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Grads and New Practitioners Face Difficult Job Market
Loading ...Self-Branding, Flexibility Keys to Success
When Kenneth Kennedy, Pharm.D., began pharmacy school in 2005, he believed that finding his first job would be a snap. He had every reason to be optimistic: The nationwide shortage of pharmacists that had begun a decade earlier showed few signs of abating. Signing bonuses were routinely included with job offers. The problem had become so severe that in 2000, the Department of Health and Human Services, at the behest of Congress, issued a report that found “many of the critical demand factors are expected to persist during at least the next five to 10 years … thus, we can expect that the demand for pharmacists will continue to be greater than the supply.”
“When I started school, it seemed like everyone found a job without any trouble,” said Kennedy, who is currently pursuing a joint second-year post-graduate residency and master’s degree in outcomes and policy at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. “I heard a lot of people, including recruiters for schools, talk about how wide open the market was. That all changed while I was in school.”
A Different World
Snapshots from ASHP’s annual pharmacy staffing survey reveal just how dramatic that change has been: Vacancy rates for clinical pharmacist positions peaked at 9 percent in 2000-2001 and plateaued in the 5-percent-to-6-percent range through 2008. By 2011, however, the rate had dropped by more than half to 2.4 percent.
Similar declines occurred in all sectors of pharmacy practice. The confluence of two factors are largely responsible for the reversal of fortune for clinical pharmacy: a deep recession and resulting hospital budget cutbacks, and a striking increase in the number of pharmacy school graduates from about 8,000 in 2005 to more than 12,000 in 2011—and still climbing. Also affecting the demand for pharmacists has been retail pharmacy’s transition to central fill models, which require fewer staff.
“Large employers of pharmacists, including hospitals, are not hiring like they used to, and some are even cutting positions. That was unheard of a few years ago,” said Douglas Scheckelhoff, M.S., FASHP, ASHP’s vice president of professional development. There isn’t yet a surplus of pharmacists, he added, but he hears more tales of graduating pharmacists who have had trouble getting jobs. “Many are taking a much longer time to find jobs, or they’re taking positions they would not have previously considered,” he said.
The results of ASHP’s recent Job Market Perceptions Survey reflect the anxieties among graduating students and new practitioners. For example, among students graduating in 2012, 82 percent said they were worried about finding a job after graduation. Ninety-five percent of 2010 pharmacy school graduates and 84 percent of those expecting to graduate in 2014 agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “I am concerned that the supply of pharmacists is outpacing the demand for pharmacists and will impact my future.”
Mary Hess, Pharm.D., FASHP, FCCM, FCCP
How to Find a Great Job
While their concerns are not unfounded, students can improve their prospects by adjusting to a shifting market, according to Mary Hess, Pharm.D., FASHP, FCCM, FCCP, associate dean, Jefferson School of Pharmacy, Philadelphia.
“The market is tight, but there are positions out there,” she said, adding that new graduates may not be able to obtain their exact job description or find a position a few miles from where they live as was the case a few years ago.
“Multiple factors influence the number of positions available in any particular market area and that can be challenging to figure out as a student,” Hess said. “The best advice I can offer today’s student pharmacists is to begin developing a strategy for employment as soon as they start pharmacy school,” including deciding where to obtain an intern position, building your resumé, and networking with pharmacists in practice.
Kenneth Kennedy, Pharm.D.
A growing number of students are seeking residencies to gain a competitive edge and differentiate themselves from their peers. “A residency is key,” said Kathleen S. Pawlicki, B.S., M.S., director of pharmaceutical services at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich. “If you can do a residency, that would definitely be the direction I would recommend, in itself or coupled with involvement in a professional organization. Anything that demonstrates that you’re a lifelong learner and committed to your profession makes you more marketable.”
Because there are a limited number of residency positions across the country, Janet Teeters, M.S., ASHP’s director of accreditation services, said that the same flexibility that has become vital for job hunting applies equally to landing a residency. If you find yourself in the post-match scramble, “be prepared to go to a different part of the country, and act quickly to let the programs with open positions know you are interested,” she said.
Credentialing and personal branding that differentiates you from your peers is also critical, according to Henri R. Manasse, Jr., Ph.D., Sc.D., ASHP’s executive vice president and CEO. “Those pharmacists who are practicing at the cutting edge of our profession will have the broadest choices and most opportunities in terms of employment.”
Kathleen S. Pawlicki, B.S., M.S.
A Brighter Future
Pawlicki expects a brighter future for new practitioners setting out in a clinical pharmacy career. For instance, she expects national health care reform—in the form of ambulatory and medical home care models—will eventually lead to expanded patient-care roles for pharmacists. Additionally, “with the growth in pharmacy schools, there will be greater demand for trained faculty,” she said.
Recommendations of the ASHP-ASHP Foundation’s Pharmacy Practice Model Initiative(PPMI) Summit, which are designed to ensure that pharmacists are the health care professionals who are responsible and accountable for patients’ medication outcomes, are also important for the job market. “As there’s more movement toward instituting components of the PPMI, there will be more opportunities in hospitals and greater roles for clinical pharmacists,” said Dr. Hess.
Too bad these greedy institutions that all opened up a new school to make a quick buck off gullible students are still delusional. Notice how no one has a solution of shuttering low quality new schools or reducing enrollment. We are looking at 15,000 graduate PER YEAR in the next couple years, double what it was a few years ago, all while retail chains have drastically reduced new store openings and cut staffing, and hospitals have undergone budget cuts and hiring freezes. What these ignorant fools quoting the affordable care act don’t know is that this act makes it near impossible to function as a small hospital, so you either merge with a large system or die off. It will be challenging for hospitals to meet the CMS requirements in the coming years, and once they have EME in place everywhere, they can sift through every minute detail of your billing and reject payment at will. Also, you now will NOT get paid for readmissions for the same diagnosis code if it is within 30 days, EVEN if the readmit is at another hospital. Thus the job market is likely to further CONTRACT, or stay the same in coming years. As for “baby Boomers”, the new efficiencies in retail/mail order will keep new staff from being hired/needed, as while at one time a company was fine doing 150-200 RXs per day per pharmacist, they are now getting 300-500+ per day out of each pharmacist (making retail working conditions in line with sweat shops/pill mills). The other main point is that all of these new schools are small private schools that care nothing about pharmacy, but only about the exorbitant tuition they can charge students as they fill them full of misinformation and promises of a 100k salary and prestigious job. Notice how it’s not Duke or Stanford opening a school; instead it’s D’Youville (is that really an institution of higher learning, or is it a hick town in SE Texas?), “University of the incarnate Word”, and “Farleigh Dickinson” (called “Fairly Ridiculous” in a recent major motion picture). Couple that with sky high tuition at these Devry-like institutions that prey on the lower tier student (low GPa/PCAT) who can’t get into the big name universities PharmD programs, stating, “you don’t have to worry about that 2.8 GPA or 50 PCAT composite, come here and you can be a pharmacist too”. If I were you, I would look elsewhere before I went 200k in debt for a no-name program. Just a word of advice. As for me, I’m fine because I went to a top tier pharmacy program with a stellar reputation, got out with no debt, and now have nearly a decade of clinical experience and BCPS certification. So, no you new grads from these Ponzi scheme schools won’t be ruining my day (though I am concerned you may slowly ruin the entire profession), but this is more advice to look ahead to the future and decide if pharmacy is really worth it, and if it is, take my advice and go to a well established (and also affordable) state school.
This current trend in pharmacy is not new. In the early to late 1980′s pharmacy students faced the challenges of chain drug stores overtaking private practice. This resulted in the closing of many private pharmacies. Many of us who had dreamed of owning our own practice had to compete for jobs in a market that was contracting. As a result, many of us applied for residencies and or sought specialized areas of practice (which weren’t abundant then). The concept of clinical pharmacy was our light at the end of the tunnel. As time advanced there was significant growth in the chain drug store industry. Pharmacy students were sought after as never before. Rather than looking for or creating new practices, the promise of standing behind a counter for 100K plus bonus was almost too good to be true; and it was.
Pharmacist’s entering pharmacy school must understand that the need to return to our “clinical past” is more important than ever. That means not only getting a good education, but writing your congressman; or even better visit your congressman and tell them what you can do! Tell them about the gap between education and practice. The truth of the matter is you can make a difference. Every one of the 10,000 to 12,000 graduates must plan on pushing the system. You are now Doctors and it’s important to lead as Doctors. The system adapts to changes in our will and what types of responsibilities we determine for ourselves. Ask yourself what you can do to make a difference. Join a professional association. Educate legislators. Keep up contacts with law makers and each other. Where we are and where we may be truly depends on your willingness to demand change. It is your turn to lead. What will you do?