helped by $700 billion gov stimulus which is expiring... Companies are liquidating their inventories and laying off people left and right to make their books look good.. no real recovery

Now... With the European Banks' mess pushing the USD up, manufacturing sector/exports will come into a halt since it makes U.S goods less competitive compared with foreign-produced goods.

Building 2-3 new stores (miniscule) in 1 whole district won't change much of the fact that there are 10000 new schools pumping up new grads. Many of metro areas are already saturated as of now. Most WAG & CVS do not open new stores in metro areas since they already got tons of stores in metro areas anyway. They most likely open new store in rural area. New grads will either have to float, do part time or move in the boonies to get a job >_>

Most retails if not all, stop shipping in foreign grads because they have US citizen pharmacists surplus willing to work for them.

I don't see how US economy will recover anytime soon this year. If it does, it will be a slow U shaped recovery or a small possibility of double dip W shape... I also don't see how pharmacists demand will go back up to pre-recession level. There is NO other way but down from here...
 
I dont know about the future but pharmacy is of course not doing well like other posters stated. I hope c/o 2010 will do well.
 
This past year we hired 3 pharmacists- 2 transplant specialists who had fancy residencies and 1 hem/onc. We also hired 4 techs. Our hospital is set to expand in the next 10 years (new 10 story tower) which means more pharmacists and techs 🙂 another hospital in the area was offering a $1500 sign on bonus for a TECH.
 
Hopefully pharmacies/hospitals will stop renewing foreign pharmacists visas. Sorry if that is you, but Americans should come first.
 
Momus said:
Unemployment is still 9.9%.. does not count of people underemployed (hours cut, part time), and our CCI % still sucks... going up a bit but still kinda meh... More houses are being foreclosed than ever since there are no tax credit as an incentive to buy a house, and also Alt-ARM/Option-ARM recasts are due this year and next year.

401k still about 25% below the peak, means more pharmacists delaying their retirement...

Our GDP% increase was a fake recovery helped by $700 billion gov stimulus which is expiring... Companies are liquidating their inventories and laying off people left and right to make their books look good.. no real recovery

Now... With the European Banks' mess pushing the USD up, manufacturing sector/exports will come into a halt since it makes U.S goods less competitive compared with foreign-produced goods.

Building 2-3 new stores (miniscule) in 1 whole district won't change much of the fact that there are 10000 new schools pumping up new grads. Many of metro areas are already saturated as of now. Most WAG & CVS do not open new stores in metro areas since they already got tons of stores in metro areas anyway. They most likely open new store in rural area. New grads will either have to float, do part time or move in the boonies to get a job >_>

Most retails if not all, stop shipping in foreign grads because they have US citizen pharmacists surplus willing to work for them.

I don't see how US economy will recover anytime soon this year. If it does, it will be a slow U shaped recovery or a small possibility of double dip W shape... I also don't see how pharmacists demand will go back up to pre-recession level. There is NO other way but down from here...
Click to expand...


agreed fully. makes total sense.
 
museabuse said:
Hopefully pharmacies/hospitals will stop renewing foreign pharmacists visas. Sorry if that is you, but Americans should come first.
Click to expand...

This kind of crap makes me want to backhand you.

If you are MORE DESERVING of a job than someone else, then you get it. If foreign pharmacists are better able to care for their patients and work harder than you are, you should be waiting in the unemployment line while they dose vanco or consult with a patient. That is the American way, your parents were immigrants once too and everyone deserves the same opportunity.
 
Thumper17 said:
This kind of crap makes me want to backhand you.

If you are MORE DESERVING of a job than someone else, then you get it. If foreign pharmacists are better able to care for their patients and work harder than you are, you should be waiting in the unemployment line while they dose vanco or consult with a patient. That is the American way, your parents were immigrants once too and everyone deserves the same opportunity.
Click to expand...

In theory no true american would disagree with you. My parents are immigrants and my dad came over here to do his PhD. Still, the idea of "equal opportunity" has to be questioned when a foreign graduate can go to school overseas and acquire a drastically smaller amount debt, and then get a work visa from a US company to join the job market over here. At what point do we say that we have crossed the line giving equal opportunity to foreign trained RPh's and are now at the point of giving them an unfair advantage?
 
Thumper17 said:
This kind of crap makes me want to backhand you.

If you are MORE DESERVING of a job than someone else, then you get it. If foreign pharmacists are better able to care for their patients and work harder than you are, you should be waiting in the unemployment line while they dose vanco or consult with a patient. That is the American way, your parents were immigrants once too and everyone deserves the same opportunity.
Click to expand...
Apparently you haven't worked with some of the foreign pharmacists that went to some herbal pharmacy school in India, Korea or where ever. That came over here during the shortage with zero knowledge, that are now pharmacists because they took a class to help them pass a test.

Oh and the most deserving person doesn't get the job... That is not the American way. Sometimes it's who you know, whose butt you kiss.
, and whether or not you play golf.
 
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Thumper17 said:
This kind of crap makes me want to backhand you.

If you are MORE DESERVING of a job than someone else, then you get it. If foreign pharmacists are better able to care for their patients and work harder than you are, you should be waiting in the unemployment line while they dose vanco or consult with a patient. That is the American way, your parents were immigrants once too and everyone deserves the same opportunity.
Click to expand...

There are several fallacies in your argument.

1) Immigrants at the turn of the century had all doors open to them. That is a complete and total sack of lying sh**. My great grandfather was an Architect in Russia and was never allowed to be an architect in the USA. It took three generations for someone to graduate from college. So this comparison does not pass the smell test. There were quotas at US universities to make sure not too many of my kind got to go to college. See The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton Things were so bad, City College of New York was called the Jewish Harvard.

2) The American way is for Americans. It's not for Indians, Mexicans, Pakistanis or anyone else. If you want to come to America, come and become a citizen. Once you're a citizen, it doesn't matter where your from. Put your hand in your pocket and pick out any US coin. There is a latin saying e-pluribus unum. Out of many, one. You don't get to get a bargain basement education in the third world and then come here to be sponsored by a greedy corporation who can use you to drive down wages of US citizens. I have no problems with anyone who wants to come here and be successful. Just come here and join the club if you want all of the benefits.
 
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Just to add to the expansions some are having. CVS is fully moving into my state. There tactic, however, seems to be to build their stores across from walgreens. Don't know how that will turn out. Plus more Walgreens stores because my city is still growing.
 
Old Timer said:
Well naysayers, my district is getting three new stores and one store is being converted to 24 hours. That's eight new jobs in my district. There are 10 districts in my region and 8 regions in my area. I'm sure that not everybody is getting that many stores, but the slump is over. Also both CVS and Walgreens have markets where they have little or no penetration and will be adding stores in those areas. I'm not saying it's going to be like before, but the sky is not falling.

As for mergers, how do you think CVS got this big? They did almost all of it by acquisition, from Revco to Eckerds to Longs..

I don't know where it is going to end up. Pharmacists could be the air line pilots of the 21st century. There was a time pilots made 100k per year and now they are in the 40's.

I'm just saying, listen to the Zen master We'll see.
Click to expand...


Hmmm. My husband is an airline pilot and makes over 250k... He made 40k his first year way back when he flew a puddle jumper. Pilots flying for the major airlines make WAY more than 40k.
 
Smilescali said:
Hmmm. My husband is an airline pilot and makes over 250k... He made 40k his first year way back when he flew a puddle jumper. Pilots flying for the major airlines make WAY more than 40k.
Click to expand...

I won't dispute your figures. I got my info from the Wall St Journal.
 
Old Timer said:
I won't dispute your figures. I got my info from the Wall St Journal.
Click to expand...

That article is misleading in how it it uses the word "minimum" constantly when referring to pay. That is just it! The minimum pay. I attached the pay schedules for most airlines and you can see how they get paid peanuts the first year and then the hourly pay increases. They get a huge increase when they upgrade to the Captain position. These figures don't even factor in per diem pay either...

However, the article touches on a key point, the golden years of airline pilots making an EASY 300K are over! Especially for carriers like UAL,AMR and Delta. My hubby works for Southwest 😍
 

Attachments

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Smilescali said:
Hmmm. My husband is an airline pilot and makes over 250k... He made 40k his first year way back when he flew a puddle jumper. Pilots flying for the major airlines make WAY more than 40k.
Click to expand...

Your husband is lucky. Most commercial airline pilots do not work for major airlines, but small regional ones, where they'd be lucky making $60k. Remember the recent Buffalo crash? Those pilots made $50k on redeye schedules. If the airline your husband works at ever goes belly up, he can also kiss seniority goodbye and start from year 1. It's nearly impossible to get a job at a legacy airline without knowing someone in the union.

Furthermore, the legacy airlines are cutting back capacity on their mainlines, and relying more and more on their regional subsidiaries.

The airline pilot analogy to pharmacy is very apt. The people with jobs have it pretty good, the ones who are trying to break in are out of luck.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the decline in pilot salary largely due in part to their unions negotiations, and pharmacists in most part are prohibited from joining unions. I'm not saying unions are the answer or that large corporations are any better, but you can't compare apples to oranges.
 
Pinser555 said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the decline in pilot salary largely due in part to their unions negotiations, and pharmacists in most part are prohibited from joining unions. I'm not saying unions are the answer or that large corporations are any better, but you can't compare apples to oranges.
Click to expand...

No it was due to an unsustainable business model for the airlines. They could not afford to pay pilots the amount they were being paid and they found people who would work for less....
 
"Poor pay and fewer big-airline jobs to move up to have led to fewer applicants, creating a pilot shortage that is most acute overseas but is also felt here.

Regional airlines have had to reduce hiring standards drastically. Earlier this decade, they could insist on a candidate's having at least 1,500 hours of total flight time before an interview. Today, that minimum is 500 hours at many regional carriers. The decline is contributing to safety concerns among some experts.

The seniority system — a new pilot starts at the bottom at most airlines, earning the lowest pay and getting the worst shifts — limits job-hopping. So choosing the right employer the first time around is crucial. Moving from first officer, the right seat, to captain, the left seat, brings the biggest leap in pay and status."

quote from the new york times 2008. I surely don't want bad pilots flying my planes or bad pharmacists filling my prescriptions. I'm not providing any answers, but maybe we can learn something from their fate. But little is in our power. So what do we do?
 
Smilescali said:
That article is misleading in how it it uses the word "minimum" constantly when referring to pay. That is just it! The minimum pay. I attached the pay schedules for most airlines and you can see how they get paid peanuts the first year and then the hourly pay increases. They get a huge increase when they upgrade to the Captain position. These figures don't even factor in per diem pay either...

However, the article touches on a key point, the golden years of airline pilots making an EASY 300K are over! Especially for carriers like UAL,AMR and Delta. My hubby works for Southwest 😍
Click to expand...

Wow I wonder why there is a surplus of pharmacists but not pilots. LOL...pre-pharms should go into airlines instead.
 
SHC1984 said:
Wow I wonder why there is a surplus of pharmacists but not pilots. LOL...pre-pharms should go into airlines instead.
Click to expand...

There is not a shortage of pilots here. I know my neighbor works for United and has been put on furlow. They said he would be the first to be called when there is an opening, that was 6 months ago. He was making a lot of money so maybe that is there way of hiring cheaper pilots? I know this is just one example so maybe its a regional thing.
 
A walgreens recently opened and a CVS is still under construction five minutes from where I live in N. Jersey
 
museabuse said:
There is not a shortage of pilots here. I know my neighbor works for United and has been put on furlow. They said he would be the first to be called when there is an opening, that was 6 months ago. He was making a lot of money so maybe that is there way of hiring cheaper pilots? I know this is just one example so maybe its a regional thing.
Click to expand...

I can choose not to fly if i want to. Infact tons of people never fly their entire lives. But you can not choose to not take medication when you are sick (for the most part). This eans as long as the population keeps growing and baby boomers age, the need for health care services and also pharmacy will be there. No the hourly salary migh not increase as we would like because of more schools training more pharmacist but pharmacist will always be in demand. Why are we comparing apples to aranges?
 
nditebeck said:
I can choose not to fly if i want to. Infact tons of people never fly their entire lives. But you can not choose to not take medication when you are sick (for the most part). This eans as long as the population keeps growing and baby boomers age, the need for health care services and also pharmacy will be there. No the hourly salary migh not increase as we would like because of more schools training more pharmacist but pharmacist will always be in demand. Why are we comparing apples to aranges?
Click to expand...

You can choose to go to Mexico for your meds 🙂
 
SHC1984 said:
Wow I wonder why there is a surplus of pharmacists but not pilots. LOL...pre-pharms should go into airlines instead.
Click to expand...
Because the process is just as hard but different from pharmacy. Alot of airlines want to see you have a bachelors degree. You must pay to get your flight time which can be often as expensive as pharmacy school. When you start out, you make peanuts. I don't mean 30k. No, it is often much less. Then MAYBE one day you will break 6 figures.
:scared:
 
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