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Old 12-30-2017, 02:07 PM
 
Location: Houston,TX
70 posts, read 59,251 times
Reputation: 186

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If you want flexibility, I honestly would not pick pharmacy right now. Most pharmacists WILL end up in retail. Retail bites major. One of the better environments in pharmacy I have seen for pharmacists is home infusion and PBM's. I currently work for a PBM and our pharmacists pretty much work M-F. The problem? Its hard to get into the PBM world as a pharmacist. It also depends on what exactly your are doing within a PBM. To my surprise, we have temp pharmacists handling Utilization Review and Prior Authorization. The kind of debt these guys have, to me, makes working temp too risky. From my understanding, the retail chains are taking on more floating pharmacists too. Their market is saturated. I'm not saying you will not find good work, but the odds are more against you in pharmacy. Home infusion is such a small market and the number of jobs are simply not there. You also need to do a residency to get in. Please make an informed decision. I see you have chosen two healthcare fields. Healthcare is no longer a guarantee anymore. I'm moving out of pharmacy myself and into cybersecurity. I can surely tell you IT is no guarantee either. Good luck! Stay updated, stay hungry, stay flexible.
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Old 01-02-2018, 01:58 AM
 
Location: Scottsdale
2,067 posts, read 1,618,275 times
Reputation: 4051
Quote:
Originally Posted by jade408 View Post
Nursing. Pharmacy is a struggle. It is really hard to get the Permanente positions and there is a lot of competition. The state licensing is hard as well. Nursing offers way more flexibility and it is much easier to move around.

*my friend’s mom and sister are pharmacists and the last few years have been rough. Her sister has struggled to land entry level jobs where she lives and isn’t licensed in another state so she cannot leave and move easily. She started in retail and hated it, but nothing is happening outside of retail for he. Her mom got forced out of retail pharmacies after a long career with the decline of retail and industry consolidation.

Also don’t believe the hype about those high wages. My friend’s sister could not find many full time opportunities. My friend’s mom never made that much at all.

Being a traveling nurse in high cost areas can pay off handsomely. Housing stipends are very high and you can make a profit if you keep a permanent residence in a low cost area (or none at all) and get roommates while on assignment. My friend managed to save an additional $1000-1500 on assignments in California and NYC since stipends for housing were $2000-3500.

I almost went to pharmacy school back in the mid 2000s. I did great on the PCAT and shocked one
of the admissions counselors with my score. But I spoke with a coworker in medical quality assurance.
He told me many pharmacists dealt with complications and side effects which led to licensing issues
and state reprimands (of some sort). He referred to himself as a "parole officer" for pharmacists who
had regulatory problems and incidents from clinical practice (again - side effects, etc).

Since that time (mid 2000s), the field has become saturated. In the early 2000s there was a severe
shortage of PharmDs. But now there are just too many graduates with very few job openings. The
competition is fierce. A PharmD is similar to a JD - expensive to earn but with a low return on
investment due to unemployment or underemployment in many areas.

I would recommend a compromise - biomedical engineering or electronic health records.
I worked with a nurse who had a bachelor's in nursing and also a bachelor's in electrical engineering.
She worked with robotics and embedded systems for medical devices. Her unusual combination
of skills were in high demand at medical device companies or clinical software companies.

So, try nursing and a minor in computer science to do the programming for medical devices or EHR.
If you are able to make Android or iOS apps for EHR while also doing clinical nursing, those skills
would make you stand out and expand opportunities in the hospital or at an EHR company.
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Old 01-02-2018, 04:59 PM
 
16 posts, read 22,062 times
Reputation: 30
I have been looking into a lot of careers. I feel with nursing it will offer a lot of opportunities, plus I can finish sooner through absn program. Financially it makes sense because the debt is low assuming I get into the program of my choice. My main goal is to become a nurse practitioner and specialize into dermatology or open a med spa since I have family connections in that field.

I feel that the future of healthcare is transitioning into midlevel providers, where they will make up the bulk of the healthcare force while physicians will tend to specialize. Economically it makes more sense. Pharmacy I just see a huge over saturation at the moment. Based on advice from my fellow friends who work in that field. Oversaturation and automation.

I just want to make an informed decision since I don't want to be in a position where I am struggling financially. I have some friends who graduated and ended up working at starbucks. no joke lol.
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Old 01-02-2018, 09:33 PM
 
1,660 posts, read 1,198,455 times
Reputation: 2890
one of the highest starting RN salaries is in NYC somewhere at 100K. But you have to be super smart and competitive for that kind of hospital RN. usually you start at 80K in the other hospitals, which is ok, but a little too low for my liking in a city as expensive as NYC. Pharm pays the bills a little better, but more money and time invested.
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Old 01-05-2018, 09:38 AM
 
Location: Durham, NC
797 posts, read 3,568,203 times
Reputation: 1414
Don't listen to the naysayers about pharmacy. I have at least 3-4 good buds that are all pharmacists. We are all in our late 30s and they all make at least $120,000/year. Also, there are tons of jobs available for pharmacists where we are, in all kinds of clinical and retail settings. Granted we are in the Triangle are of NC, so lots and lots of opportunities here, but they exist. Also, all of them started out at a minimum of $100,000/year.
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Old 01-05-2018, 10:59 AM
 
Location: Oakland, CA
28,226 posts, read 36,706,638 times
Reputation: 28561
Quote:
Originally Posted by freshjiv View Post
Don't listen to the naysayers about pharmacy. I have at least 3-4 good buds that are all pharmacists. We are all in our late 30s and they all make at least $120,000/year. Also, there are tons of jobs available for pharmacists where we are, in all kinds of clinical and retail settings. Granted we are in the Triangle are of NC, so lots and lots of opportunities here, but they exist. Also, all of them started out at a minimum of $100,000/year.
Well I have a friend in the research triangle who is a more recnent pharmacy grad. And it isn’t so easy when you have no experience or little experience. You probably hit the good part of the pharmacy wave. It is not so good for new grads. My friend is younger than you by about a decade.
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Old 01-05-2018, 11:26 AM
 
12,099 posts, read 16,988,037 times
Reputation: 15751
Quote:
Originally Posted by howshouldifeel9813 View Post
I have been looking into a lot of careers. I feel with nursing it will offer a lot of opportunities, plus I can finish sooner through absn program. Financially it makes sense because the debt is low assuming I get into the program of my choice. My main goal is to become a nurse practitioner and specialize into dermatology or open a med spa since I have family connections in that field.

I feel that the future of healthcare is transitioning into midlevel providers, where they will make up the bulk of the healthcare force while physicians will tend to specialize. Economically it makes more sense. Pharmacy I just see a huge over saturation at the moment. Based on advice from my fellow friends who work in that field. Oversaturation and automation.

I just want to make an informed decision since I don't want to be in a position where I am struggling financially. I have some friends who graduated and ended up working at starbucks. no joke lol.
Then I would go into nursing. Even if you decide you want nothing to do with healthcare after working with an ASN, it's only 2 years down the drain.

Pharmacy has like zero flexibility. Once you spend all that $ to become a pharmacist, you're going to stick with pharmacy ... unless you marry an upper class husband and become a SAHM, allowing you to abandon the job you dislike, which is probably just as common as people finding well paying jobs.

Anyway, if you don't like it, you're largely stuck.

And if you think switching from something like being a pharmacist at CVS to doing something more interesting in a hospital is going to be easy, then think again. I guarantee it won't be from my own experience.
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Old 01-05-2018, 04:18 PM
 
Location: Houston,TX
70 posts, read 59,251 times
Reputation: 186
Quote:
Originally Posted by jobaba View Post
Then I would go into nursing. Even if you decide you want nothing to do with healthcare after working with an ASN, it's only 2 years down the drain.

Pharmacy has like zero flexibility. Once you spend all that $ to become a pharmacist, you're going to stick with pharmacy ... unless you marry an upper class husband and become a SAHM, allowing you to abandon the job you dislike, which is probably just as common as people finding well paying jobs.

Anyway, if you don't like it, you're largely stuck.

And if you think switching from something like being a pharmacist at CVS to doing something more interesting in a hospital is going to be easy, then think again. I guarantee it won't be from my own experience.
yup agree here. Given the way the job market is now, its better for you to be in an area that allows for flexibility. And yes, its not that easy to move from retail to hospital or something else. It can actually hurt you if you stay too long in one area and want to move. To the poster who said we are naysayers.....I only have one thing to say to you. I was always taught to get as much info as possible so I can make informed decisions. Yes, there are jobs in pharmacy. But these jobs are spread out. Example: there are pharmacy jobs that pay pretty good in Lancaster County, PA. The market is crowded in Philly. Do you really think most people want to live in Lancaster?? Why not choose a career that doesn't restrict your options in this matter?
Yup I will continue being a naysayer
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Old 01-05-2018, 05:46 PM
 
119 posts, read 67,889 times
Reputation: 60
I worked for a bit as a pharm technician when I was 22, at Walgreens, so I got to see what the pharmacists did, day in and day out. The work has some overlap to what you would expect on an assembly line, or working in McDonalds..pulling pulls, weighing pills, labeling, verifying (the pharmacist had to verify everything), enter scripts into the computer, deal with insurance issues, cashier, and occasionally the pharmacist would give info to customers about their med. It was repetitious, fairly easy, for me is wasn't overly stressful or cognitively demanding (probably not for the pharmacist either). I did not mind the work so much, but when it was busy it could be stressful rushing to fill orders while customers got angry.

Pharmacy school is harder to get into (may not as much anymore as people are moving away from it due to over-saturation) and the program is harder than nursing. The BLS should slow growth for pharmacists; my general sense from reading the forums is that pharmacists are having trouble finding jobs because there is over supply. It was much better 15 years or so ago. Nursing has many more jobs overall (you pick your geographic area) and a better job outlook. But then again you have to deal with bodily fluids and all that, night shifts, etc.

I think you will regret picking a career that you dislike the least though; if you don't dislike your job too much you will be more willing to put in the work to out compete your peers so you won't have to worry so much about getting canned.
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Old 01-08-2018, 11:46 AM
 
16 posts, read 22,062 times
Reputation: 30
Any nurse practitioners or healthcare providers in this forum? I want to have a chat with you
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