Guest Feature Post
We have all heard it, “pharmacy isn’t what it use to be”. We hear this as students and as pharmacists. But what exactly changed?
As a new grad that entered a very challenging job market it dawned on me that the profession has to still be very rewarding considering the fact that no one wants to retire. Through my observation, community pharmacists still have great relationships with their patients and the profession is rapidly evolving every year. We have pharmacists in the hospital setting that received post-graduate training in areas like oncology, infectious disease, informatics and more. The value of our expertise is rapidly recognized world wide. If anything, we should be proud of how far we have come. I know what most people might think while reading this. It is hard to be positive with the over saturation in the job market.
The job market is definitely oversaturated, but not with innovators and people who want to make an impact. The perspective one has going into the profession will be the biggest factor of what fruits he or she will bear. It is very hard to stay positive when we are so accustomed to a culture of complaining. I wrote this because I feel it was best coming from someone who did not begin my pharmacy career the way I planned. I entered pharmacy school with the goal to be an infectious disease pharmacist. In order to reach this goal I had to obtain a residency. I went in knowing it was not guaranteed so I decided to also begin working as an intern in a community pharmacy to keep all options open. I was very involved in both local and national pharmacy organizations and did everything I needed to do to achieve my goals.
To my surprise, the residency match day came and I was not chosen by any of the programs that I applied to…yes it was disappointing. I was thankful of the fact that I kept my options open. However, to my surprise I was not given a graduate intern opportunity in my district due to no available openings. I was told I would need to relocate to a small rural area in a completely different state. I was not in any position to relocate immediately upon graduation so I made it my mission to get licensed as soon as possible and started seeking out job opportunities that were better for me. Within a month and a half of obtaining my license I was working as a community pharmacist in a very progressive company.
I have come to the realization, in this current job climate we have to enter the workforce with plans to be innovative and develop a niche that can make us valuable to our patients and the profession. We cannot reverse the damage of the over saturation of pharmacists due to an abundant amount of pharmacy schools opening. All we can do is move forward and create unique positions for the abundant amount of pharmacists to help improve the healthcare system.
There is still a lot of improvement that needs to be made in the health care system. In fact, hospital medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States and a majority of these medical errors are attributed to medications. Who is best fit to tackle this problem than the medical specialists themselves, pharmacists.
All in all, create a niche, be innovative and help the profession move forward like it has constantly been doing in the past and we can make the pharmacy profession great again.