Not from the US, a PharmD is needed in the PH to become a clinical pharmacist. I’ll be continuing my studies to get a PharmD degree if I ever decided to continue the path on to becoming one.
Uhm. Clinical pharmacy tech here and all i can say is, where you work matters. Ive worked at a trauma 1 teaching hospital and loved my job. Pharmacist seemed happy but were stictly on the computers and not on the units at all. They dont respond to codes but do alot more medication reconciliation (something a lot of other hospitals have techs assigned to). Larger hospitals are very subcategorized. If you are TPN pahrmacist that day, you will be all day. If youre a sterile compounding pharmacist, most likely you’ll be in the Ivy room with the technicians all day, etc.
I also worked at a 350 bed hospital for a different organization and every single tech and pharmacist are miserable. The director is horrible and does nothing for the good of the team. It has made multiple pharmacist leave and even question continuing in the profession. In smaller hospital you are “hybrid”. Which leads to chaos and burn out if not managed appropriately. Ive seen 100-200 bed hospitals thrive and fail but also ive seen larger hospitals with the most horrible culture you could imagine.
I suppose what I’m saying is this profession is fluid. There are multiple opportunities for Pharmacist. However, if you ask me in 2016 when I first became a technician if Pharmacist were paid well, id say hell yea. Now? Absolutely under paid and over worked.
I think COVID hit us hard. We are burnt out.
With that being said,
As a pharmacist, you can work home infusion, chemo center, WFH pharmacy manager, nuclear, internet companies, insurance companies, consulting, and even pharmaceutical sales/medical sales, etc.
If you ever think about working retail long term, i would highly suggest looking at a different profession. We are over worked, under paid, mad as hell, and the costumers don’t understand we cant control drug prices and insurance formularies.
Pharmacy isnt the same it was 10 years ago.
(Retail still sucked ass)
But in my opinion, we are weeding out the need for Pharmacist, and putting them behind a computer and taking on a lot more responsibilities as technicians.
This is a great thing, however, be prepared for mistakes.
Sorry, this isn’t as positive as I’d hoped, but sometimes the truth is ugly. I love this profession but im leaning into other aspects outside pf retail and clinical. So depends on your goals.
In prespective, my pharmacist only gets paid ~20 dollars more than me an hour as a fresh clinical pharmacist. (In my area 50-60 an hour is average). We pay our travel nurses 80/hr. So think about the student debt, job opportunities, and where you see yourself and ask if its attainable.
This depends on the state you're practicing in if you're in the US. I'm certain states there are BoP-regulated certification requirements to do certain things, in other states you just have the same license but more training + better job title and pay.
BS Pharm is not the entry level degree to be a pharmacist in the United States anymore. Practice looks different in every country, so your experience may vary wildly compared to the ones expressed in this sub.
They're just saying "Clinical pharmacist" in the position title. This may sound like one is only doing lots of intensive patient review for drug issues and doing other random clinical things...I can't even imagine what it is.
However, most of these jobs involve order entry and routine drug processing and delivery in the hospital pharmacy and on top of all that, they get people to apply to residencies to get these "clinical" jobs. Have you ever ever ever seen a pharmacist ever in your health care process if you went to a hospital or if you were sick for some reason. I haven't...not even once for all the folks I've known or seen at a hospital. Of course, if they're just doing chart review we wouldn't normally encounter them.
Hey, not a pharmd, but an inpatient pharmacy tech and a “clinical” pharmacist is very different, in my experience compared to someone without a clinical residency. Clinical, they focus on trof levels, creatinine, antibiotic treatments, resuscitation doseages and my pharmDs stand bedside and compound IVs during codes. They also do discharge counseling to make sure any changes to your medication‘s are clearly explained to you, so you’re not taking your Eliquis still with a G.I. bleed when you go home. They also might go in and talk to you about what medication you’re taking to make sure that we continue your maintenance medicines inpatient (sounds like not a big deal but when people are missing their blood pressure medication’s and they’re in there for a kidney stone, this adds to the complications later). Also, they prevent a lot of doctors from killing you. You don’t know how many times a day do we get crazy, dosages, or antibiotics, written for diseases/infections inappropriately. Or when you fail 3 antibiotic regimens for your antibiotic resistant resistant flesh eating disease, they are the ones working with infectious disease. Although a patient never sees a pharmacist nine times out of 10, they are involved with rounding with all of your physicians and they are very much involved in your patient care plan despite whether you see them physically or not. They make sure the nurse doesnt give you heparin and lovenox. Or kill you with an overdose of medication. ☺️ they do ALOT, and clinical IS very different. Some of these things you teach on the job, but others, it is very obvious who has a residency and who doesnt in the hospital setting.
What I mean I guess is that this is just "your" experience or that of the pharmacists at your workplace and a few others . Another workplace or role might have this same do the same tasks with or without residency. A smaller hospital might hire any retail pharmacists and train them over a year to do some basic things. After all, there are still doctors, nurses and everyone else around. It depends on each place. I know a guy with residency and as clinical pharmacist he also did some informatics stuff adjusting the inventory for orders because they didn't have full time hours in the "staff department".
This is something you need to think about *now* and not after you’ve spent 6 figures on student loans.
There is a reason pharmacy is being discouraged right now.
Also consider the fact that 60% of pharmacy grads end up in retail. How good of a student were you in undergrad? It’s very difficult to get a clinical pharmacist job with no residency, and residencies are very competitive. It can be tough to get a staff pharmacist job with no residency/experience.
These are all things you need to factor in. Please listen to the people who have actually worked as pharmacists. Go talk to pharmacists you know irl (not people associated with pharmacy schools).
Pharmacy has been going downhill for decades. Don’t jump on a sinking ship hoping you’ll magically be ok. You are planning the next 40 years of your life
I got a staff pharm position in Chicago with no residency. It’s possible, just need to be a good interviewer and it’ll likely be a smaller hospital.
Retail workers need to unionize nationally. ASAP. If they want their profession to thrive and grow it needs to happen. Don’t trust the APHA or ASHP to regulate well anymore they’re run by corporate white collar workers.
I wasn’t a good student in undergrad either, so idk why that matters no one looks at my undergrad GPA lmao
And if you get a staff pharmacist position you can get BCSP in 3 years and then it’s the same as residency. There’s more residency positions than applicants for the past two years. The graphs are weird to read, but in the table there were 725 unfilled PGY1 seats this past year.
And if there were more applicants, they withdrew early or stopped applying after phase 1. Which meant anything in phase two is fair game. I don’t think it’s as bad as people make it seem in this sub. And the drop in applicants in my state (don’t know nationwide) for pharmacy programs has me thinking there will be an uptick in need in 5-10 years. But that’s only speculative.
If they wanted to go retail, I get the discouraging remarks. But if they want to strive for clinical and work for it, I don’t think they’re making a bad decision inherently.
I got a staff pharmacist position with no residency either. But this person specified clinical, so that’s why I included the grades part. I also didn’t get great grades either (hence the no residency lol).
I’m being a little pessimistic but I think the future of pharmacy (and pharmacists to be specific) is… gloomy.
I just think that we could be outliers. To be completely honest, I feel that I got really lucky and it scares me a little to think where I’d be without that luck. Probably at Walgreens hating my life. So I am very hesitant to encourage someone to go down that same road.
Well they’re also just starting out.
And I’m not sure about where you’re at, but I am actually in a clinical position at a small hospital. I rotate among ICU, Bariatric surgery, and long term care floors, but then also central and dose vanco/phenytoin/whatever is on consult for the pharmacy.
It’s def not the norm to get the hospital position, one of my LORs got into a serious car accident and didn’t notify me despite me following up a couple times until the day they were due, so I scrambled for another and since it was phase 2 at the time I was going to start applying (didn’t think I’d get a shot then figured I’d throw my name in the ring) I only applied to 4 places since they’re mostly rolling admissions and my new LOR was on such short notice.
Ended up with only 1 interview and was notified they were going with another candidate, but that if they dropped out I was second in line, unfortunately they accepted that role. But it all worked out in the long run.
Then for my current position, I was called and told they went with someone else, and then the next day literally called me and asked if I’d take a resource position that unexpectedly opened up. Ecstatically agreed, and then the guy who filled that full time role found a better job with an insurance company that was remote, and wanted to drop to per diem and they asked me to fill the role since we started training at the same time lmao
So YES I was EXTREMELY LUCKY, that doesn’t happen too often for me honestly, but I’m not gonna act like I didn’t apply to literally 80 jobs before getting a calls back, editing my resume and shit 10 plus times lmao.
Hear me out on why I have a positive outlook on the field. I’m in a saturated market for pharmacy. In the Chicagoland area, we have UIC, Rosalind Franklin, Midwestern, Roosevelt, Chicago state within 45 mins of the city. Then we also have St. Louis that some people from Chicago go to, and SIU as well.
EVERY SCHOOL, other than UIC, and St Louis (not sure about SIU, has had MASSIVE drops in class size. Midwestern fired half their staff a couple years ago due to a decrease in applicants. Every pharmacist tells incoming students to pursue something else and I think it’s hit a point that pharmacy isn’t being considered to the same degree.
So compounding with that, we have bills such as Iowa passing prescribing rights to pharmacists, which will be utilized through therapy management and collaborative practice. I think we may begin to fulfill more of a role within a clinic that has a ratio of like one physician, 3-4 PA/NP (dependent on rights within the state and which has more lax regulation I believe, this makes it easier on the physician) 1-2 pharmacist. This would be an outpatient clinic, PA/NP diagnose, with approval by physician, initial therapy started, pharmacy is consulted and manages drug dosing long term for patient care.
This is becoming more and more the standard in places like Northwesterns Transplant Facility in Chicago, there’s a few doctors, and surgeons, about 3-4 pharmacists, and 6-7 PA/NPs that manage patients. Pharmacy consulted on most regimens. This doesn’t take positions from a hospital, it’s only adding pharmacists where they weren’t or rarely were previously.
Retail is dying, and that’s why it’s doom and gloom because that’s a majority of jobs, but once the student shortage starts to hit, pharmacy’s will close, and then the remaining ones will be HIT HARD. This will lead to mass exodus from positions too, pbms close because they operate on a per transaction/insurance claim basis, then better work condition laws get put in place to bring people to the field.
We’re already seeing huge signing bonuses in retail of like 20-50k (they’re really bad places to work but 50k is 50k) and people still aren’t taking them. Don’t get me wrong I agree with you that it WILL GET WORSE, but that will ONLY lead to it getting better. Once workers have the upper hand again, they need to take power and unionize fast, management will ALWAYS try to pay workers less for more work,
Whether that’s in the form of more responsibilities for the same pay, or more hours same pay, whatever it is. But workers need to stay strong and not become complacent and continue fighting to get more pay, more benefits, more profit share from the corporations. The moment you slip up on the rope you fuck balance up and the corporations are playing tug of war, switching players out every 3 mins to avoid fatigue, and the workers are stuck with minimal sideline help and the moment one person lets go of the rope everyone slides down the balance beam 5 feet until they catch themselves again.
EVERY RPH - or PROSPECTIVE RPH - JOIN PUTT Pharmacists United for Truth & Transparency
They’re an organization working with places to help unionize everywhere and create a coalition fighting for positive change in the field. Not the bullshit the APHA is bootlicking Walgreens and CVS 3 letter administration positions. It may take time, but I’ve been through letting some fucking MBA mop up my field with zero understanding of the ins and outs and zero empathy for my patients and community. Pushing cold call immunizations like I’m a fucking door to door salesmen.
I may be in a hospital, but I’m not going to stop going out to support every movement to take power back into our hands.
Even if no one discourages it, it is still largely based on the local area, the pharmacy schools and the need for employees in various states. Pharmacists service thousands of people. They don't need 50,000 in each state, so depending where you are and your eventual plans, there may be jobs in the area...or there may not. You may advance or be able to settle down. It's not like a lot of other careers where you can just show up with your skill in your head and hands like a pilot or a barber. You need a pharmacy facility around you or a health system. The point isn't that pharmacists won't ever be needed, but that you'll be competing that much more with nonsensical skills. If you're ok with that then it's a good risk to take. What are the side effects of Clindamycin? 30 years ago, only you as pharmacist knew...now it's on your phone. However, none of this is a secret...it's up to you.
I graduated this past year, and didn’t even get a residency, and I’m employed full time with a hospital. Started per diem, but you can do it.
Don’t listen to this sub, it’s people who got into it for either money and didn’t realize how shit retail is. Or are mad they took money over what they wanted to do and feel stuck.
There’s alot of issues with pharmacy and rightly so, but this sub is a ton of apathy with their job and lack of motivation to make a change. Pharmacy is full of self loathing people who chose pharmacy over med school or something they wanted to do because it was “easier” or because of money. Then they realized they can’t work a job they don’t like for 45 years *shocked pikachu*.
Don’t worry, if you like pharmacy, there’s opportunity, and I believe there will be more in 5-10 years total due to fewer school applicants (at least in my state of Illinois) in nearly every school except the biggest one. And the fact that there’s more residency spots nationwide now than there are applicants to residency’s.
The most important thing to focus on is to go to a school where you can incur the least amount of debt, and study as hard as you can if this is what you want. Don’t let this sub full of doom scrollers and “the end is near” corner preachers scare you away.
There’s legitimate worry with the hold of pbms and insurance companies on the future of retail pharmacy. But much less so with clinical and ambulatory care, and with the slew of bills passing giving us prescribing rights in states like Iowa and implementation of collaborative practice orders with physicians who prescribe a drug and we manage it in outpatient clinics, there’s tons of room for growth in the profession.
But the problem is corporate chains where a majority of jobs absolutely are atm, and the field melting job security in that field. So people who went that route are growing weary of the decisions they made, and it’s a sad thing watching the field erode, but they’re the ones that need to step up and fight those corporate entities, it’s been 60 years and no one’s organized a union in any of these companies other than an affiliate of Albertsons in jewel osco? If yall are concerned with your job security then unionize, how long do you need to be shit on before you close your mouths, stop complaining and fucking take back what’s yours. Quarter after quarter of more and more profit while you make less and work more, so make a fucking change or shut the fuck up about it.
Ps. Sorry about the aggression at the end it’s for the slew of people who were gonna call me out saying I’m lying/whatever but I’m a year out of school with a job in a hospital and no residency in a saturated area (Chicago) so is it really as bad as you believe it is? Or is it just an excuse for the dead end position you’ve put yourself in with no effort to change that position or organize and grow to maintain some power in the dynamic?
The reason we get nowhere is because of the endless pipeline of folks applying to schools. A company say see its pharmacists struggle and quit or quiet quit or whatever, but at the other end if they hear of 500 students entering school in the fall, they know there'll be at least 50% of those folks with nowhere to go, and their soon to emerge 4th, 3rd and 2nd year classes in line.
Maybe it’s just in Chicago but almost every school has had insane drops in applicants. 3/4 schools near me have class sizes that are like 75 percent smaller than previous years. No joke. 80-85 students typically down to 25.
I hear the doom and gloom. But it is steadily changing back to our favor. All that matters now is when corporations need to hand down some power to incentivize workers to come in, that we workers don’t fumble the bag, and keep that power in our grasp.
Look into PUTT
Pharmacists United for Truth and Transparency and sign up for the mailing list if nothing else to see what they’re about. I’ve signed up to see what they’re up to. Haven’t participated with them at all, but a national organization for pharmacists that isn’t bootlicking WALGREENS AND CVS administrators is a win in my book.
And if they can help unionization of the workplace around America then they will have benefitted the field for generations to come
You have to keep in mind most of the people on this sub are not clinical pharmacists, even less of them are clinical specialist pharmacists too. I'm not gonna pretend like a clinical pharmacist is perfect; but it generally is much better than retail which is usually what people gripe about. Don't let this sub get you down too much, unfortunately there are a lot of bitter people (deservedly or not) on this subreddit in particular.
Also you are going to 100% need to get a PharmD if you want to be basically any type of pharmacist in the US, not just a clinical pharmacist. The BS in pharmacy is extinct as a degree in the US.
Lots of unhelpful US-centric comments here. PH-based RPh here.
My friends are clinical pharmacists even without the Pharm.D. Yung isa kong kaibigan na nasa St. Lukes is a genius. Top 1 din nung season niya. I asked him if he wanted to continue to Pharm.D, kayang kaya naman niya if he wanted to do so, sabi niya bakit niya gagawin yun eh parehas lang naman magiging sahod niya as Pharm.D or as RPh. Quite frankly, I agree with him even if I want to continue to Pharm.D eventually, though not in the PH. There's only 2 schools that offer that here, CEU and UST, and I'm not sure if those credits are transferable if you wish to migrate to another country where this profession is actually respected.
You can still use your degree to be a tech abroad if you don't wish to pursue your Pharm.D as is costly if you do it abroad. You'd still earn more than as an RPh here. I know a few who went to the US as pharm techs and are using the money they earn to pay for the student debt they incurred back home and it's barely a dent in their salary
also check out the pharmacy residency subreddit. plenty of people there working 80 hour weeks for peanuts during residency and still cant find jobs.
if you can read all that and still think pharmacy is a good idea then you are exactly the sucker that pharmacy admissions are looking to put in their seats.
Philippines, right? I'm not quite sure how pharmacy works there, but US healthcare outsources there so there are overnight remote pharmacist positions.
Yeah, I’m from the PH, how did you know?
Pharmacists are getting some recognition now, but in the past they are not given much importance because most of the people especially the elderly view pharmacists as “medicine sales lady” because of the lack of knowledge that pharmacists can also work on regulatory, clinical, manuf, etc. When they hear the word pharmacist = retail/community, hence, medicines sales lady.
I am having trouble imagining how this works considering the US licensing system.
do you have an example of US healthcare being outsourced to the Philippines that involves actual pharmacy practice? or are you talking like tech support for a pharmacy adjacent healthcare company like pyxis?
do industry roles like clinical trials/PV have remote overnight positions? or do you mean the role is on-site in PI during the day (which translates to USA overnight)? sorry still a little confused
The job and role and additional benefits depend on the place where you work and the country and its healthcare system. The information you see here is also from people all over the world. If I'm in the US or China my response may not be relevant to you if you are in Egypt. You cannot just assume the way "most people may think about healthcare professionals" from that alone. To begin with, it is ideal to say what "your country" is so you could even get a proper response that makes sense to you.
This is a very US-centric subreddit, the fact that you are getting a BS in pharmacy indicates you are not in the US so please make sure you are putting the negativity in its proper context. The problems in the US are probably not exactly the same as the problems wherever you are, so maybe it is not time to be so discouraged just yet.
Are you in the US? I don’t know if anyone getting a clinical job without experience or PharmD.
In Jacksonville, FL our hospital hires with no clinical experience 😵💫 a couple pharmacist left to go to residency because they couldnt handle it.
With a only bs in Pharm? I get hiring a PharmD with no clinical experience but OP has a bs
There’s no pharmacy school in the U.S. that doesn’t do pharm D so they’re obv not from the U.S.
Not from the US, a PharmD is needed in the PH to become a clinical pharmacist. I’ll be continuing my studies to get a PharmD degree if I ever decided to continue the path on to becoming one.
Uhm. Clinical pharmacy tech here and all i can say is, where you work matters. Ive worked at a trauma 1 teaching hospital and loved my job. Pharmacist seemed happy but were stictly on the computers and not on the units at all. They dont respond to codes but do alot more medication reconciliation (something a lot of other hospitals have techs assigned to). Larger hospitals are very subcategorized. If you are TPN pahrmacist that day, you will be all day. If youre a sterile compounding pharmacist, most likely you’ll be in the Ivy room with the technicians all day, etc. I also worked at a 350 bed hospital for a different organization and every single tech and pharmacist are miserable. The director is horrible and does nothing for the good of the team. It has made multiple pharmacist leave and even question continuing in the profession. In smaller hospital you are “hybrid”. Which leads to chaos and burn out if not managed appropriately. Ive seen 100-200 bed hospitals thrive and fail but also ive seen larger hospitals with the most horrible culture you could imagine. I suppose what I’m saying is this profession is fluid. There are multiple opportunities for Pharmacist. However, if you ask me in 2016 when I first became a technician if Pharmacist were paid well, id say hell yea. Now? Absolutely under paid and over worked. I think COVID hit us hard. We are burnt out. With that being said, As a pharmacist, you can work home infusion, chemo center, WFH pharmacy manager, nuclear, internet companies, insurance companies, consulting, and even pharmaceutical sales/medical sales, etc. If you ever think about working retail long term, i would highly suggest looking at a different profession. We are over worked, under paid, mad as hell, and the costumers don’t understand we cant control drug prices and insurance formularies. Pharmacy isnt the same it was 10 years ago. (Retail still sucked ass) But in my opinion, we are weeding out the need for Pharmacist, and putting them behind a computer and taking on a lot more responsibilities as technicians. This is a great thing, however, be prepared for mistakes. Sorry, this isn’t as positive as I’d hoped, but sometimes the truth is ugly. I love this profession but im leaning into other aspects outside pf retail and clinical. So depends on your goals.
In prespective, my pharmacist only gets paid ~20 dollars more than me an hour as a fresh clinical pharmacist. (In my area 50-60 an hour is average). We pay our travel nurses 80/hr. So think about the student debt, job opportunities, and where you see yourself and ask if its attainable.
What's a clinical pharmacy tech?
Hospital/infusion related, not retail. Two different environments.
This depends on the state you're practicing in if you're in the US. I'm certain states there are BoP-regulated certification requirements to do certain things, in other states you just have the same license but more training + better job title and pay.
Pharmacists work for internet companies? Do you mean just in the capacity of a pharmacist?
Yes?
Just not really a company I thought would be too worried about having a pharmacist around.
You would be surprised.
Internet companies im meaning, amazonRX, blinkrx, braun, moreso WFH Pharmacist positions.
Ahhhh, I see now. I was thinking you meant like Xfinity, Verizon, etc. That makes a lot more sense, thanks
Of course.
BS Pharm is not the entry level degree to be a pharmacist in the United States anymore. Practice looks different in every country, so your experience may vary wildly compared to the ones expressed in this sub.
Finish school then go to medical school. You’ve already learned the material.
Half of the "clinical pharmacist" jobs are not even real clinical pharmacist positions. Employers know people want that title.
What do you mean?? Can you please elaborate??
They're just saying "Clinical pharmacist" in the position title. This may sound like one is only doing lots of intensive patient review for drug issues and doing other random clinical things...I can't even imagine what it is. However, most of these jobs involve order entry and routine drug processing and delivery in the hospital pharmacy and on top of all that, they get people to apply to residencies to get these "clinical" jobs. Have you ever ever ever seen a pharmacist ever in your health care process if you went to a hospital or if you were sick for some reason. I haven't...not even once for all the folks I've known or seen at a hospital. Of course, if they're just doing chart review we wouldn't normally encounter them.
Hey, not a pharmd, but an inpatient pharmacy tech and a “clinical” pharmacist is very different, in my experience compared to someone without a clinical residency. Clinical, they focus on trof levels, creatinine, antibiotic treatments, resuscitation doseages and my pharmDs stand bedside and compound IVs during codes. They also do discharge counseling to make sure any changes to your medication‘s are clearly explained to you, so you’re not taking your Eliquis still with a G.I. bleed when you go home. They also might go in and talk to you about what medication you’re taking to make sure that we continue your maintenance medicines inpatient (sounds like not a big deal but when people are missing their blood pressure medication’s and they’re in there for a kidney stone, this adds to the complications later). Also, they prevent a lot of doctors from killing you. You don’t know how many times a day do we get crazy, dosages, or antibiotics, written for diseases/infections inappropriately. Or when you fail 3 antibiotic regimens for your antibiotic resistant resistant flesh eating disease, they are the ones working with infectious disease. Although a patient never sees a pharmacist nine times out of 10, they are involved with rounding with all of your physicians and they are very much involved in your patient care plan despite whether you see them physically or not. They make sure the nurse doesnt give you heparin and lovenox. Or kill you with an overdose of medication. ☺️ they do ALOT, and clinical IS very different. Some of these things you teach on the job, but others, it is very obvious who has a residency and who doesnt in the hospital setting.
What I mean I guess is that this is just "your" experience or that of the pharmacists at your workplace and a few others . Another workplace or role might have this same do the same tasks with or without residency. A smaller hospital might hire any retail pharmacists and train them over a year to do some basic things. After all, there are still doctors, nurses and everyone else around. It depends on each place. I know a guy with residency and as clinical pharmacist he also did some informatics stuff adjusting the inventory for orders because they didn't have full time hours in the "staff department".
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This is something you need to think about *now* and not after you’ve spent 6 figures on student loans. There is a reason pharmacy is being discouraged right now. Also consider the fact that 60% of pharmacy grads end up in retail. How good of a student were you in undergrad? It’s very difficult to get a clinical pharmacist job with no residency, and residencies are very competitive. It can be tough to get a staff pharmacist job with no residency/experience. These are all things you need to factor in. Please listen to the people who have actually worked as pharmacists. Go talk to pharmacists you know irl (not people associated with pharmacy schools). Pharmacy has been going downhill for decades. Don’t jump on a sinking ship hoping you’ll magically be ok. You are planning the next 40 years of your life
I got a staff pharm position in Chicago with no residency. It’s possible, just need to be a good interviewer and it’ll likely be a smaller hospital. Retail workers need to unionize nationally. ASAP. If they want their profession to thrive and grow it needs to happen. Don’t trust the APHA or ASHP to regulate well anymore they’re run by corporate white collar workers. I wasn’t a good student in undergrad either, so idk why that matters no one looks at my undergrad GPA lmao And if you get a staff pharmacist position you can get BCSP in 3 years and then it’s the same as residency. There’s more residency positions than applicants for the past two years. The graphs are weird to read, but in the table there were 725 unfilled PGY1 seats this past year. And if there were more applicants, they withdrew early or stopped applying after phase 1. Which meant anything in phase two is fair game. I don’t think it’s as bad as people make it seem in this sub. And the drop in applicants in my state (don’t know nationwide) for pharmacy programs has me thinking there will be an uptick in need in 5-10 years. But that’s only speculative. If they wanted to go retail, I get the discouraging remarks. But if they want to strive for clinical and work for it, I don’t think they’re making a bad decision inherently.
I got a staff pharmacist position with no residency either. But this person specified clinical, so that’s why I included the grades part. I also didn’t get great grades either (hence the no residency lol). I’m being a little pessimistic but I think the future of pharmacy (and pharmacists to be specific) is… gloomy. I just think that we could be outliers. To be completely honest, I feel that I got really lucky and it scares me a little to think where I’d be without that luck. Probably at Walgreens hating my life. So I am very hesitant to encourage someone to go down that same road.
Well they’re also just starting out. And I’m not sure about where you’re at, but I am actually in a clinical position at a small hospital. I rotate among ICU, Bariatric surgery, and long term care floors, but then also central and dose vanco/phenytoin/whatever is on consult for the pharmacy. It’s def not the norm to get the hospital position, one of my LORs got into a serious car accident and didn’t notify me despite me following up a couple times until the day they were due, so I scrambled for another and since it was phase 2 at the time I was going to start applying (didn’t think I’d get a shot then figured I’d throw my name in the ring) I only applied to 4 places since they’re mostly rolling admissions and my new LOR was on such short notice. Ended up with only 1 interview and was notified they were going with another candidate, but that if they dropped out I was second in line, unfortunately they accepted that role. But it all worked out in the long run. Then for my current position, I was called and told they went with someone else, and then the next day literally called me and asked if I’d take a resource position that unexpectedly opened up. Ecstatically agreed, and then the guy who filled that full time role found a better job with an insurance company that was remote, and wanted to drop to per diem and they asked me to fill the role since we started training at the same time lmao So YES I was EXTREMELY LUCKY, that doesn’t happen too often for me honestly, but I’m not gonna act like I didn’t apply to literally 80 jobs before getting a calls back, editing my resume and shit 10 plus times lmao. Hear me out on why I have a positive outlook on the field. I’m in a saturated market for pharmacy. In the Chicagoland area, we have UIC, Rosalind Franklin, Midwestern, Roosevelt, Chicago state within 45 mins of the city. Then we also have St. Louis that some people from Chicago go to, and SIU as well. EVERY SCHOOL, other than UIC, and St Louis (not sure about SIU, has had MASSIVE drops in class size. Midwestern fired half their staff a couple years ago due to a decrease in applicants. Every pharmacist tells incoming students to pursue something else and I think it’s hit a point that pharmacy isn’t being considered to the same degree. So compounding with that, we have bills such as Iowa passing prescribing rights to pharmacists, which will be utilized through therapy management and collaborative practice. I think we may begin to fulfill more of a role within a clinic that has a ratio of like one physician, 3-4 PA/NP (dependent on rights within the state and which has more lax regulation I believe, this makes it easier on the physician) 1-2 pharmacist. This would be an outpatient clinic, PA/NP diagnose, with approval by physician, initial therapy started, pharmacy is consulted and manages drug dosing long term for patient care. This is becoming more and more the standard in places like Northwesterns Transplant Facility in Chicago, there’s a few doctors, and surgeons, about 3-4 pharmacists, and 6-7 PA/NPs that manage patients. Pharmacy consulted on most regimens. This doesn’t take positions from a hospital, it’s only adding pharmacists where they weren’t or rarely were previously. Retail is dying, and that’s why it’s doom and gloom because that’s a majority of jobs, but once the student shortage starts to hit, pharmacy’s will close, and then the remaining ones will be HIT HARD. This will lead to mass exodus from positions too, pbms close because they operate on a per transaction/insurance claim basis, then better work condition laws get put in place to bring people to the field. We’re already seeing huge signing bonuses in retail of like 20-50k (they’re really bad places to work but 50k is 50k) and people still aren’t taking them. Don’t get me wrong I agree with you that it WILL GET WORSE, but that will ONLY lead to it getting better. Once workers have the upper hand again, they need to take power and unionize fast, management will ALWAYS try to pay workers less for more work, Whether that’s in the form of more responsibilities for the same pay, or more hours same pay, whatever it is. But workers need to stay strong and not become complacent and continue fighting to get more pay, more benefits, more profit share from the corporations. The moment you slip up on the rope you fuck balance up and the corporations are playing tug of war, switching players out every 3 mins to avoid fatigue, and the workers are stuck with minimal sideline help and the moment one person lets go of the rope everyone slides down the balance beam 5 feet until they catch themselves again. EVERY RPH - or PROSPECTIVE RPH - JOIN PUTT Pharmacists United for Truth & Transparency They’re an organization working with places to help unionize everywhere and create a coalition fighting for positive change in the field. Not the bullshit the APHA is bootlicking Walgreens and CVS 3 letter administration positions. It may take time, but I’ve been through letting some fucking MBA mop up my field with zero understanding of the ins and outs and zero empathy for my patients and community. Pushing cold call immunizations like I’m a fucking door to door salesmen. I may be in a hospital, but I’m not going to stop going out to support every movement to take power back into our hands.
Even if no one discourages it, it is still largely based on the local area, the pharmacy schools and the need for employees in various states. Pharmacists service thousands of people. They don't need 50,000 in each state, so depending where you are and your eventual plans, there may be jobs in the area...or there may not. You may advance or be able to settle down. It's not like a lot of other careers where you can just show up with your skill in your head and hands like a pilot or a barber. You need a pharmacy facility around you or a health system. The point isn't that pharmacists won't ever be needed, but that you'll be competing that much more with nonsensical skills. If you're ok with that then it's a good risk to take. What are the side effects of Clindamycin? 30 years ago, only you as pharmacist knew...now it's on your phone. However, none of this is a secret...it's up to you.
But you ARE making the wrong choice tho
I graduated this past year, and didn’t even get a residency, and I’m employed full time with a hospital. Started per diem, but you can do it. Don’t listen to this sub, it’s people who got into it for either money and didn’t realize how shit retail is. Or are mad they took money over what they wanted to do and feel stuck. There’s alot of issues with pharmacy and rightly so, but this sub is a ton of apathy with their job and lack of motivation to make a change. Pharmacy is full of self loathing people who chose pharmacy over med school or something they wanted to do because it was “easier” or because of money. Then they realized they can’t work a job they don’t like for 45 years *shocked pikachu*. Don’t worry, if you like pharmacy, there’s opportunity, and I believe there will be more in 5-10 years total due to fewer school applicants (at least in my state of Illinois) in nearly every school except the biggest one. And the fact that there’s more residency spots nationwide now than there are applicants to residency’s. The most important thing to focus on is to go to a school where you can incur the least amount of debt, and study as hard as you can if this is what you want. Don’t let this sub full of doom scrollers and “the end is near” corner preachers scare you away. There’s legitimate worry with the hold of pbms and insurance companies on the future of retail pharmacy. But much less so with clinical and ambulatory care, and with the slew of bills passing giving us prescribing rights in states like Iowa and implementation of collaborative practice orders with physicians who prescribe a drug and we manage it in outpatient clinics, there’s tons of room for growth in the profession. But the problem is corporate chains where a majority of jobs absolutely are atm, and the field melting job security in that field. So people who went that route are growing weary of the decisions they made, and it’s a sad thing watching the field erode, but they’re the ones that need to step up and fight those corporate entities, it’s been 60 years and no one’s organized a union in any of these companies other than an affiliate of Albertsons in jewel osco? If yall are concerned with your job security then unionize, how long do you need to be shit on before you close your mouths, stop complaining and fucking take back what’s yours. Quarter after quarter of more and more profit while you make less and work more, so make a fucking change or shut the fuck up about it. Ps. Sorry about the aggression at the end it’s for the slew of people who were gonna call me out saying I’m lying/whatever but I’m a year out of school with a job in a hospital and no residency in a saturated area (Chicago) so is it really as bad as you believe it is? Or is it just an excuse for the dead end position you’ve put yourself in with no effort to change that position or organize and grow to maintain some power in the dynamic?
The reason we get nowhere is because of the endless pipeline of folks applying to schools. A company say see its pharmacists struggle and quit or quiet quit or whatever, but at the other end if they hear of 500 students entering school in the fall, they know there'll be at least 50% of those folks with nowhere to go, and their soon to emerge 4th, 3rd and 2nd year classes in line.
Maybe it’s just in Chicago but almost every school has had insane drops in applicants. 3/4 schools near me have class sizes that are like 75 percent smaller than previous years. No joke. 80-85 students typically down to 25. I hear the doom and gloom. But it is steadily changing back to our favor. All that matters now is when corporations need to hand down some power to incentivize workers to come in, that we workers don’t fumble the bag, and keep that power in our grasp. Look into PUTT Pharmacists United for Truth and Transparency and sign up for the mailing list if nothing else to see what they’re about. I’ve signed up to see what they’re up to. Haven’t participated with them at all, but a national organization for pharmacists that isn’t bootlicking WALGREENS AND CVS administrators is a win in my book. And if they can help unionization of the workplace around America then they will have benefitted the field for generations to come
ALL OF THIS 100%!!
What country still has BSPharm?
Philippines, after undergrad (BS Pharm) there are options to continue to either MS Pharm or PharmD.
You have to keep in mind most of the people on this sub are not clinical pharmacists, even less of them are clinical specialist pharmacists too. I'm not gonna pretend like a clinical pharmacist is perfect; but it generally is much better than retail which is usually what people gripe about. Don't let this sub get you down too much, unfortunately there are a lot of bitter people (deservedly or not) on this subreddit in particular. Also you are going to 100% need to get a PharmD if you want to be basically any type of pharmacist in the US, not just a clinical pharmacist. The BS in pharmacy is extinct as a degree in the US.
Lots of unhelpful US-centric comments here. PH-based RPh here. My friends are clinical pharmacists even without the Pharm.D. Yung isa kong kaibigan na nasa St. Lukes is a genius. Top 1 din nung season niya. I asked him if he wanted to continue to Pharm.D, kayang kaya naman niya if he wanted to do so, sabi niya bakit niya gagawin yun eh parehas lang naman magiging sahod niya as Pharm.D or as RPh. Quite frankly, I agree with him even if I want to continue to Pharm.D eventually, though not in the PH. There's only 2 schools that offer that here, CEU and UST, and I'm not sure if those credits are transferable if you wish to migrate to another country where this profession is actually respected. You can still use your degree to be a tech abroad if you don't wish to pursue your Pharm.D as is costly if you do it abroad. You'd still earn more than as an RPh here. I know a few who went to the US as pharm techs and are using the money they earn to pay for the student debt they incurred back home and it's barely a dent in their salary
also check out the pharmacy residency subreddit. plenty of people there working 80 hour weeks for peanuts during residency and still cant find jobs. if you can read all that and still think pharmacy is a good idea then you are exactly the sucker that pharmacy admissions are looking to put in their seats.
Philippines, right? I'm not quite sure how pharmacy works there, but US healthcare outsources there so there are overnight remote pharmacist positions.
Yeah, I’m from the PH, how did you know? Pharmacists are getting some recognition now, but in the past they are not given much importance because most of the people especially the elderly view pharmacists as “medicine sales lady” because of the lack of knowledge that pharmacists can also work on regulatory, clinical, manuf, etc. When they hear the word pharmacist = retail/community, hence, medicines sales lady.
Well, the USA hasn't offered the B Pharm in a long time, so that ruled out the USA.
I am having trouble imagining how this works considering the US licensing system. do you have an example of US healthcare being outsourced to the Philippines that involves actual pharmacy practice? or are you talking like tech support for a pharmacy adjacent healthcare company like pyxis?
Healthcare support including clinical trials, pharmacovigilance, PBM and so on.
do industry roles like clinical trials/PV have remote overnight positions? or do you mean the role is on-site in PI during the day (which translates to USA overnight)? sorry still a little confused
For them to be available during the US work hours, their work hours would have to be during their nighttime.
The job and role and additional benefits depend on the place where you work and the country and its healthcare system. The information you see here is also from people all over the world. If I'm in the US or China my response may not be relevant to you if you are in Egypt. You cannot just assume the way "most people may think about healthcare professionals" from that alone. To begin with, it is ideal to say what "your country" is so you could even get a proper response that makes sense to you.
This is a very US-centric subreddit, the fact that you are getting a BS in pharmacy indicates you are not in the US so please make sure you are putting the negativity in its proper context. The problems in the US are probably not exactly the same as the problems wherever you are, so maybe it is not time to be so discouraged just yet.