What can we do to prevent new schools from opening?

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steveysmith54

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CA resident here. I live in LA, and i hear about a new school in Long Beach about to open. If you're from this area, there are practically no jobs here and in OC.

I was thinking of writing a letter to ACPE on behalf of my class and getting signatures from my classmates.

Anyone have any ideas?
 
CA resident here. I live in LA, and i hear about a new school in Long Beach about to open. If you're from this area, there are practically no jobs here and in OC.

I was thinking of writing a letter to ACPE on behalf of my class and getting signatures from my classmates.

Anyone have any ideas?

You would be wasting your time.
 
it's not gonna do any good. the acpe is lining their pockets and laughing all the way to the bank with all of these new schools opening. and they are ruining the profession at the same time. they are taking advantage of this poor economic climate because people still think that you are guaranteed a job as a pharmacist making $100,000 after 6 years of school. but it's trickling down. no profession is safe between the poor economy and healthcare reform.
 
Dear ACPE,

Stop making money.

Signed,
anonymous internet user


...




Dear anonymous internet user,

Free market baby.

With love,
ACPE
 
Convince people to stop applying to them and paying tuition to them. 😀 The new ones will stop opening and those that opened will close all on their own accord. 😀
 
There are a few things that you might do.

Perhaps convince the boards of pharmacy to stop recognizing the ACPE as the primary accreditation org of pharmacists in order to practice pharmacy and for the rational people to come up with a new one with ridiculously high standards.

Or for them to begin requiring a residency to get a new license. The low number of residency spots will act as a natural filter. People will be much less likely to apply to pharmacy school if there is no guarantee of a residency. (I like this idea)

Or you can overthrow the government and decide how to license pharmacists yourself.
 
CA resident here. I live in LA, and i hear about a new school in Long Beach about to open. If you're from this area, there are practically no jobs here and in OC.

I was thinking of writing a letter to ACPE on behalf of my class and getting signatures from my classmates.

Anyone have any ideas?

Don't forget about the Fresno one...
 
If it gets really bad, then there will be a lot of students defaulting on their 200k loans. Once that happens won't schools lose their ability to issue govt loans, if say half the class is defaulting? Then the schools most likely have to close. I don't know if that is how it works or not.
 
Also there's the possibility that a new school will unable to find the proper resources (faculty, IPPE/APPE sites, etc.) During their recent visit to St. John Fisher, several members of ACPE have already said that they fully expect at least one school to fail within the next 5-10 years. Perhaps once that happens, it will turn the tide of pharmacy school expansion.
 
Also there's the possibility that a new school will unable to find the proper resources (faculty, IPPE/APPE sites, etc.) During their recent visit to St. John Fisher, several members of ACPE have already said that they fully expect at least one school to fail within the next 5-10 years. Perhaps once that happens, it will turn the tide of pharmacy school expansion.

I wonder what school it will be...

One of the posters is right.... As long as there are students applying, the schools will continue to open. If the schools are having trouble finding students, they WILL lower the standards to fill their classes. Maybe one of us should write an article about the job market for pharmacists for some major news source. Anybody have connections? Haha we can make it all dramatic because the average person thinks that pharmacists can find jobs easily. I am sorta serious about this...
 
I don't get it, why should pharmacy schools be any different than the overall trend of higher education since....most of us have been alive.

More people wanting to go to school = more schools opening up. I don't see accountants or engineers complaining because a new state school opens or increases enrollment, why do so many pharmacy students think they are entitled to a job for holding a degree?

No more Cs get degrees attitude, time to compete for a job! BRING IT👍
 
I don't get it, why should pharmacy schools be any different than the overall trend of higher education since....most of us have been alive.

More people wanting to go to school = more schools opening up. I don't see accountants or engineers complaining because a new state school opens or increases enrollment, why do so many pharmacy students think they are entitled to a job for holding a degree?

No more Cs get degrees attitude, time to compete for a job! BRING IT👍

Yeah...and being as though you will be going to a school I've never heard of, we'll see what you say in four years when nobody will hires you as the market will be well saturated and kids from OSU, Michigan, Wisconsin, and others will be competing with you...
 
Yeah...and being as though you will be going to a school I've never heard of, we'll see what you say in four years when nobody will hires you as the market will be well saturated and kids from OSU, Michigan, Wisconsin, and others will be competing with you...


You've never heard of University of Illinois?
 
Yeah...the real one...in Chicago.

The only reason I've ever heard of the city of Rockford is because of that damned women's baseball league movie. Which was actually rather amusing.

UIC Rockford is a branch campus of the main Chicago campus. They have medical students there as well. It's not any different than the UF campuses in Florida.
 
UIC Rockford is a branch campus of the main Chicago campus. They have medical students there as well. It's not any different than the UF campuses in Florida.



In direct response to the continuing shortage of pharmacists in Illinois, the College of Pharmacy created the Rockford regional program. The first students will be admitted in 2010, and will complete all four years of pharmacy education on the Rockford campus and at clerkship sites throughout the state.

You suck, Illinois. You're supposed to be with us, not go off on the side and philander with the capitalists trying to destroy our profession.

There are so many new schools opening that I've lost track. I consider them all diploma mills.
 
No way to stop it. There will be demand for many years, despite fewer jobs. ACPE is stuffing their coffers while they can. I can't wait for the pharmacy apocalypse.

The general impression is pharmacy is still a gold mine. Look at all of the doe-eyed prepharmacy/pharmacy students who think everything is hunky dory.

At some point The Power of Positive Thinking! turns into delusion.
 
You suck, Illinois. You're supposed to be with us, not go off on the side and philander with the capitalists trying to destroy our profession.

There are so many new schools opening that I've lost track. I consider them all diploma mills.


I know you probably mentioned it before, but why did you quit your old job?
 
There are a few things that you might do.

Perhaps convince the boards of pharmacy to stop recognizing the ACPE as the primary accreditation org of pharmacists in order to practice pharmacy and for the rational people to come up with a new one with ridiculously high standards.

Or for them to begin requiring a residency to get a new license. The low number of residency spots will act as a natural filter. People will be much less likely to apply to pharmacy school if there is no guarantee of a residency. (I like this idea)

Or you can overthrow the government and decide how to license pharmacists yourself.

OR you could just make NAPLEX harder. If the students cant pass the licensing exam then they aren't effecting the market anyways, so let them waste their money on the diploma mills. That way the schools with either be forced to produce quality pharmacists that can pass something beyond a minimum competency exam, or close down when incoming students realize they only have a 12% pass rate.
 
Possible step in the right direction

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/education/25education.html
Senator Calls for New Rules for For-Profit Colleges


At the first in a series of oversight hearings on for-profit colleges, Senator Tom Harkin made it clear on Thursday that he saw a need for new regulation of for-profit colleges, to prevent waste of taxpayer money, and fraudulent practices that harm students.

Write your representatives asap!
 
I thought it was because the hospital was full of idiots.

The hospital was full of idiots.

My wife had to go on rotations.

I called my boss a "giant ****ing *****", he was the worst leader I've ever seen, told him he lets these two idiots walk all over him, his department is a mess, multiple people have told me I shouldn't work there because its dangerous...anyway..thus terminating any chance of me working there ever again.

....

Oh yeah...I had numerous reasons.
 
Change the system so that our organization more resembles AMA. We are already heading down the path spearheaded by lawyers and MBAs. I hoped that the PharmD degree would be more elite but that's just not happening.
 
No more Cs get degrees attitude, time to compete for a job! BRING IT👍

Wait, are you suggesting that pharmacies should be hiring A students over C students?
 
Possible step in the right direction

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/education/25education.html
Senator Calls for New Rules for For-Profit Colleges


"At the hearing, Kathleen Tighe, the inspector general of the federal Department of Education, said that although the for-profit colleges enrolled not quite 10 percent of the nation’s postsecondary students, they accounted for 70 percent of the department’s current criminal investigations."

So who wants to start the generic letter?
 
Wait, are you suggesting that pharmacies should be hiring A students over C students?

Grades don't say anything about how good of a pharmacist you will be. Grades will get you residencies, but not without involvement. Involvement = learning to be a team player/gaining communication skills = better able to relate to colleagues and patients = better pharmacist. Is this generalization on the right track?
 
Wait, are you suggesting that pharmacies should be hiring A students over C students?

I think the "C's get degrees" attitude has more to do with the attitude that some students have that they should just do the bare minimum to get by and be rewarded with that 6 figure income, which many people seem to think won't fly any longer. I don't think the implication was only A students will find employment. Just my 2 cents.
 
I think the "C's get degrees" attitude has more to do with the attitude that some students have that they should just do the bare minimum to get by and be rewarded with that 6 figure income, which many people seem to think won't fly any longer. I don't think the implication was only A students will find employment. Just my 2 cents.

right. it's not the grades we're talking about here but the mentality.
 
when was the last time they opened a new MD school? probably not as often as with pharmacy.... I think there's shortages in each. Still, if I had to choose between this, or filling our pharmacies with FMGs- the way the medical field fills the gap, I would rather have U.S. educated pharmacists... A little more standardized and more accountability IMO.
 
More people wanting to go to school = more schools opening up. I don't see accountants or engineers complaining because a new state school opens or increases enrollment, why do so many pharmacy students think they are entitled to a job for holding a degree?

Because they don't pay >$100,000 & spend at least 6-8 years to get their degrees.
It's fine that more schools want to open the program. It is unethical for schools to misrepresent the facts and put those students in debt. Even PharmD at a public school costs more than other degrees within the same college.

The only thing we can do is to ensure that public has the accurate view of the profession in term of supply VS demand.
 
Also there's the possibility that a new school will unable to find the proper resources (faculty, IPPE/APPE sites, etc.) During their recent visit to St. John Fisher, several members of ACPE have already said that they fully expect at least one school to fail within the next 5-10 years. Perhaps once that happens, it will turn the tide of pharmacy school expansion.

The new schools can offer money to get IPPE slots unfortunately. A lot of my school's staff are foreign professors from middle east and india.
 
I don't get it, why should pharmacy schools be any different than the overall trend of higher education since....most of us have been alive.

More people wanting to go to school = more schools opening up. I don't see accountants or engineers complaining because a new state school opens or increases enrollment, why do so many pharmacy students think they are entitled to a job for holding a degree?

No more Cs get degrees attitude, time to compete for a job! BRING IT👍

I hope you realize that you're welcoming lower wages and poor work conditions for pharmacists.
 
There are a few things that you might do.

Perhaps convince the boards of pharmacy to stop recognizing the ACPE as the primary accreditation org of pharmacists in order to practice pharmacy and for the rational people to come up with a new one with ridiculously high standards.

Or for them to begin requiring a residency to get a new license. The low number of residency spots will act as a natural filter. People will be much less likely to apply to pharmacy school if there is no guarantee of a residency. (I like this idea)

Or you can overthrow the government and decide how to license pharmacists yourself.

WVU,
What do you think about APhA becoming a secondary accrediting agency for schools somehow?

I am not sure about a residency, especially for retail.
 
The only thing we can do is to ensure that public has the accurate view of the profession in term of supply VS demand.

How do you suggest we do that? Even the pharmacy manpower's ADI is a biased statistical database. They have it on a scale of 1-5, 1 being overly saturated market and 5 being high demand market, with 3 being supply=demand. The problem is that they ONLY gather data from demand oriented participants. That being the case, a number below 3 will never be reported, so it will ALWAYS look like demand>supply.

Think about it, we all talk on these threads about oversaturdated cities, but if you look at the ADI, these same cities are reporting 3.5's and 4''s, which leaves people to believe that demand>supply.

If we wanted to accurately represent the aggregate demand index, data needs to be collected from both demand participants (community and the like) and supply participants (such as academia and the like)
 
Grades don't say anything about how good of a pharmacist you will be. Grades will get you residencies, but not without involvement. Involvement = learning to be a team player/gaining communication skills = better able to relate to colleagues and patients = better pharmacist. Is this generalization on the right track?

I think the "C's get degrees" attitude has more to do with the attitude that some students have that they should just do the bare minimum to get by and be rewarded with that 6 figure income, which many people seem to think won't fly any longer. I don't think the implication was only A students will find employment. Just my 2 cents.

Oh okay, I was just trying to get that clarified. When I went to pharmacy school it really wasn't looked down upon but wasn't looked very highly when you made Rho Chi just because we knew those were the people that didn't intern. I didn't know if that mentality had changed or not.
 
Possible step in the right direction

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/education/25education.html
Senator Calls for New Rules for For-Profit Colleges




Write your representatives asap!

THIS GUY HAS GOT THE RIGHT IDEA. ACPE sure won't listen and the board of education is currently trying to stop For-Profit Colleges. I think we need to write letters to our senators immediately.


This is the only way to stop or prevent the likely fallout of pharmacy schools.
 
Oh okay, I was just trying to get that clarified. When I went to pharmacy school it really wasn't looked down upon but wasn't looked very highly when you made Rho Chi just because we knew those were the people that didn't intern. I didn't know if that mentality had changed or not.

that is stereotyping.... a lot of students at my school that are in rho chi have interned places.

one thing I think is unfair is that i know someone in rho chi who was like "OMG you have to work when you have a big P&T test coming up on thursday...." 👎

While this isn't specific to rho chi. I think it isn't right that some chains will let their interns work on a "as chosen by themselves to fit their lifestyle" bases....i understand that sometimes you need off for school or something else. But a lot of students I know just work once a month and don't take the job seriously. That's just wrong.
 
that is stereotyping.... a lot of students at my school that are in rho chi have interned places.

one thing I think is unfair is that i know someone in rho chi who was like "OMG you have to work when you have a big P&T test coming up on thursday...." 👎

While this isn't specific to rho chi. I think it isn't right that some chains will let their interns work on a "as chosen by themselves to fit their lifestyle" bases....i understand that sometimes you need off for school or something else. But a lot of students I know just work once a month and don't take the job seriously. That's just wrong.

rho chi is for the best of the best...of the best. case closed.
 
I just don't see why people think it is impossible to make rho chi and be interning. I know of several people who have done it and still managed to have one or two leadership positions or be involved. The truth is, I am not going to pharmacy school for some big party. I am going there to learn how to be a pharmacist, network, and be involved in some causes that I am passionate about. I suppose if you want to spend your weekends out at the club it would be hard to juggle all that.
 
I think the "C's get degrees" attitude has more to do with the attitude that some students have that they should just do the bare minimum to get by and be rewarded with that 6 figure income, which many people seem to think won't fly any longer. I don't think the implication was only A students will find employment. Just my 2 cents.

Yeah this is what I meant, I am not saying you need to have a 4.0 to be a good pharmacist or to land a good job. I am just saying that coasting through doing the bare minimum is going to be more of a liability now.
 
I hope you realize that you're welcoming lower wages and poor work conditions for pharmacists.

If you say so....personally, I am of the belief that it is a rare situation for the salaries of a profession to adjust radically downward. Air-traffic controllers and airline pilots are the ones that come to mind, and I don't think the airline industry and the pharmaceutical industry are really that similar. Sure, we may not graduate into a guaranteed 6 figures and signing bonus, but pharmacist salaries are not getting cut in half anytime soon.
 
I just don't see why people think it is impossible to make rho chi and be interning. I know of several people who have done it and still managed to have one or two leadership positions or be involved. The truth is, I am not going to pharmacy school for some big party. I am going there to learn how to be a pharmacist, network, and be involved in some causes that I am passionate about. I suppose if you want to spend your weekends out at the club it would be hard to juggle all that.

I worked around 24 hours a week and was in rho chi. I would work 10 hours on fri and sat and 4 hour shift during week. Sunday would be study day and also during week, it helps to be a cram master.

I never did anything school related on Friday and Saturday, I rarely went out because I would rather work because I had bills to pay. I have interns say they don't want to work Friday or sat night because it's their only free time, I tell them that is ideal time for you to work, I don't feel sorry and if you can't work it then get hours elsewhere.
 
I worked around 24 hours a week and was in rho chi. I would work 10 hours on fri and sat and 4 hour shift during week. Sunday would be study day and also during week, it helps to be a cram master.

I never did anything school related on Friday and Saturday, I rarely went out because I would rather work because I had bills to pay. I have interns say they don't want to work Friday or sat night because it's their only free time, I tell them that is ideal time for you to work, I don't feel sorry and if you can't work it then get hours elsewhere.

See...and it was probably even harder for you because of the accelerated classes. I will be working every sat and sun during the school year. I know my job well so it's not that stressful to me anymore. Plus the hospital is slower on the weekends because there are no surgeries unless we have a transplant or an emergency surgery.
 
I have interns say they don't want to work Friday or sat night because it's their only free time, I tell them that is ideal time for you to work, I don't feel sorry and if you can't work it then get hours elsewhere.

are you serious? Pharmacy has enough burnout as a profession without bosses who don't understand the need to have an enjoyable night to yourself. I understand having bills to pay and YOU wanting to work all the time, but you sound like you're on a quick track to being that boss that everybody hates because you are so impractical.
 
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