Resources Resources. Research Research. Events Events. Annual Meetings Upcoming Archive. Upcoming Archive. Upcoming Past Webinars. Membership Membership. Search Search. I Want to Help People Get Well Pharmacists play a key role in helping patients feel better and get well as quickly as possible.
I Like to Work Directly with Patients Pharmacists are accessible in all healthcare settings: inpatient, ambulatory and community settings. I Enjoy a Wide Variety of Career Opportunities Pharmacy is a diverse and rewarding career, with opportunities for patient care, scientific research and innovation. The demand is fueled by the following factors: Increased demand for patient services. The transition to the doctor of pharmacy Pharm.
Pharmacists are able to work in a wider array of practice settings and positions than ever before. Increase in number of prescriptions filled each year. According to the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, the number of prescriptions filled increased from 1. Our society will continue to need more pharmacists to manage the growing number of prescriptions as more medicines become available and the population ages.
Increase in the number of medicines available on the market. There is a greater selection of prescription and OTC drugs manufactured today than in the past. Multiple medications are often available to treat a single disease. Pharmacists help prescribers and patients decide which medicine will have the most beneficial results.
When pharmacists are involved in patient care, outcomes improve and costs decline. Increase in the elderly population. According to the U. Essentially, this unique program meant that I would have two years of academic work and two years of experiential rotation.
This allowed me to obtain an increased amount of hands-on training before making my way into the field. Once I decided to pursue a career in pharmacy, I connected with my local community pharmacist at CVS. Her name is Christi Brown. Brown has always been extremely supportive of me, and has encouraged me to pursue my goals.
Throughout my application process, Dr. Brown answered questions and even wrote recommendation letters for me. There are so many aspects of pharmacy school that I enjoy! A few favorites include:. All of these experiences are helping to form me into a better person and pharmacist. I know that I will complete pharmacy school with a strong education, and with a great group of lifelong friends! The most challenging parts of pharmacy school so far were the early semesters when I was beginning my life as a student.
During this time, I was adjusting to a brand new living situation, learning how to commute from Long Island to New York City, working, taking classes, and studying.
Needless to say, there was a lot going on! To be honest, it was very difficult at first. I needed to find the proper balance of my time in order to be successful in my classes. This is when I found a way to download the recorded class lectures onto my phone. This hack helped me improve my test scores! Just today, I helped a child whose father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were or still are customers of mine. The pace is brutal, the metrics and the staffing unrealistic, and the insurance adjudication is miserable, but there are still moments of grace.
Meet your customers with courtesy, treat them with dignity, and make an effort to be kind. Some of my angriest, most obnoxious customers have become some of my most beloved customers, because I made a decision to win them over. It takes time to build relationships. I have worked in stores in affluent areas. The customers were better educated, but not easier to deal with.
I discovered that wealth and arrogance are worse than poverty and ignorance. Would I choose this profession again? Maybe not. Maybe I would choose horticulture.
But I am glad I became a pharmacist. I have made a difference in the world, however small. Sometimes when I have bad days I think about the customers who were thankful for my help and it just makes everything feel better. On a different note, I have met many pharmacists who share the same sentiments as you that pharmacy was a great career to enter 10 years ago but not today.
Thank you so much for this article. I have never been treated so poorly than by customers at the pharmacy. I wish there was something I could do so that I could pursue something else that I am actually passionate about, but my debt does not allow me to. Again, thank you for this article. I wish there was something we could do to change this! I feel you girl. And I hope it gets better for both of us! I will say those customers are not worth your tears though! Not on you! So eat up! Thank you so much for your honestly!
I truly hope it gets better or you find another job. Thanks for the comment Tiffany! I honestly believe pharmacy technicians rarely get the recognition they deserve. You guys are the backbone of the pharmacy! Retail life is tough, just the nature of the pharmacy profession today. Have you considered the education field?
We had several relatively young professors in school- all of which were great at what they did. HI Paul, thanks for the comment. I actually have not considered the education field at all since I have a fear of public speaking. Thanks for the suggestion! You may start your pharmacy setup, like me, hope you will find it better than your expectation. Really affected with the majority of comments ,i think i have to look for alternatives.
Go into engineering. I am saving you the heart ache of high debt , lack of good opportunities and disrespect. Consider engineering or medical school. Hi Avery!!! Thank you so much for this post. I was googling about pharmacist jobs and am so thankful to have found this!!!!! Unlike you I was never a bookworm. I had trouble connecting with any subject in school because at heart I was much more interested in creative pursuits like art and theater. I tried to work as a fulltime technican for Walmart and drive two hours back and forth to school times per week while working on my undergrad in clincial research joke degree lol and I was only stopped last april by a horrible car accident that put me in a wheelchair for the rest of This break from working and taking uppers and downers caused my body to go into shock as I went through detox.
For me, my adhd medication led me to seeking anything to help alleviate the horrible and extensive feelings of being a zombie just running on autopilot. It was my gateway drug. It has almost become a way life and such a non-problematic topic. It felt like every night we would leave the abuse of work to get home and abuse our bodies with the posion that is alcohol.
I did not mean to turn this into a long post but pharmacy is close to my heart. I am at the point where I do not have a degree or a job and I do not know where to go from here. I had all of my eggs in one basket and I do not want to live with these monsters on my back!
Student debt, hating my career, surviving dependent on drugs!!! I do not know if you pray Avery but if you do please say a small prayer for Christian in NC and I will say a prayer for Avery the pharmacist. Thank you for sharing. I hope that things get better for you and know that they will. I have been a pharmacist for ten years now and I was exactly in your shoes about years ago.
I feel like I could have written this article verbatim. Keep the job hunt going! Where you are now is not where you will be forever, but it is a good starting point for you professionally and financially. I now work at an outpatient hospital pharmacy that dispenses discharge medications and works on optimizing transition of care.
It has all of the clinical facets I learned in pharmacy school while still being able to interact with patients in a dispensing role. I also would not have been effective at this job had I not gone through the rigorous years of straight retail nonsense, which gave me an edge in terms of efficiency and workflow management. I have done a complete and I love my job and the work I do every day.
Remember what brought you to this career to begin with, and remember that this is not the last stop in your career path. Best wishes to you! Thank you so much for the encouraging words Jen! I am going through a very similar situation. Graduated in , worked at a chain as an intern and floater for 3 years total, and left due to the stress and toll my body was going through. I currently work for an independent compounding pharmacy 1.
Everything seems to be about money and I am feeling very disillusioned with the profession. I am considering going back to school or moving back home with my parents and doing something else.
It sucks! I am currently staffed in one of the lower-volume stores in my district. I also still float sometimes. But the experience I gained in my first year definitely helped me gain confidence in the pharmacy which has led to happier days. Of course, I still struggle with the issues I talked about in this post but to a lesser extent now.
The Armed Forces are always looking for medical professionals like pharmacists. The down side is that you do have to have to relocate every few years, but that might be a major upside to those of you looking for new adventures.
I love this article and completely agree with everything. I believe we graduated about the same time in , and I remember coming home crying every night for the first six months or so. I do think my anxiety about work has gotten better with time though. I fully agree with this. Pharmacy is a damn hell on earth, I am a pharm. Dealing with health insurance funds and companies is the worst part, procurement procurement process makes me exhausted.. Prescribers on the other hand give me headache every single passing day.
My hobby is cooking, I currently think I should offer most of my efforts in meals at least they help me adjust the sail……. I am currently an undergrad student, and similar to you, being a pharmacist has been my dream since I was a kid. Do you have any tips for an undergrad student whose dream was to become a pharmacist? Hi Karen, have you worked in the pharmacy before perhaps as a tech?
I would recommend being familiar first with the work setting and the job before deciding if you want to pursue pharmacy. I know some techs that actually love the work environment even if sometimes more stressful setting of retail pharmacy and decided to become a pharmacist because and knowing full well of what the job entails.
That may be you. Who knows, maybe my opinion and some of the comments here may not apply to you. So I definitely recommend applying to become a tech first. Hope this tip helps you out! I too am not happy with my job as a pharmacist. I feel burned out almost everyday with the stressful work environment where we have to be fast and correct. Sometimes, I feel like quitting. My parents kind of forced me into this. They are not understanding, especially my mum. They sort of blame me for choosing this career.
After my 3-year contract, I am planning to find another job. Even then, I advised people not to go into pharmacy without first working as a tech in a retail pharmacy. Too many people back then were lured in on salary alone. Fast forward to today… salaries for new grads are the same or lower than when I graduated. My buddy who hires pharmacists says they will only give new hires 32 hours. The pop-up pharmacy schools have pumped out pharmacists while decreasing standards.
Pretty much anyone with a pulse gets in. Beware though, you are on your feet hours a day with little to no breaks. I graduated at a good time, so I made out okay.
If i had to do it all over again in the current environment, my choice hands down would be to go to medical school and specialize. I I was a retail pharmacist for 20 years. I quit in the summer of , and have drained 50 thousand of my 65 thousand k to live off of since quitting. Should have had a larger k after 20 years but had loans, mortgage, was a single mom, etc.
It is genuinely a disgusting profession that is physically, mentally, and emotionally draining on a daily basis. By about my fifteenth year, I used to go home and sob, literally sob as I prayed for God to release me, somehow, someway, from the profession.
Over the years I gained 80 pounds, smoked, aged my looks tremendously, and had insomnia starting about three years in. Sorry, unsolicited, but here goes.
First, congrats on finishing school and doing this job. If you can handle this, you can handle just about anything. Save and pay off loans, but take a nice trip or treat yourself to something nice, even if only once, you deserve the reward. Third, look into jobs such as at an outpatient pharmacy at a hospital, they can still be super busy, but no getting yelled at over the price of a bag of chips, and usually better hours. I just turned 51, agh. Also, cultivate any hobbies.
After 15 years I got a chance to decrease my hours to part time. My first week with my decreased hours, I started writing stories out of the blue. As much as you can, try meditation, prayer, comedy tv and movies, any kind of exercise, even taking a slow walk, anything to help you on your days off.
Sorry for going on, but I obviously got much to say on this topic, lol. Plus with a PharmD, you have more options, unlike us grads. Sending you much luck and happiness. Hi Avery, I am 23 and prospective pharmacy student and have recently been accepted to the pharmacy school of choice in California.
However, I am now hesitant to accept the offer due the saturated job market for pharmacists. I would love to hear your thoughts on these questions:. Any response to these questions would be extremely helpful. Thank you in advance! As for pharmacy, the specialized field is very saturated, that is why most people settle for retail pharmacy.
Hi Marissa, Please listen to me carefully. Go to medical school!! The pharmacy profession is saturated and you will end up with so much debt and regret if you choose pharmacy. I am a pharmacist with almost 23 years of experience and if I had to do it over again , I would choose medical school.
I want better for you and all the young people considering this career path. Make the switch now and go to medical school. You will thank me later in your life. And pass this along to your other friends wishing to go to pharmacy school.
It would be a grave mistake. I was disappointed with pharmacy from the start. It was nothing like what we were told about in college. No one cared about counseling, screening for drug interactions or helping patients.
It was always about sales for the day and prescription count. It was hard for my brain to wrap around this new world I had stepped into. I was there to help patients. I was always in the middle of the pack, so I was safe. Now, I consider that job a dream job! Scheduled breaks and lunches, 2 hours standing, then 2 hours sitting, then rotate again. Now for the past 15 years I have been working retail pharmacy and its just slowly gotten worse. First the increase in narcotic dispensing, then immunizations, and always less and less staffing.
Now, if you can picture that, then all I can say is pay off your debts and then get the hell out of pharmacy before you get married, have a couple kids, and are stuck for the rest of your life. You will use little of the knowledge you learned and few will care about what you tell them. I wish I had gone into engineering, or geophysics like my son, or genetics like my daughter, or even a dishwasher my very first job. All of which would be more satisfying than being a pharmacist.
If I could tell every pharmacy school student out there the truth about pharmacy , I would. Reconsider your choice and get out! Rethink your choice and consider medical school instead even if you are currently in pharmacy school now. With the same number of years in school and debt amount , you will end up with an MD with more opportunities then you can dream of and go anywhere you choose to practice!!
Also , you will be more respected and appreciated. Pharmacy profession is saturated and getting worse! Too many schools have opened and ruined this profession to the point that companies are taking advantage of pharmacists! The hours are long , stressful and lacking quality of life, not to mention the lack of respect! MD is better quality of life , more autonomy, more lucrative , and definitely more respect.
The risk of going to pharmacy school is not worth the pay off. Good jobs are rare and you will be lucky to get paid well after all those years of school! Reading this honestly scares me. Do I have another other options in biochemistry rather than being a pharmacist please inform me! Research is another option you can consider as a biochemistry major. I have a friend who went the industry route, received a master after a biochemistry major and is now working for a well known drug company.
She seems to enjoy her work very much. This is definitely a relatable post, I am a pharmacist and considering going back to school for NP, is anyone aware of any schools with a short pathway? How about PA?
NP requires you to become a nurse first then collecting more patient care hours before getting into NP schools. For PA schools, you only need to take pre reqs rec letters, patients care hours to apply.
If you could have done it differently what would you become? What type of degree would you get? Thinking about going to pharmd school. I am older and currently going back to school, taking prerequisite classes. Hi Miriam, I would probably consider going for a computer science degree if I could do it all over again. Job prospect seems good and a 4 year bachelor degree is enough to start making good money. Hope these help!
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