how many years before you can become a full qualified pharmacist ? (school, highest)

[L210]

The easiest and most accurate way to find out is to "google" pharmacy programs. The school's website will tell you the prerequisites and how long the programs is.

Pharmacy Entry Level - Creighton University

The Doctor of Pharmacy degree requires a minimum of two years of pre-pharmacy and four years of professional education. Many students complete three years or a baccalaureate degree before beginning professional education.

[joe from dayton]

Originally Posted by mandem

this random website says 8 years yet, real people answering from experience on this forum say 5/6 years... who to believe ??

there's a reason why these forums are up, so you can ask real people... i dont trust most the stuff i find from just 'googling'

The point is that a minimal amount of research on the internet, to include looking at a couple of pharm programs, will provide a timely and accurate answer without waiting for strangers to reply on the internet.

[jasper12]

Some people will never be pharmacists. I can state that I would never be one, even if I had a goal to become one. If the brain matter is not there, it is not going to happen. I can't add to save my life. It is as remote for me to become a pharmacist, as it is for Roseanne Barr to become a Vegas showgirl...not gonna happen...ever...no matter what....

[fibonacci]

Eh, I hope you really know what you are getting yourself into with Pharm. Pharm is starting to have massive amounts of oversaturation in the labor market because schools have been overhyping 6 figure salaries that pharmacists supposedly can make. A Pharm degree will leave you with massive amounts of debt in student loans for increasingly dimmer job prospects. Pharm is starting to go the way of law degrees. There's absolutely no control over the number of grads schools can pump out every year.

[MSchemist80]

Originally Posted by fibonacci

Eh, I hope you really know what you are getting yourself into with Pharm. Pharm is starting to have massive amounts of oversaturation in the labor market because schools have been overhyping 6 figure salaries that pharmacists supposedly can make. A Pharm degree will leave you with massive amounts of debt in student loans for increasingly dimmer job prospects. Pharm is starting to go the way of law degrees. There's absolutely no control over the number of grads schools can pump out every year.

Agreed you can likely still get a decent job but you might have to be open to living in a rural place like Arkansas or Kentucky.

[jasper12]

There is a 12am-8am shift at the CVS in my town, starting pay, $75,000.

[mandem]

i think that pharmacist jobs are plentiful, there are industrial pharmacists, hospital pharmacists (every town/city has a hospital) and private pharmacist (open your own pharmacist branch) ... and also, geting through the 6 years isn't easy.. im pretty sure pharmacist are on the jobs-in-demand list..

[fibonacci]

Originally Posted by mandem

i think that pharmacist jobs are plentiful, there are industrial pharmacists, hospital pharmacists (every town/city has a hospital) and private pharmacist (open your own pharmacist branch) ... and also, geting through the 6 years isn't easy.. im pretty sure pharmacist are on the jobs-in-demand list..

Are you sure?

The number of new pharm schools that keep opening continues to explode as well as the number of new grads each year. It sounds exactly like the story of law school with regards to over saturation of the labor market. The two biggest employers of pharmacists, Walgreens and CVS, are starting to become more centralized in order to save on costs and so that they can hire less pharmacists. Walgreens is experimenting with a new program called POWER, where customers drop off their prescriptions to a store and pick it up the next day. If they have a medication question, they call a central line where they talk to an operator. This way Walgreens doesn't need to hire a pharmacist for every store, just some for a centralized location.

Drug Topics - June 2011 (flip through that on a short article on the over supply of pharm degrees)

Read about POWER from our very own city-data members:
Walgreens POWER


You can also read about what the job market is like for new grads from pharmacists themselves:
Pharmacy Job Market/Outlook - Page 25 | Pharmacy | Student Doctor Network



Maybe 10 years ago there was a shortage of pharmacists. But schools saw how lucrative educating pharmacy students is and can easily convince people to shell out huge amounts of money for a degree by pumping up the potential salaries PharmDs can make. It's called a bubble. As a result, you have more Pharm schools opening up in the past 10 years than opened up over the past 50. Over saturation is starting to kill the law field and it is just beginning to poison the pharm field. Until a central organization starts regulating law and pharm schools and deciding how many new schools can open and how many graduates schools are allowed to pump out, you can expect these fields to become increasing over saturated with labor.

[Winter2010]

Originally Posted by jasper12

Some people will never be pharmacists. I can state that I would never be one, even if I had a goal to become one. If the brain matter is not there, it is not going to happen. I can't add to save my life. It is as remote for me to become a pharmacist, as it is for Roseanne Barr to become a Vegas showgirl...not gonna happen...ever...no matter what....

That's what people thought of me when I was struggling in high school, that I won't ever going to do well in college. Well, few years later, I stood in front of a judge successfully arguing my motions, as an attorney.

That's right, I kicked ass in college, and then went on to law school and passed the bar exam with one try.

[MustangEater82]

I don't claim to remotely understand the climate of pharmacists. My ex-sister in law(bro in laws ex wife), was a pharmacist. I always keep an ear out as its one of those jobs I didn't think paid that much, but make sense it does.

But I did see a recent news story, about cutting back on pharmacists. There is a big drive to do prepackaged dosage amounts, less "prepping" of drugs, at the pharmacy, and more input into a national database.

Now this doesn't mean pharmacists will go away but something to consider when you are fresh out of school in 6-8 years or whatever. Just something to consider.

It's seems like a great job, but you know there has to be a think tank of how to remove probably the highest paid employee in every walgreens/cvs/rite aid.

Sent from my autocorrect butchering device.