What can we do to prevent new schools from opening?

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museabuse said:
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.
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I'm assuming you weren't married during pharmacy school, then. It would be hard to explain to the wife and kids that I can't do anything right now because it's "cram time" or "time to go to work." Weekend trip or activity? Sorry, gotta go to work. There's no reason to be harsh on interns/ students just for the sake of being harsh.

As far as not going out, that just indicates you wasted away a few good years of youth. Were your loans lower as a result? Sure, but I don't know that I would make myself a hermit just to make it so.
 
pharm B said:
I'm assuming you weren't married during pharmacy school, then. It would be hard to explain to the wife and kids that I can't do anything right now because it's "cram time" or "time to go to work." Weekend trip or activity? Sorry, gotta go to work. There's no reason to be harsh on interns/ students just for the sake of being harsh.

As far as not going out, that just indicates you wasted away a few good years of youth. Were your loans lower as a result? Sure, but I don't know that I would make myself a hermit just to make it so.
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I think it is all about time management 🙂 You either have it or you don't.
 
pharm B said:
I agree that time management is crucial, but I wouldn't expect to spend literally every weekend in the pharmacy and call that time management. At that point, you're just a vacant parent.
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I will give up the "partying" to be a better partner and parent.
 
rxlea said:
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.
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If you have good time management and at least some basic natural skill for learning/test taking, you can get good grades, hold a job, be involved, and have fun. You just need to know how to prioritize and take time to de-stress, otherwise you might go crazy. Also, sometimes class is not high on the priority list.
 
I'm not going to say pharmacy school is for fun...

...but don't turn yourselves into workaholic robots. Next thing you know you'll be 40 and miserable. There are way too many people out there like that already.

School and work should be about the 5th most important thing to you. I find the obsession with career to be a rather disgusting part of American life.
 
ucrx said:
If you have good time management and at least some basic natural skill for learning/test taking, you can get good grades, hold a job, be involved, and have fun. You just need to know how to prioritize and take time to de-stress, otherwise you might go crazy. Also, sometimes class is not high on the priority list.
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I agree...I guess I am just past the "partying" phase of my life. I would rather spend my spare time hiking, doing crossword puzzles, and going to a good indie flick followed by some good (decaf) coffee and a side of gelatto 🙂 The occasional cultural event/art show/concert is the cherry on top. I am an amateur foodie as well. So, I like dining out often. Maybe I am just boring.
 
rxlea said:
I agree...I guess I am just past the "partying" phase of my life. I would rather spend my spare time hiking, doing crossword puzzles, and going to a good indie flick followed by some good (decaf) coffee and a side of gelatto 🙂 The occasional cultural event/art show/concert is the cherry on top. Maybe I am just boring.
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I've never been the partying type, either. Mostly because I don't drink, nor do I like being around drunk people.
 
pharmwannebe2 said:
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.
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Interning places? Like doing your IPPE? That doesn't count.

Sorry if you think I'm stereotyping but that's how it was at my university.
 
Thumper17 said:
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.
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It's simple logic. The wages will not decrease, but they certainly will not increase. If you have plenty of PharmD graduated from some no name school just popped up willing to work for 54 dollars an hour there is no reason to raise wages to keep up with the inflation.

We all know how the big chains work. They try to save on everything. They have already cut many tech hours and now try to avoid giving floaters full time hours. Try working with 2 techs instead of three. We'll see how you like that. I've spoken to those floaters who stopped getting 40 hrs despite being hired full time. they are scared to complain cause they are clinching to their jobs... It's not a good feeling knowing that at least 2 new schools will open in an area thats 30 miles away from where you know there are already practically NO jobs available.
 
We need to create a new organization for accreditation of pharmacy schools. ACPE is a joke. The same way JCAHO was born, we can create an accreditation organization. I am tired of seeing extremely subpar pharmacy schools emerge in the state of New York, and I am tired of seeing already accredited school keep their accreditation even when they are performing below standards.
 
steveysmith54 said:
It's simple logic. The wages will not decrease, but they certainly will not increase. If you have plenty of PharmD graduated from some no name school just popped up willing to work for 54 dollars an hour there is no reason to raise wages to keep up with the inflation.

We all know how the big chains work. They try to save on everything. They have already cut many tech hours and now try to avoid giving floaters full time hours. Try working with 2 techs instead of three. We'll see how you like that. I've spoken to those floaters who stopped getting 40 hrs despite being hired full time. they are scared to complain cause they are clinching to their jobs... It's not a good feeling knowing that at least 2 new schools will open in an area thats 30 miles away from where you know there are already practically NO jobs available.
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Your logic is fine for why wages wont increase, but you forgot to mention the logic for why wages wont decrease...If you have a market saturated with a bunch of pharmacists demanding 54 dollars an hour then everything is fine and dandy. The problem comes when you have people deciding between accepting 50/hour or not working at all. Then 45/hour or not working at all. You said yourself that the big chains try to save on everything- so then why would they keep you on staff for 54/hour if they can hire someone else to do your same job for 45/hour?
 
The idea that pharmacists salary will go down with more pharmacy schools is a myth IF AND ONLY IF you guys refuse to accept low salaries. The minute a graduate says "hey, I'll work for $45 an hour....tell the $60 an hour guy to take a hike" then it's game over.
 
steveysmith54 said:
It's simple logic. The wages will not decrease, but they certainly will not increase.
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Reminds me of all those geniuses who thought home prices would never decrease. They forgot the impact of mass foreclosures and fire sales on the market.

Someone who has 100k in debt and just graduated from pharm school would take anything above $20/hr if that's all there is available. Most pharm students never had a job that paid more than $20 an hr.
 
DrPepsi said:
The idea that pharmacists salary will go down with more pharmacy schools is a myth IF AND ONLY IF you guys refuse to accept low salaries. The minute a graduate says "hey, I'll work for $45 an hour....tell the $60 an hour guy to take a hike" then it's game over.
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You have way too much faith in society if you think an unemployed person wouldn't say that
 
VCU2011 said:
You have way too much faith in society if you think an unemployed person wouldn't say that
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I never said that this wasn't the case, I'm just presenting an idea.
 
DrPepsi said:
The idea that pharmacists salary will go down with more pharmacy schools is a myth IF AND ONLY IF you guys refuse to accept low salaries. The minute a graduate says "hey, I'll work for $45 an hour....tell the $60 an hour guy to take a hike" then it's game over.
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I'd take $30/hr right now.
 
VCU2011 said:
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.
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Completely useless idea. Do you know any one who went through law school and then gave up on becoming a lawyer because they couldn't pass the bar?

I don't care how stupid you are, if you pay >$100K and invest 4 years of your life into school, you will study like hell and eventually pass that licensing exam.
 
rxlea said:
I will give up the "partying" to be a better partner and parent.
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I'll give up the wife and kids for more partying :meanie:
 
p-rog said:
Completely useless idea. Do you know any one who went through law school and then gave up on becoming a lawyer because they couldn't pass the bar?

I don't care how stupid you are, if you pay >$100K and invest 4 years of your life into school, you will study like hell and eventually pass that licensing exam.
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Pharmacy is different from law. NAPLEX can be made to be a clinical decision based exam. It doesn't HAVE to be recollection of facts from pharmacology, ect. I know that you're using law as an example, but professional medical exams should be more than just testing facts. If that is the case, all the studying in the world wont matter- if you cant apply the knowledge you wont pass the exam
 
womp said:
Reminds me of all those geniuses who thought home prices would never decrease. They forgot the impact of mass foreclosures and fire sales on the market.

Someone who has 100k in debt and just graduated from pharm school would take anything above $20/hr if that's all there is available. Most pharm students never had a job that paid more than $20 an hr.
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Do you even know why the foreclosures happened and why house prices have gone down?

Stupid banks gave loans to people who had no means of paying their mortgages.
 
the way you guys defend new schools gives me the impression that you work for ACPE or just hired to be faculty of some new trade school about to start giving out PharmD's.
 
steveysmith54 said:
Do you even know why the foreclosures happened and why house prices have gone down?

Stupid banks gave loans to people who had no means of paying their mortgages.
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It's not that simple. Real Estate Bubble didn't just occur and burst because banks gave easy loans.
 
Its Z said:
It's not that simple. Real Estate Bubble didn't just occur and burst because banks gave easy loans.
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The Fed's "free money" interest rates, the deindustrialization of the US, stratification of wealth leading to a weakened middle class leading to anemic consumer confidence, the fall of the Euro artificially raising the value of the dollar, thus decreasing the desire of American products abroad...

...and so on...
 
steveysmith54 said:
Heck, i am the first class of a brand new school that popped up. I'll take 25. I'll work thru my lunch, work with one less tech, even take half of the vacation days thats offered.
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salaries are definitely GOING TO DROP!!!

its over for pharmacy.


also i would recommend a STEP exam at the end of 2nd yr to have it be something like dental and medicine does. test all the basic clinical stuff like biochem, microbio, etc in a cummulative type reasoning exam.

then at the end of pharm school do another one, then regular naplex 🙂
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
I'm not going to say pharmacy school is for fun...

...but don't turn yourselves into workaholic robots. Next thing you know you'll be 40 and miserable. There are way too many people out there like that already.

School and work should be about the 5th most important thing to you. I find the obsession with career to be a rather disgusting part of American life.
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Depends on your career. I had a professor that was obsessed with his career but was 100% happy. On the other hand, I can't see how someone can be obsessed with pharmacy.
 
p-rog said:
Completely useless idea. Do you know any one who went through law school and then gave up on becoming a lawyer because they couldn't pass the bar?

I don't care how stupid you are, if you pay >$100K and invest 4 years of your life into school, you will study like hell and eventually pass that licensing exam.
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I think it's nonsense to believe that making the exam harder will reduce the number of PharmDs.
 
RETAIL pharmacy is a business. We are just numbers on a paper. The influx of 10,000 PharmDs /yr. will eventually saturate the market. It's hard to believe that we are producing legions of PharmDs and it is all sitting atop a retail sand hill.
 
FruitFly said:
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.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/education/15medschools.html

It's coming. I'm not sure what the MD/DO mix is for the new programs. But, it's coming.
 
PharmaTope said:
salaries are definitely GOING TO DROP!!!

its over for pharmacy.


also i would recommend a STEP exam at the end of 2nd yr to have it be something like dental and medicine does. test all the basic clinical stuff like biochem, microbio, etc in a cummulative type reasoning exam.

then at the end of pharm school do another one, then regular naplex 🙂
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I second the opinion of a STEP based exam for pharmacy especially as we're suppose to be leaning more toward clinical
 
RxMTM said:
I think it's nonsense to believe that making the exam harder will reduce the number of PharmDs.
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Wonderful opinion... Care to share your reasoning for this conclusion?
 
“When you add more physicians to an area, they just add more services, and their salaries don’t go down anywhere near in proportion to the increased supply,”

That's all I have to say. 👍
 
Thumper17 said:
“When you add more physicians to an area, they just add more services, and their salaries don’t go down anywhere near in proportion to the increased supply,”

That's all I have to say. 👍
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What??

If a town has 5 family practice clinics and It doubles to 10 clinics. You don't think the gross and net income of those practices will be affected?

As far as more services being offered, perhaps you're referring to different medical specialties providing different services. However, you can not compare that to retail pharmacists filling prescriptions.
 
VCU2011 said:
Wonderful opinion... Care to share your reasoning for this conclusion?
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He's right. It doesn't matter how hard the exam is... as long as schools spew out PharmDs...there will be PharmDs. Now, registered pharmacist is another story. Even so, difficult BAR hasn't prevented oversupply of lawyers.
 
Its Z said:
He's right. It doesn't matter how hard the exam is... as long as schools spew out PharmDs...there will be PharmDs. Now, registered pharmacist is another story. Even so, difficult BAR hasn't prevented oversupply of lawyers.
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Law is a profession of knowing the facts, and as such the bar exam can be crammed for until you can pass the BAR. Our pharmacotherapy book doesn't teach clinical reasoning. It gives you all the tools you need to make a clinical decision, but being able to quote dipiro isn't going to get you anywhere.

As far as new schools spewing out PharmD, who cares? if they cant pass their NAPLEX its a useless degree.

I'm not saying that making the exam harder is going to immediately halt the influx of new pharmacists into the market, but hopefully it will slow the influx of pharmacists who lack the ability to clinically reason their decisions. Then hopefully these schools that are accepting students with 2.5 gpa's and 30's on the PCATs will realize they need to raise their standards of their incoming and their outgoing classes.

This is not the best option, but it is certainly quicker than establishing a new accreditation body. While it may not slow the influx of new grads, at least it the new grads will be competent.
 
VCU2011 said:
This is not the best option, but it is certainly quicker than establishing a new accreditation body. While it may not slow the influx of new grads, at least it the new grads will be competent.
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I think a new accreditation body could do wonders though. The dental schools has the CODA which I think is a subsection of the ADA. In any event, they've limited the number of schools being accredited and actually closed a couple of schools like northwestern's dental school in chicago to ensure that saturation does not occur.
 
VCU2011 said:
Law is a profession of knowing the facts, and as such the bar exam can be crammed for until you can pass the BAR. Our pharmacotherapy book doesn't teach clinical reasoning. It gives you all the tools you need to make a clinical decision, but being able to quote dipiro isn't going to get you anywhere.
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And you don't believe Judicial reasoning and interpretation are part of Law Practice? Even Pharmacy Law requires reasoning.. and pharmacy isn't all about clinical decisions.

As far as new schools spewing out PharmD, who cares? if they cant pass their NAPLEX its a useless degree.
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Who cares? If they can't pass the BAR, JD is a useless degree. BTW, NAPLEX is a mimimum competency test as of now.. it's so easy everyone should pass it.

I'm not saying that making the exam harder is going to immediately halt the influx of new pharmacists into the market, but hopefully it will slow the influx of pharmacists who lack the ability to clinically reason their decisions.
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Aint gonna happen. Again, difficult BAR hasn't prevented oversupply of lawyers.

Then hopefully these schools that are accepting students with 2.5 gpa's and 30's on the PCATs will realize they need to raise their standards of their incoming and their outgoing classes.
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Nope... schools will keep accepting more students to enhance revenue.
 
Let me give you an example.

Orange County, CA has been saturated with pharmacists for years even before the proliferation of new pharmacy schools. This is despite extremely difficult CA pharmacy board which used to have 70-80% instate and 50% out of state passing rates. Yet, this didn't prevent 5 new pharmacy schools from popping up in CA.

Let's be realistic. It's spilled water or water under the bridge.

The only way the oversupply of pharmacists can be reversed is if we have another real estate boom and WAGs and CVS decide to put up more stores... or PharmD practitioner practice starts..similar to NP and PA.. which would probably result in a reduction in pay.

If not, we just have to find a niche and do it better than others.
 
This thread is laughable.....

Pharmacy Students: "Everything will be fine, competition is good, blah blah blah"

Z (who has a better perspective on everything than any other poster herer, including myself): "Um, no it's not, wake up"

Pharmacy Students: "Yes it is, you don't know what you are talking about" (my assumption they are reflecting on what their colleges of crap are telling to get their tuition money)

Z: (bangs head against wall) "Jeezus, you're stupid, let me give you real-world scenarios"

The only thing this thread is missing is for some pharmacy student to reference that BS article from Knapp in Two thousand freaking two that "proves" we "need" (notice the word "need" not a demand for) XXXthousand pharmacists by 2020.


For any of you who follows the Pharmacy Manpower Project, the April numbers were posted last week.......if you really read between the lines and really look at the numbers, IMO it is going to be very scary two to five years from now. And that is from a survey that is inherently biased that probably shows an artificial demand.

http://www.pharmacymanpower.com/

http://www.pharmacymanpower.com/state.html
 
Its Z said:
The only way the oversupply of pharmacists can be reversed is if we have another real estate boom and WAGs and CVS decide to put up more stores...
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Unlikely on so many different levels, I think even if another boom, they won't put up the stores like they did from 98-2008.

Its Z said:
or PharmD practitioner practice starts..similar to NP and PA.. which would probably result in a reduction in pay.
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Possible, but unlikely in near future as in current situation we can't get reimbursed for those services and because of current economic situation it's unlikely we will become Part B providers anytime soon....
Pharmacy missed the boat on this back in the sixties when our almighty leaders back then stated we (Pharmacists) didn't need to be included as Medicare providers. And the other nail came in health care reform when our current leaders failed (for whatever reasons) to get us Medicare Part B provider status.

Its Z said:
If not, we just have to find a niche and do it better than others.
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yep
 
You know...I think this is an opportunity to take our profession back..

When there no longer are jobs, I think enterprising pharmacists will start their own indy pharmacy. Hopefully CVS Caremark divorce will set precedence to prevent this sort of monopoly.
 
gotdrugs said:
This thread is laughable.....

Pharmacy Students: "Everything will be fine, competition is good, blah blah blah"

Z (who has a better perspective on everything than any other poster herer, including myself): "Um, no it's not, wake up"

Pharmacy Students: "Yes it is, you don't know what you are talking about" (my assumption they are reflecting on what their colleges of crap are telling to get their tuition money)

Z: (bangs head against wall) "Jeezus, you're stupid, let me give you real-world scenarios"

The only thing this thread is missing is for some pharmacy student to reference that BS article from Knapp in Two thousand freaking two that "proves" we "need" (notice the word "need" not a demand for) XXXthousand pharmacists by 2020.


For any of you who follows the Pharmacy Manpower Project, the April numbers were posted last week.......if you really read between the lines and really look at the numbers, IMO it is going to be very scary two to five years from now. And that is from a survey that is inherently biased that probably shows an artificial demand.

http://www.pharmacymanpower.com/

http://www.pharmacymanpower.com/state.html
Click to expand...

Interesting that you knock students for having "laughable" thoughts then you repeat, almost verbatim, something that I said on this exact thread 2 days ago about the PMP and their ADI...
 
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