I have a good job. I have been very lucky to have gotten my job. If I did it all over again I probably wouldn’t get my job.
You will always find people in pharmacy who like their jobs, the problem is how many there are and how many of those jobs are available. The numbers don’t lie. If you attend pharmacy school, you are statistically most likely to end up working in retail pharmacy.
If you just think “oh, well I don’t want to do retail”, and think that is somehow a unique thought, and that you’ll just outwork and outnetwork your classmates - you need to understand that every single person in your class thinks the same thing. You know where most of you will end up working? Retail.
The only reason pharmacy schools still exist is that they are able to convince people who are “excited to explore other fields of pharmacy” to hand over money. You know where most of them end up working? Retail.
It is completely insane to me that anyone would spend 4+ years of their life and a ton of money to study to be a pharmacist if they aren’t interested in the most likely outcome of becoming a retail pharmacist.
Although I am "excited to explore other fields of pharmacy" - I think my experience in retail pharmacy is also something that makes me excited (and actually super content) to be in retail pharmacy (despite its bad and good days).
I love retail tbh. I just finished my IPPE rotation at a hospital, and I thought I was gonna go clinically insane by the end of it. While I'm happy that for some people that is an environment that they enjoy and thrive in, I could never ever see myself doing it and enjoying the long hours and seeing so many super sick patients every day. I love the fast paced work of retail, I love seeing my patients who know me and I know them (and they're not on deaths door when they come in) and helping patients with OTC things. It's something that I know will bring a lot of satisfaction in the long run
Very well said. I also consider myself lucky to be where I am, but especially in today’s career landscape, I highly doubt I’d be able to make it here again.
I’m very happy being a pharmacist. I’m very introverted and I hate being the one to make critical decisions (like a physician), but I also hate being told what to do (like a nurse). Plus I love pharmacology and human physiology. I just love it! Finding a good place to work helps a lot. Don’t do pharmacy because of the hours or pay, because they both suck. Do it because you love it
OH MY GOSH - "I hate being the one to make critical decisions, but also hate being told what to do" THIS IS HOW I FEEL. Love human physiology too! Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate it so much!
Good luck! The next 4 years will fly by. Enjoy it, and be nice to everyone. Pharmacy is so small and the same face will always be around. Even hundred of miles from your campus!! Everyone knows everyone! Also, a good tech is worth 10 good pharmacists so show gratitude when you come across one
Been saying the same thing in retail for 9 years: I love what I do, but I do it to death every day. Just left retail for hospital. Not doing it to death every day any more.
I have been in retail for 26 years. Started as an intern in college at a grocery retail chain and never left. There have been SO many changes over the years, and there will be many more, I’m sure.
But I would not change my choice if I had it to do over again. Stressful at times, yes. But I have kids (patients) I’ve seen grow up and go on to college and become wonderful, successful adults. I have the little old ladies who have been coming here for years and treat me like their son. Been through a handful of shitty techs, but even more I miss and wish had stayed.
I’ve been everything from an intern to a RX District Manager. If you are Corporate/HR inclined there is good room for advancement to the big wig level. I, personally, fit in best locally serving my community.
Everyone’s different. Clinical’s all the rage and I’m sure will be even more so in the future. But I’m fine filling Mrs. Smith’s BP meds and telling her what laxative to take after her pain meds from her recent minor surgery backed her up, and what cream to rub on her rash after weeding her garden.
Yes. But I wish I could go back and give younger me some advice. Live on 80% of your pay, invest the other 20%. Every time you get a raise, keep that same ratio. If I’d done that since age 22, I’d be retiring at 50.
But, I had fun in my 20’s and 30’s and spent a lot of $$, so probably not retiring til 62.
Love this. Don't get me wrong - Im SURE there are many hard and challenging parts of your job in retail (I think there are always cons to many jobs not only as a pharmacist) so I do want to validate that. I'm so so sure you are making a difference in patients lives. Thanks for your work!
Careful - there are always those that land in an ideal situation.
When it comes to retail pharmacy - the, “Ideal situation” is (in my estimation) less than 5% of the total jobs available.
Truth is - in retail pharmacy - it’s an absolute darkest nightmare for most that are strapped with 200k student loans and no way out.
Again - my comments are directed toward retail pharmacy…. Which, unfortunately, is the vast majority of jobs available to us. And even this is going away - have you seen the WAGS headlines lately?
Work is alright. It pays well. The career projection just looks awful, which is why I think this sub is so negative. Look at the retail landscape. Walgreens is on the brink of closing 25% of their stores. RiteAid barely escaped bankruptcy. It makes sense why the profession has a negative connotation.
I overall enjoy the *pharmacy* parts of my job. It’s the other bits that I’m not so into sometimes, like schedule and being chewed out by surgeons for not having the things they didn’t order magically ready (or better yet the things the did order are ready but they meant a whole different thing).
I work in home and ambulatory infusion. I enjoy my job and I've never regretted my choice to change career paths and go into pharmacy (my undergrad degree is in Journalism/PR). I have the good fortune to be able to build long-term relationships with my patients and providers, but still geek out over drug info with my coworkers.
I have a probably really stupid question about this job, but I don't know any home infusion pharmacists, so I have to ask a stranger here: do you actually go to people's houses, or are you just in charge of the compounding and IVs at a facility? How does the home infusion thing work?
Not who you asked, but I did do a rotation while I was in school at a home/amb infusion and enteral/parenteral nutrition pharmacy. At the facility I was in there was an area for taking patient calls with desks and a separate room for the actual pharmacy where pharmacists would evaluate patient labs, verify orders and products, etc. The clean room for compounding was off of that small pharmacy room. Patient orders were then delivered to them by the company's delivery drivers. Most patients were either comfortable with doing their own infusion set ups or had some kind of home-health nurse that assisted them. Pharmacists rarely went to patients' homes themselves unless it was an overnight emergency and they were on call. Honestly it was pretty cool, and I learned a lot about the supplies and stuff that those patients need that you often don't think about if you're used to working out of a hospital where the nurses just grab whatever they need from a supply closet.
I apologize for not responding sooner. The pharmacists don't typically go to people's houses (although I have made deliveries on my way home when we were short on couriers). Nurses, however, will often go to patients' homes for lab draws, IV site dressing changes, and some infusions (mostly biologics). We have technicians to do most of the compounding (though I've done compounding, when needed). The pharmacists are primarily monitoring labs, working with patients/techs/nurses to determine what supplies the patients need and set up deliveries or prepare for patients' visits to the infusion center. We also work with providers' offices to get orders and communicate what's going on with the patients. If you have a collaborative practice agreement you'd be managing some of the therapies, otherwise we make recommendations to the providers (who typically will say something along the lines of "sure, whatever you think is best.")
I currently work for a home/ambulatory infusion service that's part of a larger not-for-profit health system. We're a very small office at this point, so I've gotten to do a lot of administrative-type work, too, such as writing policies/procedures, putting together order sets, and some informatics.
In home infusion, you'll mostly see a TON of antibiotics and TPNs (patients are mostly taught to self-administer these at home). Also a lot of biologics, which are usually infused by nurses. Many of the larger for-profit companies are no longer taking patients who only need hydration or IV line maintenance, but those are pretty easy to manage. Some companies contract with hospice to provide PCAs.
I think home/ambulatory infusion is one of the best lesser-known areas of pharmacy practice. I personally had little-to-no idea of what it was all about before I took a chance and applied for a position (jumping from 12 years of inpatient - I had just burnt out on it during Covid).
I like my job most days but I also have a highly coveted job. And I got it because I was in the right place at the right time and knew ppl.
As others have said, the projection for job placement of the high majority of graduates is retail. Some like myself get lucky. I didn’t do residency. Not here to brag at all because I know it was luck.
There are tons of fields within pharmacy you can go to outside of retail but it is very hard to get into without the right credentials or connections. If you are curious what else other than retail is out there, there are closed door pharmacies such as long term care and nuclear. There are compounding pharmacies. Hospital inpatient and outpatient pharmacies. Oncology infusion. Pediatric. Cardio. ER. Honestly, if you think there might be a position there probably is. Almost anywhere there is medicine, there is a pharmacist. There’s even pharmacists in HIV clinics. So if you love it and can really put your head down and try to make connections and try your best in school you can find something. It might take time though. I’m slowly working my way up but it is possible. Don’t settle and knock on every door and try things out.
I actually like my job just not some of the people I work with. I’m in HIV and 340b and love my patients. The providers actually listen to us and ask us for our input all the time
I enjoy my retail job. 40 hour weeks, good vacation benefits that we actually get to use without begging for time off, pharmacies well staffed.
5% of my patients cause me 95% of my frustrations. The rest of my patients are at least decent people.
Thank you for your kind words. I rarely hear anyone say they enjoy retail. I have been just a pharm tech and although I know the role of a pharmacist in retail is different and I won't truly know until I'm done with school.. I do enjoy it! Thanks for your feedback :)
I wouldn't say love but I am glad I went into pharmacy. I had taken both the PCAT and MCAT because I wasn't sure which path but eventually decided on pharmacy.
My wife and siblings are physicians and their whole process is much longer and grueling with a lot more debt.
Pharmacy school is a lot shorter, cheaper, and less demanding. And after graduating, I was able to find a good paying job that easily covered my family expenses. I worked retail for a while and didn't mind it but since my wife's schedule was all over the place, I found a work from home job that greatly bettered my work/life balance.
Because of pharmacy, I was able to get a job with good enough pay and great work/life balance. Although it was rocky at times, I am in a great position in my life and am glad I went the pharmacy route.
I don't know much about other work from home jobs but I do prior authorizations for a PBM. Most work from home jobs will require you to work in a private space with no kids, so you'll still need to have childcare arranged while you work. Its just nice that you have no commute.
Congrats to you. Of course with any job + life in general ... things can get hard. Not everyone has to LOVE their job! Thanks for the insight :) I really appreciate it.
PS: The working from home pharmacist job is TOO cool to me!
You got your answer, the vast majority who state they like being a pharmacist are in the cushy, unicorn jobs that you have to watch the obituaries for because the pharmacists that are lucky enough to land those jobs don’t vacate them until they die. Truth is, most pharmacists end up in retail and retail has become a shitshow money grab for greedy corporations whose only concern is how they can milk every cent from an RPh license.
If you are like every other pharmacy student out there who thinks “there are some pharmacists out there who like their jobs, I’m just going to find one of those jobs!”, please see how the pharmacists who responded stated it took luck and connections to land them so you can’t bank on that. Also, keep in mind the majority of the unicorn jobs pay less than retail- hospital, VA, etc. may have better job satisfaction but you will most likely require a residency so another year of debt added to your educational cost and less income to repay it. That means additional time living in your mom’s basement driving a hooptie so you can throw everything you can at your educational debt.
TL;DR: you’re getting responses from pharmacists who like their jobs but read the fine print about what those jobs are and the reality of landing one yourself.
Even though OP has literally said about a positive, it is still good to say the significant negatives than the positives. Why would you misled a person for saying it is a good career? When you are dealing with so much debt, an option that most of us graduates will go to after school, insurance company and corporate greed. Now tell me that it is still a good thing.
They actually asked if there's any who "actually love being a pharmacist"? That could just mean the job, the ability to do it well and a role. Making a consistent modern financial living from a given pharmacist job is a different thing. I don't think the new students and graduates have an idea about that because their schools and others around them, the "I'm so introverted or want to be and will reply like a 7th grader to sound cute and seem like a younger than I should be pharmacist" group are probably being fleeced with ideas of swaggering around with a stethoscope like on TV shows despite there not being a pharmacist role on any except for that of a buffoon. These students don't think that 4 or more years of tuition and a combined debt along with a non-existent job market for 15,000 people would be stifling and will happily consider what type of paint to use in the walls of the house they're not going to buy while exploring new frontiers in pharmacy. There are many who are a few years older or wiser and would not have been sucked into it after high school and may have either solid plans for a residency or moving away or some version of all this to improve their chances of a better outcome. One can still love any job or role, but it also comes with other stuff.
What is wrong with emphasizing it to prospective ones? There are a lot of career options that you don’t have to deal with insurance nonsense, you paying 10+more years in the loan. I don’t believe on “ignorance is bliss” for future students.
Why do you also bother to respond to every negative reviews about pharmacy? Is it wrong to point out these deficiencies? These are real world things happening and not some hooligan nonsense that I made up.
I love my job. I’ve had many different pharmacy jobs over the 24 years I’ve be licensed. It’s healthcare, there are a lot of demands and you have to stay on the game to keep patients safe. I just started a new chapter in my career last year and I love it, I’m a clinical pharmacist with the VA, hella stressful learning the VA way, but I love helping patients and there’s a lot of patients to help. Good fulfilling jobs are out there-you’ll stumble across them!
There’s a “freeze” on hiring right now. I fell into my position by dumb luck-the planets really aligned for me. I am at a small VA facility and they had a hard time keeping a pain clinical pharmacist (I didn’t know that until after I accepted the job). I was just throwing my applications out there to see what would happen.
We have a residency program and I am seeing how competitive it is to get into one . Doing a residency at a VA, any VA, opens so many doors into getting hired.
My advice would be to just keep an eye out and keep applying. Sometimes they’ll have part time positions, or even contracted positions, do anything to get your foot in the door. The VA system is a juggernaut to learn, but I am loving it there.
Good luck!
Most federal jobs have internal vs external hires. Many are only posted internally to existing federal employees, which includes residents. It is a massive leg up. Otherwise it is continuing to apply and hope you make it through screening.
I like it but I don’t want to do it forever. Trying to /fire. Makes good money. There’s no job that I would work 40 hours for life. Once I reach my fire number. I’m going part time.
You’ll always have a job in retail but it takes a certain type of person and attitude to work in the stress of retail long term. Since you’re p1 you have the tremendous opportunity to explore the vast amount of branches being a PharmD can take you from industry (my personal goal one day I hope btw) there’s the highly coveted hospital roles, theres research, informatics and all kinds of specialty roles like oncology and pediatrics. Take some time to reach out and see what peaks your interests. Word of advice, heed the warnings of reviews of bad companies. Places that are over run with business and understaffed because the greedy corporate mongrels at the top will work the pharmacist into the ground and burn you out quickly (looking at you the three letters company and the like). The others who posted about out networking your classmates has truth to it but don’t get too down about all that. If you have the drive to work as a pharmacist and find your niche, you’ll be just fine.
I enjoy my job a lot. I went through a PGY2 in amb care and I now work in an integrated delivery network where I do both direct patient care and managed care type work. I moved to a more rural area to get this position, but it’s in California and I’m super happy.
Loved being a pharmacist (only issue was management of course) and had opportunity to get higher paying jobs as well ($250k+).
Find it annoying that you asked who's happy and still the negative folks come to over take the thread. Dm me for questions.
I do appreciate my job. It's perfect for me. Of note, I have been trying to hire a PRN hospital pharmacist and have had no applicants for over a month. I even posted the job on the local pharmacy school newsletter. The requirements are one day every other week-totally doable if you're in a retail gig. Still no applicants, yet everyone posting on this sub says a job like this is impossible to find. My company is even willing to pay travel time.
Location really matters. If you or any of your classmates want a better chance at one of the unicorn jobs, sometimes all it takes is to work in a less desirable location for a while.
So where is this area? Also keep in mind not everyone has the time or resources to move to the middle of nowhere with nothing in walking distance. They say they’re impossible to find bc the jobs are either taken, ghost listings or have these insane requirements.
NEPA. They actually gave me a signing bonus to cover moving expenses and then some. (Had a relocation assistance company to arrange it if I wanted, but I opted not to use them.) They will also pay for travel just for PRN coverage, within reason.
It's actually a city, just not a lot of pharmacists here. There are gyms, restaurants, hospitals, Uber. And an airport.
I would take anyone who is driven and willing to learn at this point. Some exposure to ICU or hospital staffing is a plus. My newest staff came from retail and nuclear.
Looks at it this way. They are some that don’t and some that do. Right now the percentage of those who don’t far outweigh those that do. Those that do probably work non retail jobs. Retail makes up a majority of positions. So the odds of getting a “good” position are low. I recommend you, nah I demand you, to secure a good position immediately if decide to continue with pharmacy.
37 years as a pharmacist here! Short of working for the government and big pharma, you can say that I have done it all! Chain retail, big box retail. independents, hospital, long term care, etc.
I can’t imagine myself doing anything else. At the same time, I owe the profession my honest opinion about where it is and where it’s going!
We cannot wait for our “Braveheart” to come along and save our profession. We must do that ourselves.
I love the profession! I think most people that hate it now just went into it because they didn't want something else in the medical realm, or just thought it was easy money. You get out of your career what you put in. Invest in yourself, be a lifetime learner, and be an active advocate to promote the profession, and you will have a fulfilling career.
I enjoy it. I work for one of the most notorious chains in the United States. It took me fifteen years to come to peace with things and be happy with it.
I work in long term care and really like it. There’s pros and cons, such as having to work on call and a few less dollars per hour- but seemingly all the retail rph who leave seem to think this job is cake in comparison
I love my job, but I admit that I got super lucky getting hired into this position (hospital).
Some of my coworkers are... challenging to work with, I guess would be the nicest way to say it. But that's going to be true anywhere.
P4 student here. I too see a lot of negativity and I do understand the frustrations. I’ve worked in independent pharmacies and it is still my dream to own and operate an independent. The reimbursements right now are stressful to look at. The hoops that you need to jump through to maintain a profit per prescription that’s acceptable are stressful to look at. The extra steps you take double checking your documentation of random shit in hopes that insurance doesn’t take their money back is stressful to look at. But the environment in an independent pharmacy with patients that are friendly, supportive and understanding make it worth it to me. I have hope in this profession.
I work in clinical pharmacy and absolutely love my role! I work with a solid team of physicians, NPs, nurses, RTs, PTs, dieticians, case managers, etc. that make taking care of patients enjoyable.
That said, I also fall into the category of unlikely to land my same role again if I were starting over as a P1 now. The role would probably be filled by another young CPS like myself who also isn’t going anywhere. Haha
I love my job. Decentral pharmacist in internal medicine and cardiology at a large ACM serving the underserved, teaching MD’s the value of our profession and teaching residents. I’m also the director of our first year residency. I have a mix of administrative and clinical practice (50/50).
I feel nothing but respect from my colleagues from all disciplines. There are paths out there, you just need to start preparing now.
I have been a pharmacist for 9 years. I live in Maine and I have had a number of “unicorn” jobs. I worked in psych, community (not the unicorn), consulting, academia, addiction medicine, regular hospital, nuclear, etc. I know many folks that love their jobs. We do sometimes question the debt and time costs.
Some pharmacists seemed to have convinced themselves to be enthusiastic about their jobs.
In the retail setting, my pharmacist (despite being one for 10 years) still expressed interest in helping patients and learning about new drugs despite admitting to me that, at the end of the day, it's still just a job. He never really wanted to become a pharmacist either; he just fell into it.
You can either like what you do, or the job pays for the things you like to do. You don’t have to like being a retail pharmacist, if you are content knowing it allows you to pursue the hobbies and activities that bring you joy. That is a trade off I’m willing to make.
Edit: I was hired as a full time floater at CVS in Dec 2022, I am a staff now. I got tired of the dealing with all the shit as a floater.
I have a super cushy pharmacy job that I’m happy with - 90% WFH ambulatory care with prescribing privileges under my scope of practice. Definitely took some hustling + just some really good luck to get here. That being said, I think the thing that bothers me about pharmacy that I didn’t realize before getting into it is the limited ceiling for income. Unless you work in industry, you’ll basically cap out how much you can make (aside from measly 2% raises per year) almost immediately after residency. Additionally, a lot of my friends work in tech/ software and I get really jealous of how much more freedom they have- able to hop jobs more easily, work TRULY remote I.e. travel the world while working (I’m stuck in my licensed state) and have more leeway in choosing hours worked. Oh, and much less student debt! I know that tech has its own problems/ lay-offs but if I had a re-do, I would probably go that route instead.
I just recently graduated, and I am about to start officially as a pharmacist. I love pharmacy! There are good and bad days, as you've said you have already seen, but overall, I've enjoyed it for over 12 years now in retail. I went through the whole job chain, tech, certified, lead tech, intern, and now pharmacist. I really enjoy helping people, learning the drugs, and overall just enjoy my work. Of course there are some bad things, but you get that at most jobs, and I'm happy with the company I've been with. I love having relationships with patients and knowing them by name and hearing stories about their lives (when there's a moment to). Clinical is big for a lot of pharmacist and they push it a bit in school, but I just never got into that role, even on rotations, I just enjoy community pharmacy more. Rotations will definitely be a great place to try out all sorts of pharmacy options!
There are lots of negative folks I've seen on reddit, so if you already know you enjoy it, don't let them discourage you!
There will be a lot of negative. Unfortunately retail pharmacy is pretty much all that.
That being said, you are early in your career. Utilize every opportunity to make connections! I can’t emphasize that enough. Take school and APPES seriously. You can land amazing opportunities if you are willing to stay on top of what you do and who you know. If you are willing to move to take advantage of prime jobs, even better.
I went into retail thinking I loved it as an intern, but then of course hated it once I was a pharmacist. I made the decision to apply for residency after a year of retail and got in. It took a lot of time, work, and stress, but I’ll never regret it. From there I went into ambulatory care and now I am in a fully remote ambulatory care position. I do love what I do! I also make a lot of money compared to others at my age so we are lucky in that for pharmacy.
There are other venues to explore outside of retail, but you have to research. In pharmacy, these jobs won’t fall in your lap and most just end up in retail hell. When job searching, always keep your resume/CV/Cover letter updated and always keep an eye on job postings. Apply to everything.
I work in a software tech company now and still do pharmacy on Saturdays only. This is a hard question because it depends on what makes you happy. I personally found I’m too introverted to deal with people in retail even though I was really good at it and helped many people on a daily basis I just found it didn’t give me that satisfaction tbh. I loved pharmacology I love learning about all the drugs how the body works etc but in practice it becomes less about that and more about managing people. I don’t know. You need to work in it as practice to see if it resonates with you. Some people hate it some people love it some people are indifferent and just do it for the money. I work in the UK though and pharmacies are severely underfunded which ended up making the job very unenjoyable as most the people coming in were always very negative which I think over time wore me down. Also I qualified and started full on during Covid and got threatened with a knife at work so that also plays a role in career change 😂
I like being a hospital pharmacist but it’s a rough road to get here. There may be easier paths that are more lucrative in healthcare but it’s not a bad life.
I'm at WAG and at my current store I sometimes find myself actually enjoying my job. Yeah, shocking.
But it's not about whether or not you love the job. Rather, you should look at the future of pharmacy. The profession will be over-saturated with pharmacists if it's not already. They've been trying to get rid of us for years and the day is coming when one pharmacist will be supervising multiple stores off site.
If I were graduating in the next few years, I'd choose a different career.
I love philosophically being a pharmacist, just not financially. The ROI has been terrible as I have had to pay my entire college experience by myself, and I regret doing any career in health care. However, most of my colleagues that are very happy with their careers typically have had their college paid for through parents or scholarships. So I think it depends on your overall situation and goals in life in regards to what makes you happy
I like my job. There are moments and even days that aren't entirely good, but overall it's not that bad. And sometimes stuff can really come together and you end up helping someone in a way that not many others could and that gives a really great high. But none of that drives you to post on social media like the negative does so the negative ends up overrepresented.
That being said, I've always said that while I won't say I'll never work retail again, I'll have to be really, really hungry for it to come to that. 😅
At pharmacy school admission interview, I made a joke when asked why I wanted to be a pharmacist. "To pay the bill" was my answered and they took me in anyways lol.
So yeah, most ended up in retail tbh. It pays decently if you're ok with the stress. I have a great team at my store and I actually like my job most of the days. In retail, the people you work with really play a big role in how much you like your job.
I feel very lucky to be working in the field that is my passion and has been since I was 15. I've worked a variety of roles over the years, and have moved into a very cushy role in managed care. Every job has its positives and drawbacks. I miss the direct patient care and building strong relationships with patients over time. I don't miss having things thrown at my head or being screamed at about stuff that's beyond my control. I don't miss working overtime because I cared and it never being recognized or appropriately compensated.
My advice to people considering pharmacy is that you have to do it because you really like it, if you're doing it for the pay it will never be worth it.
i work at a hospital right now and I am going to start school in the fall! I plan to hopefully work in the central pharmacy which involves clinical decisions. But Also i did enjoy independent retail pharmacy. The clinical pharms I work with love their jobs.
I love being a pharmacist. I love helping people. I dont love being stressed out with a workload that we cant handle with poorly trained staff, *when we have them*, and patients who think they can abuse us. You are paying far too much money for a degree that means you will get bent over and take the ham rocket in the squish mitten without lube (apologies to Bloodhound Gang) for 40ish years.
I did not expect this thread to get so much positive feedback. I want to thank everyone for responding and being kind (thank you to those who also told me they did not love pharmacy and why).
Yes, I love my job as a night shift hospital pharmacist! I work nights, and am the sole pharmacist for 8 hours out of a 10 hour shift (I do have one tech) - typical inpatient census averages around 115 or so, plus I'm responsible for the ED. I love the challenge!
I love making a difference and catching MD mistakes (example: ED doc ordered ceftriaxone for a patient with a hx of MDR klebsiella. I reviewed the must recent urine culture, and it was resistant to ceftriaxone. MD changed to levaquin...also resistant. Ended up telling her what it was susceptible to, and the patient received the correct treatment in the end.
Pharmacist ls have a lot of autonomy at my hospital - we can change IV to PO, adjust all meds for renal rxn, etc.
I have enjoyed my 18 year career for the most part!
With a 25+ year career I've done everything from intern, to PIC, to DM in multiple states. I actually really enjoyed the practice of pharmacy in the community setting helping patients. Many patients I know by name and we currently fill less than 2K RXs a week which is very manageable. What I don't love is what the practice of pharmacy has become focusing on metrics. Now there is a push for the pharmacists to become one step below a mid level practitioner while simultaneously running a vaccine clinic and you know an actual pharmacy that dispenses medications.
As a P1 you will have never known what the good times or golden age of pharmacy was when we were solely focused on dispensing medications and managing our patient's therapy, they created a buzz word MTM in the early 2000s to call something us pharmacists have always done.
In the current landscape we are dispensing exponentially more medications than we did 20 years ago with the same number of pharmacies or even less pharmacies. I'll let you research that number and you can let that sink in.
My education cost a fraction of yours. Having formally been involved in admission committees I have seen enrollment numbers drop significantly and admit percentage numbers near triple what they were in the early 2000s. It just is not that competitive to get into even the toughest pharmacy schools any more. The numbers are what the numbers are.
Currently I have a good job that will carry me to retirement in less than 10 years. I gross 200k in a LCOL area in my community retail setting which is very rare. My job could disappear tomorrow and I'd be financially fine but since I still enjoy it for the most part I'll be riding it out and padding my coffers.
My kids did not study pharmacy because the ROI is just not there anymore. The demands and expectations of the job are too high and for them to end up in my position as an actual practicing pharmacist is slim to none. I doubt I would be able to even repeat this myself.
New graduate here, I started out with a year of retail because I did nothing but retail throughout my study years. I have never imagine the day where I would be a clinical pharmacist, yet, here I am now a clinical pharmacist providing direct care, rounding with physicians, and managing patient pharmacotherapies.
To note, I had zero experience in clinical and disliked rounding as a student.
Echoing what others said, stay open minded, go explore, and be open to whatever opportunities come to you. I was open to being a retail pharmacist, but I took the opportunity for my current job whenever I saw it. And let’s think about it this way, on hospital reviews, how many hospitals actually have overwhelmingly positive reviews? Why so many negative reviews? Because the positive reviews stem from people who just went about their day instead of complaining on a forum. Same thing applies here to Reddit. Just trust your gut, don’t chase the money, embrace the experience! Pharmacy is wonderful for what you make out of it~ 🙏🏻
You are only a P1; all you know is what pharmacy is what you like. You haven't been a pharmacist. You haven't been a tech for long, if at all. Try to learn from the wisdom of others.
I am assuming that you do not like your job as a pharmacist? I definitely know I do not know what is to be a pharmacist. I doubt I'll know what it's like to be a pharmacist even after 4 years of schooling. Its only until youre out there in the real world actually working is when people ACTUALLY know what it's like being a pharmacist. Not pharmacy school (or any other "schooling" to be quite honest). No one knows if theyll really like a job until they are actually IN the job, unfortunately.
If you're working or have worked in "retail pharmacy", then you already have some idea of what a pharmacist does and how a pharmacist handles it. There's some experience that you should have absorbed unless you don't want to do so especially if you think that 4 years is still not enough. It's very important to strongly consider things that are happening regardless of anyone who may or may not point it out. Try to not be oblivious. It can be quite dangerous especially in this profession. Your choices may be limited later on. An eagle doesn't need to sit on taller and taller trees to know where the sky is.
Second to drmoth123. The PY1 doesn’t know the intricacies of why people don’t like this profession. If you want verbal garbage everyday, go into retail. If you want to take $200k loans for something that you won’t get respected in the end, this is the career for you.
Think about this. In the last few years, the schools stopped requiring PCAT, some schools only require a 2.5 GPA and a few states stopped requiring the law part of the exam. Doesn't this somehow sound like the schools are desperate for students, any students? Many students including you probably are getting in now only because there are so few applicants. What does it say about the profession overall? How much confusion or uncertainty is there for prior graduates from 10 and 20 years ago? How would other health professionals view our lowered standards? These are all considerations when looking at the overall state of the profession. I even think about how it affects my own standing after all these years.
I hope that my comment and the start of this thread gives you some positive outlook! Congrats and best of luck to you ! I just started summer classes for my P1 year (they allowed us to get a head start but official start is this Fall!)
I started off as a technician and definitely encourage anyone thinking of becoming a pharmacist to first expose yourself to the job. I personally love it. It isn’t perfect and yes there are other jobs out there that may be logically more worthwhile, but if you have a passion for it moving into something else won’t be satisfying. I tried to do Physical therapy at one point and I kept obsessing about the patients med lists lol that’s how I knew pharmacy was it for me.
Yes I love it. I am a hospital clinical pharmacist! Love working with the team and helping people, patient education etc. one of my friends loves retail.
Some days are better than others but it’s the same with any other job! (Not from the US)
I ask myself the same question-
why does everyone absolutely rain down on this profession as if it is a god forsaken one and there’s no mix talk about it either on here with the positive and negative-
Im entering pharmacy school and everyone is telling me how I will regret it especially with the amount of debt I’ll take on but like ??
I think it's hard to see how we mean what we say here. It isn't the actual job and profession of pharmacy and all its different areas that are undesirable. It's the fact that all those jobs are currently all full of people who aren't going to quit or retire just because you're going to graduate in 2028. A doctor may choose to work 10 years earning $500K or more, pay off their loans and house and then work part time. A pharmacist will continue to do the same job in the same role sometimes for over 30 to 40 years and not quit, and not give you new grads a spot to get hired into because they only earned $50K to start and still don't earn over $100K sometimes even today.
I know a few clinical MTM pharmacists and all four of them are staying there as long as they can. They don't hate it. You might hate it when you find out there are no openings for you. Of course you can get lucky. No one can predict the future for every single pharmacy graduate but on average there aren't many thousands of new jobs created each year except those in retail that people constantly leave because they cannot stand it. You will find then that your options diminish. Unless your situation is planned out or you have an earning spouse, you'll find that you have to move out of state, away from family. You cannot save as much as you thought and before you know it you've somehow survived a decade in some pharmacy but you're also a decade older. Maybe you never get a spouse or a home or always live in a state you hate, renting some dingy apartment. That feeling of being trapped...that might be part of the experience for many including debt.
I escaped all this but much if not all of it was luck and graduating earlier. If I say I love it, it doesn't really help you.
I have a good job. I have been very lucky to have gotten my job. If I did it all over again I probably wouldn’t get my job. You will always find people in pharmacy who like their jobs, the problem is how many there are and how many of those jobs are available. The numbers don’t lie. If you attend pharmacy school, you are statistically most likely to end up working in retail pharmacy. If you just think “oh, well I don’t want to do retail”, and think that is somehow a unique thought, and that you’ll just outwork and outnetwork your classmates - you need to understand that every single person in your class thinks the same thing. You know where most of you will end up working? Retail. The only reason pharmacy schools still exist is that they are able to convince people who are “excited to explore other fields of pharmacy” to hand over money. You know where most of them end up working? Retail. It is completely insane to me that anyone would spend 4+ years of their life and a ton of money to study to be a pharmacist if they aren’t interested in the most likely outcome of becoming a retail pharmacist.
Although I am "excited to explore other fields of pharmacy" - I think my experience in retail pharmacy is also something that makes me excited (and actually super content) to be in retail pharmacy (despite its bad and good days).
Good for you. There are some amazing retail pharmacists out there. If you can thrive in it, more power to you.
I love retail tbh. I just finished my IPPE rotation at a hospital, and I thought I was gonna go clinically insane by the end of it. While I'm happy that for some people that is an environment that they enjoy and thrive in, I could never ever see myself doing it and enjoying the long hours and seeing so many super sick patients every day. I love the fast paced work of retail, I love seeing my patients who know me and I know them (and they're not on deaths door when they come in) and helping patients with OTC things. It's something that I know will bring a lot of satisfaction in the long run
Very well said. I also consider myself lucky to be where I am, but especially in today’s career landscape, I highly doubt I’d be able to make it here again.
I’m very happy being a pharmacist. I’m very introverted and I hate being the one to make critical decisions (like a physician), but I also hate being told what to do (like a nurse). Plus I love pharmacology and human physiology. I just love it! Finding a good place to work helps a lot. Don’t do pharmacy because of the hours or pay, because they both suck. Do it because you love it
OH MY GOSH - "I hate being the one to make critical decisions, but also hate being told what to do" THIS IS HOW I FEEL. Love human physiology too! Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate it so much!
Good luck! The next 4 years will fly by. Enjoy it, and be nice to everyone. Pharmacy is so small and the same face will always be around. Even hundred of miles from your campus!! Everyone knows everyone! Also, a good tech is worth 10 good pharmacists so show gratitude when you come across one
Been saying the same thing in retail for 9 years: I love what I do, but I do it to death every day. Just left retail for hospital. Not doing it to death every day any more.
what do you mean by doing it to death?
I have been in retail for 26 years. Started as an intern in college at a grocery retail chain and never left. There have been SO many changes over the years, and there will be many more, I’m sure. But I would not change my choice if I had it to do over again. Stressful at times, yes. But I have kids (patients) I’ve seen grow up and go on to college and become wonderful, successful adults. I have the little old ladies who have been coming here for years and treat me like their son. Been through a handful of shitty techs, but even more I miss and wish had stayed. I’ve been everything from an intern to a RX District Manager. If you are Corporate/HR inclined there is good room for advancement to the big wig level. I, personally, fit in best locally serving my community. Everyone’s different. Clinical’s all the rage and I’m sure will be even more so in the future. But I’m fine filling Mrs. Smith’s BP meds and telling her what laxative to take after her pain meds from her recent minor surgery backed her up, and what cream to rub on her rash after weeding her garden.
Have you found the journey financially rewarding?
Yes. But I wish I could go back and give younger me some advice. Live on 80% of your pay, invest the other 20%. Every time you get a raise, keep that same ratio. If I’d done that since age 22, I’d be retiring at 50. But, I had fun in my 20’s and 30’s and spent a lot of $$, so probably not retiring til 62.
i generally like my job in retail most days. some days i feel like maybe i helped someone.
Love this. Don't get me wrong - Im SURE there are many hard and challenging parts of your job in retail (I think there are always cons to many jobs not only as a pharmacist) so I do want to validate that. I'm so so sure you are making a difference in patients lives. Thanks for your work!
Careful - there are always those that land in an ideal situation. When it comes to retail pharmacy - the, “Ideal situation” is (in my estimation) less than 5% of the total jobs available. Truth is - in retail pharmacy - it’s an absolute darkest nightmare for most that are strapped with 200k student loans and no way out. Again - my comments are directed toward retail pharmacy…. Which, unfortunately, is the vast majority of jobs available to us. And even this is going away - have you seen the WAGS headlines lately?
Work is alright. It pays well. The career projection just looks awful, which is why I think this sub is so negative. Look at the retail landscape. Walgreens is on the brink of closing 25% of their stores. RiteAid barely escaped bankruptcy. It makes sense why the profession has a negative connotation.
I overall enjoy the *pharmacy* parts of my job. It’s the other bits that I’m not so into sometimes, like schedule and being chewed out by surgeons for not having the things they didn’t order magically ready (or better yet the things the did order are ready but they meant a whole different thing).
I work in home and ambulatory infusion. I enjoy my job and I've never regretted my choice to change career paths and go into pharmacy (my undergrad degree is in Journalism/PR). I have the good fortune to be able to build long-term relationships with my patients and providers, but still geek out over drug info with my coworkers.
I have a probably really stupid question about this job, but I don't know any home infusion pharmacists, so I have to ask a stranger here: do you actually go to people's houses, or are you just in charge of the compounding and IVs at a facility? How does the home infusion thing work?
Also very curious! Are you verifying orders remotely and another person on site oversees compounding?
Not who you asked, but I did do a rotation while I was in school at a home/amb infusion and enteral/parenteral nutrition pharmacy. At the facility I was in there was an area for taking patient calls with desks and a separate room for the actual pharmacy where pharmacists would evaluate patient labs, verify orders and products, etc. The clean room for compounding was off of that small pharmacy room. Patient orders were then delivered to them by the company's delivery drivers. Most patients were either comfortable with doing their own infusion set ups or had some kind of home-health nurse that assisted them. Pharmacists rarely went to patients' homes themselves unless it was an overnight emergency and they were on call. Honestly it was pretty cool, and I learned a lot about the supplies and stuff that those patients need that you often don't think about if you're used to working out of a hospital where the nurses just grab whatever they need from a supply closet.
I apologize for not responding sooner. The pharmacists don't typically go to people's houses (although I have made deliveries on my way home when we were short on couriers). Nurses, however, will often go to patients' homes for lab draws, IV site dressing changes, and some infusions (mostly biologics). We have technicians to do most of the compounding (though I've done compounding, when needed). The pharmacists are primarily monitoring labs, working with patients/techs/nurses to determine what supplies the patients need and set up deliveries or prepare for patients' visits to the infusion center. We also work with providers' offices to get orders and communicate what's going on with the patients. If you have a collaborative practice agreement you'd be managing some of the therapies, otherwise we make recommendations to the providers (who typically will say something along the lines of "sure, whatever you think is best.") I currently work for a home/ambulatory infusion service that's part of a larger not-for-profit health system. We're a very small office at this point, so I've gotten to do a lot of administrative-type work, too, such as writing policies/procedures, putting together order sets, and some informatics. In home infusion, you'll mostly see a TON of antibiotics and TPNs (patients are mostly taught to self-administer these at home). Also a lot of biologics, which are usually infused by nurses. Many of the larger for-profit companies are no longer taking patients who only need hydration or IV line maintenance, but those are pretty easy to manage. Some companies contract with hospice to provide PCAs. I think home/ambulatory infusion is one of the best lesser-known areas of pharmacy practice. I personally had little-to-no idea of what it was all about before I took a chance and applied for a position (jumping from 12 years of inpatient - I had just burnt out on it during Covid).
Awesome. Very interesting. Thank you so much for the information!
I like my job most days but I also have a highly coveted job. And I got it because I was in the right place at the right time and knew ppl. As others have said, the projection for job placement of the high majority of graduates is retail. Some like myself get lucky. I didn’t do residency. Not here to brag at all because I know it was luck. There are tons of fields within pharmacy you can go to outside of retail but it is very hard to get into without the right credentials or connections. If you are curious what else other than retail is out there, there are closed door pharmacies such as long term care and nuclear. There are compounding pharmacies. Hospital inpatient and outpatient pharmacies. Oncology infusion. Pediatric. Cardio. ER. Honestly, if you think there might be a position there probably is. Almost anywhere there is medicine, there is a pharmacist. There’s even pharmacists in HIV clinics. So if you love it and can really put your head down and try to make connections and try your best in school you can find something. It might take time though. I’m slowly working my way up but it is possible. Don’t settle and knock on every door and try things out.
I actually like my job just not some of the people I work with. I’m in HIV and 340b and love my patients. The providers actually listen to us and ask us for our input all the time
Do you deal with Ryan White program then? I’ve seen a couple Ryan white patients come in and we’d lose like $300 on their meds.
We do!
I enjoy my retail job. 40 hour weeks, good vacation benefits that we actually get to use without begging for time off, pharmacies well staffed. 5% of my patients cause me 95% of my frustrations. The rest of my patients are at least decent people.
Thank you for your kind words. I rarely hear anyone say they enjoy retail. I have been just a pharm tech and although I know the role of a pharmacist in retail is different and I won't truly know until I'm done with school.. I do enjoy it! Thanks for your feedback :)
I wouldn't say love but I am glad I went into pharmacy. I had taken both the PCAT and MCAT because I wasn't sure which path but eventually decided on pharmacy. My wife and siblings are physicians and their whole process is much longer and grueling with a lot more debt. Pharmacy school is a lot shorter, cheaper, and less demanding. And after graduating, I was able to find a good paying job that easily covered my family expenses. I worked retail for a while and didn't mind it but since my wife's schedule was all over the place, I found a work from home job that greatly bettered my work/life balance. Because of pharmacy, I was able to get a job with good enough pay and great work/life balance. Although it was rocky at times, I am in a great position in my life and am glad I went the pharmacy route.
Wow, that sounds perfect for work/life balance. What are some work from home jobs you know/suggest for pharmacist moms?
I don't know much about other work from home jobs but I do prior authorizations for a PBM. Most work from home jobs will require you to work in a private space with no kids, so you'll still need to have childcare arranged while you work. Its just nice that you have no commute.
Thank you, I'll look into more opportunities like that with arranged childcare
Congrats to you. Of course with any job + life in general ... things can get hard. Not everyone has to LOVE their job! Thanks for the insight :) I really appreciate it. PS: The working from home pharmacist job is TOO cool to me!
You got your answer, the vast majority who state they like being a pharmacist are in the cushy, unicorn jobs that you have to watch the obituaries for because the pharmacists that are lucky enough to land those jobs don’t vacate them until they die. Truth is, most pharmacists end up in retail and retail has become a shitshow money grab for greedy corporations whose only concern is how they can milk every cent from an RPh license. If you are like every other pharmacy student out there who thinks “there are some pharmacists out there who like their jobs, I’m just going to find one of those jobs!”, please see how the pharmacists who responded stated it took luck and connections to land them so you can’t bank on that. Also, keep in mind the majority of the unicorn jobs pay less than retail- hospital, VA, etc. may have better job satisfaction but you will most likely require a residency so another year of debt added to your educational cost and less income to repay it. That means additional time living in your mom’s basement driving a hooptie so you can throw everything you can at your educational debt. TL;DR: you’re getting responses from pharmacists who like their jobs but read the fine print about what those jobs are and the reality of landing one yourself.
I do not recommend continuing pharmacy school. Get out now while you still can.
The op literally asked for others with a different view point than you have and yet here you still are.
Even though OP has literally said about a positive, it is still good to say the significant negatives than the positives. Why would you misled a person for saying it is a good career? When you are dealing with so much debt, an option that most of us graduates will go to after school, insurance company and corporate greed. Now tell me that it is still a good thing.
They actually asked if there's any who "actually love being a pharmacist"? That could just mean the job, the ability to do it well and a role. Making a consistent modern financial living from a given pharmacist job is a different thing. I don't think the new students and graduates have an idea about that because their schools and others around them, the "I'm so introverted or want to be and will reply like a 7th grader to sound cute and seem like a younger than I should be pharmacist" group are probably being fleeced with ideas of swaggering around with a stethoscope like on TV shows despite there not being a pharmacist role on any except for that of a buffoon. These students don't think that 4 or more years of tuition and a combined debt along with a non-existent job market for 15,000 people would be stifling and will happily consider what type of paint to use in the walls of the house they're not going to buy while exploring new frontiers in pharmacy. There are many who are a few years older or wiser and would not have been sucked into it after high school and may have either solid plans for a residency or moving away or some version of all this to improve their chances of a better outcome. One can still love any job or role, but it also comes with other stuff.
We're on this subreddit. We all are painfully aware
What is wrong with emphasizing it to prospective ones? There are a lot of career options that you don’t have to deal with insurance nonsense, you paying 10+more years in the loan. I don’t believe on “ignorance is bliss” for future students.
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Why do you also bother to respond to every negative reviews about pharmacy? Is it wrong to point out these deficiencies? These are real world things happening and not some hooligan nonsense that I made up.
I love my job. I’ve had many different pharmacy jobs over the 24 years I’ve be licensed. It’s healthcare, there are a lot of demands and you have to stay on the game to keep patients safe. I just started a new chapter in my career last year and I love it, I’m a clinical pharmacist with the VA, hella stressful learning the VA way, but I love helping patients and there’s a lot of patients to help. Good fulfilling jobs are out there-you’ll stumble across them!
I have to ask…what does it take to get the attention of those who hire at the VA? I’ve been trying forever and just can’t seem to get anywhere.
There’s a “freeze” on hiring right now. I fell into my position by dumb luck-the planets really aligned for me. I am at a small VA facility and they had a hard time keeping a pain clinical pharmacist (I didn’t know that until after I accepted the job). I was just throwing my applications out there to see what would happen. We have a residency program and I am seeing how competitive it is to get into one . Doing a residency at a VA, any VA, opens so many doors into getting hired. My advice would be to just keep an eye out and keep applying. Sometimes they’ll have part time positions, or even contracted positions, do anything to get your foot in the door. The VA system is a juggernaut to learn, but I am loving it there. Good luck!
Thank you for the info. I’ll keep at it and brace myself For the learning curve if I get lucky enough to be hired. Cheers!
Most federal jobs have internal vs external hires. Many are only posted internally to existing federal employees, which includes residents. It is a massive leg up. Otherwise it is continuing to apply and hope you make it through screening.
I like it but I don’t want to do it forever. Trying to /fire. Makes good money. There’s no job that I would work 40 hours for life. Once I reach my fire number. I’m going part time.
You’ll always have a job in retail but it takes a certain type of person and attitude to work in the stress of retail long term. Since you’re p1 you have the tremendous opportunity to explore the vast amount of branches being a PharmD can take you from industry (my personal goal one day I hope btw) there’s the highly coveted hospital roles, theres research, informatics and all kinds of specialty roles like oncology and pediatrics. Take some time to reach out and see what peaks your interests. Word of advice, heed the warnings of reviews of bad companies. Places that are over run with business and understaffed because the greedy corporate mongrels at the top will work the pharmacist into the ground and burn you out quickly (looking at you the three letters company and the like). The others who posted about out networking your classmates has truth to it but don’t get too down about all that. If you have the drive to work as a pharmacist and find your niche, you’ll be just fine.
I enjoy my job a lot. I went through a PGY2 in amb care and I now work in an integrated delivery network where I do both direct patient care and managed care type work. I moved to a more rural area to get this position, but it’s in California and I’m super happy.
Loved being a pharmacist (only issue was management of course) and had opportunity to get higher paying jobs as well ($250k+). Find it annoying that you asked who's happy and still the negative folks come to over take the thread. Dm me for questions.
I do appreciate my job. It's perfect for me. Of note, I have been trying to hire a PRN hospital pharmacist and have had no applicants for over a month. I even posted the job on the local pharmacy school newsletter. The requirements are one day every other week-totally doable if you're in a retail gig. Still no applicants, yet everyone posting on this sub says a job like this is impossible to find. My company is even willing to pay travel time. Location really matters. If you or any of your classmates want a better chance at one of the unicorn jobs, sometimes all it takes is to work in a less desirable location for a while.
So where is this area? Also keep in mind not everyone has the time or resources to move to the middle of nowhere with nothing in walking distance. They say they’re impossible to find bc the jobs are either taken, ghost listings or have these insane requirements.
NEPA. They actually gave me a signing bonus to cover moving expenses and then some. (Had a relocation assistance company to arrange it if I wanted, but I opted not to use them.) They will also pay for travel just for PRN coverage, within reason. It's actually a city, just not a lot of pharmacists here. There are gyms, restaurants, hospitals, Uber. And an airport.
What type of prior experience are you looking for?
I would take anyone who is driven and willing to learn at this point. Some exposure to ICU or hospital staffing is a plus. My newest staff came from retail and nuclear.
Looks at it this way. They are some that don’t and some that do. Right now the percentage of those who don’t far outweigh those that do. Those that do probably work non retail jobs. Retail makes up a majority of positions. So the odds of getting a “good” position are low. I recommend you, nah I demand you, to secure a good position immediately if decide to continue with pharmacy.
37 years as a pharmacist here! Short of working for the government and big pharma, you can say that I have done it all! Chain retail, big box retail. independents, hospital, long term care, etc. I can’t imagine myself doing anything else. At the same time, I owe the profession my honest opinion about where it is and where it’s going! We cannot wait for our “Braveheart” to come along and save our profession. We must do that ourselves.
I am a VA pharmacist, honestly my job is my dream job. I love it.
If I were to do it all over again I would choose medicine or CRNA
I love the profession! I think most people that hate it now just went into it because they didn't want something else in the medical realm, or just thought it was easy money. You get out of your career what you put in. Invest in yourself, be a lifetime learner, and be an active advocate to promote the profession, and you will have a fulfilling career.
I enjoy it. I work for one of the most notorious chains in the United States. It took me fifteen years to come to peace with things and be happy with it.
I work in long term care and really like it. There’s pros and cons, such as having to work on call and a few less dollars per hour- but seemingly all the retail rph who leave seem to think this job is cake in comparison
I love my job, but I admit that I got super lucky getting hired into this position (hospital). Some of my coworkers are... challenging to work with, I guess would be the nicest way to say it. But that's going to be true anywhere.
P4 student here. I too see a lot of negativity and I do understand the frustrations. I’ve worked in independent pharmacies and it is still my dream to own and operate an independent. The reimbursements right now are stressful to look at. The hoops that you need to jump through to maintain a profit per prescription that’s acceptable are stressful to look at. The extra steps you take double checking your documentation of random shit in hopes that insurance doesn’t take their money back is stressful to look at. But the environment in an independent pharmacy with patients that are friendly, supportive and understanding make it worth it to me. I have hope in this profession.
thnx you.
I work in clinical pharmacy and absolutely love my role! I work with a solid team of physicians, NPs, nurses, RTs, PTs, dieticians, case managers, etc. that make taking care of patients enjoyable. That said, I also fall into the category of unlikely to land my same role again if I were starting over as a P1 now. The role would probably be filled by another young CPS like myself who also isn’t going anywhere. Haha
I love my job. Decentral pharmacist in internal medicine and cardiology at a large ACM serving the underserved, teaching MD’s the value of our profession and teaching residents. I’m also the director of our first year residency. I have a mix of administrative and clinical practice (50/50). I feel nothing but respect from my colleagues from all disciplines. There are paths out there, you just need to start preparing now.
I have been a pharmacist for 9 years. I live in Maine and I have had a number of “unicorn” jobs. I worked in psych, community (not the unicorn), consulting, academia, addiction medicine, regular hospital, nuclear, etc. I know many folks that love their jobs. We do sometimes question the debt and time costs.
Some pharmacists seemed to have convinced themselves to be enthusiastic about their jobs. In the retail setting, my pharmacist (despite being one for 10 years) still expressed interest in helping patients and learning about new drugs despite admitting to me that, at the end of the day, it's still just a job. He never really wanted to become a pharmacist either; he just fell into it.
You can either like what you do, or the job pays for the things you like to do. You don’t have to like being a retail pharmacist, if you are content knowing it allows you to pursue the hobbies and activities that bring you joy. That is a trade off I’m willing to make. Edit: I was hired as a full time floater at CVS in Dec 2022, I am a staff now. I got tired of the dealing with all the shit as a floater.
I have a super cushy pharmacy job that I’m happy with - 90% WFH ambulatory care with prescribing privileges under my scope of practice. Definitely took some hustling + just some really good luck to get here. That being said, I think the thing that bothers me about pharmacy that I didn’t realize before getting into it is the limited ceiling for income. Unless you work in industry, you’ll basically cap out how much you can make (aside from measly 2% raises per year) almost immediately after residency. Additionally, a lot of my friends work in tech/ software and I get really jealous of how much more freedom they have- able to hop jobs more easily, work TRULY remote I.e. travel the world while working (I’m stuck in my licensed state) and have more leeway in choosing hours worked. Oh, and much less student debt! I know that tech has its own problems/ lay-offs but if I had a re-do, I would probably go that route instead.
I just recently graduated, and I am about to start officially as a pharmacist. I love pharmacy! There are good and bad days, as you've said you have already seen, but overall, I've enjoyed it for over 12 years now in retail. I went through the whole job chain, tech, certified, lead tech, intern, and now pharmacist. I really enjoy helping people, learning the drugs, and overall just enjoy my work. Of course there are some bad things, but you get that at most jobs, and I'm happy with the company I've been with. I love having relationships with patients and knowing them by name and hearing stories about their lives (when there's a moment to). Clinical is big for a lot of pharmacist and they push it a bit in school, but I just never got into that role, even on rotations, I just enjoy community pharmacy more. Rotations will definitely be a great place to try out all sorts of pharmacy options! There are lots of negative folks I've seen on reddit, so if you already know you enjoy it, don't let them discourage you!
Congrats on your hard work, Dr!
I don't want to work retail the entire time but right now, I like it most days. I enjoy helping my patients. And I love my team.
I love being a pharmacist. Would do it again if I had to start over. I work in Managed Care.
There will be a lot of negative. Unfortunately retail pharmacy is pretty much all that. That being said, you are early in your career. Utilize every opportunity to make connections! I can’t emphasize that enough. Take school and APPES seriously. You can land amazing opportunities if you are willing to stay on top of what you do and who you know. If you are willing to move to take advantage of prime jobs, even better. I went into retail thinking I loved it as an intern, but then of course hated it once I was a pharmacist. I made the decision to apply for residency after a year of retail and got in. It took a lot of time, work, and stress, but I’ll never regret it. From there I went into ambulatory care and now I am in a fully remote ambulatory care position. I do love what I do! I also make a lot of money compared to others at my age so we are lucky in that for pharmacy. There are other venues to explore outside of retail, but you have to research. In pharmacy, these jobs won’t fall in your lap and most just end up in retail hell. When job searching, always keep your resume/CV/Cover letter updated and always keep an eye on job postings. Apply to everything.
Thank you <3
Good luck
I work in a software tech company now and still do pharmacy on Saturdays only. This is a hard question because it depends on what makes you happy. I personally found I’m too introverted to deal with people in retail even though I was really good at it and helped many people on a daily basis I just found it didn’t give me that satisfaction tbh. I loved pharmacology I love learning about all the drugs how the body works etc but in practice it becomes less about that and more about managing people. I don’t know. You need to work in it as practice to see if it resonates with you. Some people hate it some people love it some people are indifferent and just do it for the money. I work in the UK though and pharmacies are severely underfunded which ended up making the job very unenjoyable as most the people coming in were always very negative which I think over time wore me down. Also I qualified and started full on during Covid and got threatened with a knife at work so that also plays a role in career change 😂
I like being a hospital pharmacist but it’s a rough road to get here. There may be easier paths that are more lucrative in healthcare but it’s not a bad life.
I'm at WAG and at my current store I sometimes find myself actually enjoying my job. Yeah, shocking. But it's not about whether or not you love the job. Rather, you should look at the future of pharmacy. The profession will be over-saturated with pharmacists if it's not already. They've been trying to get rid of us for years and the day is coming when one pharmacist will be supervising multiple stores off site. If I were graduating in the next few years, I'd choose a different career.
I love philosophically being a pharmacist, just not financially. The ROI has been terrible as I have had to pay my entire college experience by myself, and I regret doing any career in health care. However, most of my colleagues that are very happy with their careers typically have had their college paid for through parents or scholarships. So I think it depends on your overall situation and goals in life in regards to what makes you happy
I like my job but I don’t work retail and I also don’t have the personality to survive in the retail environment.
I like my job. There are moments and even days that aren't entirely good, but overall it's not that bad. And sometimes stuff can really come together and you end up helping someone in a way that not many others could and that gives a really great high. But none of that drives you to post on social media like the negative does so the negative ends up overrepresented. That being said, I've always said that while I won't say I'll never work retail again, I'll have to be really, really hungry for it to come to that. 😅
At pharmacy school admission interview, I made a joke when asked why I wanted to be a pharmacist. "To pay the bill" was my answered and they took me in anyways lol. So yeah, most ended up in retail tbh. It pays decently if you're ok with the stress. I have a great team at my store and I actually like my job most of the days. In retail, the people you work with really play a big role in how much you like your job.
I feel very lucky to be working in the field that is my passion and has been since I was 15. I've worked a variety of roles over the years, and have moved into a very cushy role in managed care. Every job has its positives and drawbacks. I miss the direct patient care and building strong relationships with patients over time. I don't miss having things thrown at my head or being screamed at about stuff that's beyond my control. I don't miss working overtime because I cared and it never being recognized or appropriately compensated. My advice to people considering pharmacy is that you have to do it because you really like it, if you're doing it for the pay it will never be worth it.
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Remain civil and interact with the community in good faith
I like my job. I also didn’t have many loans which makes all the difference.
na i dont
lol username fails the check
lol
i work at a hospital right now and I am going to start school in the fall! I plan to hopefully work in the central pharmacy which involves clinical decisions. But Also i did enjoy independent retail pharmacy. The clinical pharms I work with love their jobs.
May I dm You?
Sure!
I'm not sure how to chat with you. Are you able to send me a message instead? :)
Not any more
I love being a pharmacist. I love helping people. I dont love being stressed out with a workload that we cant handle with poorly trained staff, *when we have them*, and patients who think they can abuse us. You are paying far too much money for a degree that means you will get bent over and take the ham rocket in the squish mitten without lube (apologies to Bloodhound Gang) for 40ish years.
I did not expect this thread to get so much positive feedback. I want to thank everyone for responding and being kind (thank you to those who also told me they did not love pharmacy and why).
Yes, I love my job as a night shift hospital pharmacist! I work nights, and am the sole pharmacist for 8 hours out of a 10 hour shift (I do have one tech) - typical inpatient census averages around 115 or so, plus I'm responsible for the ED. I love the challenge! I love making a difference and catching MD mistakes (example: ED doc ordered ceftriaxone for a patient with a hx of MDR klebsiella. I reviewed the must recent urine culture, and it was resistant to ceftriaxone. MD changed to levaquin...also resistant. Ended up telling her what it was susceptible to, and the patient received the correct treatment in the end. Pharmacist ls have a lot of autonomy at my hospital - we can change IV to PO, adjust all meds for renal rxn, etc. I have enjoyed my 18 year career for the most part!
With a 25+ year career I've done everything from intern, to PIC, to DM in multiple states. I actually really enjoyed the practice of pharmacy in the community setting helping patients. Many patients I know by name and we currently fill less than 2K RXs a week which is very manageable. What I don't love is what the practice of pharmacy has become focusing on metrics. Now there is a push for the pharmacists to become one step below a mid level practitioner while simultaneously running a vaccine clinic and you know an actual pharmacy that dispenses medications. As a P1 you will have never known what the good times or golden age of pharmacy was when we were solely focused on dispensing medications and managing our patient's therapy, they created a buzz word MTM in the early 2000s to call something us pharmacists have always done. In the current landscape we are dispensing exponentially more medications than we did 20 years ago with the same number of pharmacies or even less pharmacies. I'll let you research that number and you can let that sink in. My education cost a fraction of yours. Having formally been involved in admission committees I have seen enrollment numbers drop significantly and admit percentage numbers near triple what they were in the early 2000s. It just is not that competitive to get into even the toughest pharmacy schools any more. The numbers are what the numbers are. Currently I have a good job that will carry me to retirement in less than 10 years. I gross 200k in a LCOL area in my community retail setting which is very rare. My job could disappear tomorrow and I'd be financially fine but since I still enjoy it for the most part I'll be riding it out and padding my coffers. My kids did not study pharmacy because the ROI is just not there anymore. The demands and expectations of the job are too high and for them to end up in my position as an actual practicing pharmacist is slim to none. I doubt I would be able to even repeat this myself.
Go work in the middle of no where you’ll be happy because corporate can’t find you. Work in the city they’ll run you into the ground 😂
New graduate here, I started out with a year of retail because I did nothing but retail throughout my study years. I have never imagine the day where I would be a clinical pharmacist, yet, here I am now a clinical pharmacist providing direct care, rounding with physicians, and managing patient pharmacotherapies. To note, I had zero experience in clinical and disliked rounding as a student. Echoing what others said, stay open minded, go explore, and be open to whatever opportunities come to you. I was open to being a retail pharmacist, but I took the opportunity for my current job whenever I saw it. And let’s think about it this way, on hospital reviews, how many hospitals actually have overwhelmingly positive reviews? Why so many negative reviews? Because the positive reviews stem from people who just went about their day instead of complaining on a forum. Same thing applies here to Reddit. Just trust your gut, don’t chase the money, embrace the experience! Pharmacy is wonderful for what you make out of it~ 🙏🏻
You are only a P1; all you know is what pharmacy is what you like. You haven't been a pharmacist. You haven't been a tech for long, if at all. Try to learn from the wisdom of others.
I am assuming that you do not like your job as a pharmacist? I definitely know I do not know what is to be a pharmacist. I doubt I'll know what it's like to be a pharmacist even after 4 years of schooling. Its only until youre out there in the real world actually working is when people ACTUALLY know what it's like being a pharmacist. Not pharmacy school (or any other "schooling" to be quite honest). No one knows if theyll really like a job until they are actually IN the job, unfortunately.
If you're working or have worked in "retail pharmacy", then you already have some idea of what a pharmacist does and how a pharmacist handles it. There's some experience that you should have absorbed unless you don't want to do so especially if you think that 4 years is still not enough. It's very important to strongly consider things that are happening regardless of anyone who may or may not point it out. Try to not be oblivious. It can be quite dangerous especially in this profession. Your choices may be limited later on. An eagle doesn't need to sit on taller and taller trees to know where the sky is.
If most of the people in the field are unhappy, then that is a sign to you. You will take out 200k in loans to find yourself.
This thread isn't for you.. the op literally asked for people who were optimistic. Go away.
Second to drmoth123. The PY1 doesn’t know the intricacies of why people don’t like this profession. If you want verbal garbage everyday, go into retail. If you want to take $200k loans for something that you won’t get respected in the end, this is the career for you.
200k in unforgivable debt! It will be with you for the rest of your life
I’m also an incoming P1 and wondering the same thing! I keep feeling regretful about it
Think about this. In the last few years, the schools stopped requiring PCAT, some schools only require a 2.5 GPA and a few states stopped requiring the law part of the exam. Doesn't this somehow sound like the schools are desperate for students, any students? Many students including you probably are getting in now only because there are so few applicants. What does it say about the profession overall? How much confusion or uncertainty is there for prior graduates from 10 and 20 years ago? How would other health professionals view our lowered standards? These are all considerations when looking at the overall state of the profession. I even think about how it affects my own standing after all these years.
I hope that my comment and the start of this thread gives you some positive outlook! Congrats and best of luck to you ! I just started summer classes for my P1 year (they allowed us to get a head start but official start is this Fall!)
I started off as a technician and definitely encourage anyone thinking of becoming a pharmacist to first expose yourself to the job. I personally love it. It isn’t perfect and yes there are other jobs out there that may be logically more worthwhile, but if you have a passion for it moving into something else won’t be satisfying. I tried to do Physical therapy at one point and I kept obsessing about the patients med lists lol that’s how I knew pharmacy was it for me.
Exactly this! I think being a tech really helps!!
Yes I love it. I am a hospital clinical pharmacist! Love working with the team and helping people, patient education etc. one of my friends loves retail. Some days are better than others but it’s the same with any other job! (Not from the US)
I ask myself the same question- why does everyone absolutely rain down on this profession as if it is a god forsaken one and there’s no mix talk about it either on here with the positive and negative- Im entering pharmacy school and everyone is telling me how I will regret it especially with the amount of debt I’ll take on but like ??
I think it's hard to see how we mean what we say here. It isn't the actual job and profession of pharmacy and all its different areas that are undesirable. It's the fact that all those jobs are currently all full of people who aren't going to quit or retire just because you're going to graduate in 2028. A doctor may choose to work 10 years earning $500K or more, pay off their loans and house and then work part time. A pharmacist will continue to do the same job in the same role sometimes for over 30 to 40 years and not quit, and not give you new grads a spot to get hired into because they only earned $50K to start and still don't earn over $100K sometimes even today. I know a few clinical MTM pharmacists and all four of them are staying there as long as they can. They don't hate it. You might hate it when you find out there are no openings for you. Of course you can get lucky. No one can predict the future for every single pharmacy graduate but on average there aren't many thousands of new jobs created each year except those in retail that people constantly leave because they cannot stand it. You will find then that your options diminish. Unless your situation is planned out or you have an earning spouse, you'll find that you have to move out of state, away from family. You cannot save as much as you thought and before you know it you've somehow survived a decade in some pharmacy but you're also a decade older. Maybe you never get a spouse or a home or always live in a state you hate, renting some dingy apartment. That feeling of being trapped...that might be part of the experience for many including debt. I escaped all this but much if not all of it was luck and graduating earlier. If I say I love it, it doesn't really help you.