Is there any hope for pharmacy students??

Original post by Hoganballs

I think we should do away with this work nonsense altogether. Replace us all with robots, pay us all a universal basic income & sit back and watch episodes of family guy with a few beers. 😂

I worked in a pharmacy several times that had 3 robots, to make medi-pouches. Plus another robot that you could let it feed them through to check for broken tablets or the wrong amount of tablets.
We are easily replaceable.
And with the internet, the idea of the health professional on the High Street is getting a bit dated now when anyone can look up their medicine related query on Dr. Google!

Reply 82

mispelt

I kinda wish the nay-sayers would just @ me. But I do love being called the equaivalent of a polished turd 😌. I apologise for wanting to show optionality and optimism towards an MPharm (especially towards someone who already has locked it in). The sheer pessimism and petulant behaviour in this thread is alarming, especially from apparent professionals in this field. Barely any of this is constructive feedback. A bit disappointed in the responses.

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 83

Claremont4ever

Community pharmacy is a niche area of pharmacy which only a few pharmacists like myself enjoy. Pharmacy is a vast profession and you can choose to work in different areas. When you have qualified as a pharmacist, the world is literally your oyster. If you choose to relocate to the areas where there is a scarcity of pharmacists like in the North, companies will be on their hands and knees begging you to come cover a community pharmacy for £40/hour £450 a day. If your focus isn't money and you want to work outside of community pharmacy, you can get a decent salary working for agencies that send you to different GP surgeries to work as a Gp pharmacist. minimum of £55,000/year is more or less guaranteed. there are agencies in Newcastle, Leeds etc who are begging pharmacists to come work for them.

If there are CPs in this forum who are based in the North East and earn less than £25/hour, I would find that literally unbelievable. I can post links on here of shifts begging to be filled for £40/hour as standard week day rate and £45/hour weekend rate.

Reply 84

mispelt

Original post by Hoganballs

It’s generally newly or recently qualifieds who are more likely to say Pharmacy is the best thing since sliced bread. No chance with those qualified a long time. People are bound to see the correlation by this stage.

In saying that, I’m always sceptical of posts above...they could just as easily be from University lecturers or people affiliated with the Multiples trying to portray the career in a positive light. It’s akin to polishing a turd. 😂🤣

I’m gonna comment on this specifically.

I resent this sentiment. Of course I’m going to be optimistic about my degree. Your opinion is your opinion but what good is it to me, my cohort or literally anyone else currently studying to depress them with your so called correlations? We can both do something with our degrees but sitting their talking about the end of the profession isn’t moving forward with the times.

Just for your peace of mind; I am neither a lecturer or admissions tutor. I’m just a bored pharmacy grad.

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 85

Claremont4ever

Original post by mispelt

I kinda wish the nay-sayers would just @ me. But I do love being called the equaivalent of a polished turd 😌. I apologise for wanting to show optionality and optimism towards an MPharm (especially towards someone who already has locked it in). The sheer pessimism and petulant behaviour in this thread is alarming, especially from apparent professionals in this field. Barely any of this is constructive feedback. A bit disappointed in the responses.

Give it some time, they will soon @ you and say that your positivity and optimism is because you are a recent grad etc etc bla bla bla... Just ignore them, I have heard all those tales from them before. What matters to me now is that I'm enjoying the profession. If I choose not to enjoy it in a few years from now, I simply move to another area of practice within pharmacy.

One thing I have learnt from The Studentroom (look at the stickies) is that there seems to a trend towards peddling negativity about pharacy as a profession. All the stickies are all negative threads. I once did a positive thread about pharmacy filled with positivity and happiness, but it was soon invaded by this same people, and the thread was eventually closed.

Reply 86

Original post by mispelt

I kinda wish the nay-sayers would just @ me. But I do love being called the equaivalent of a polished turd 😌. I apologise for wanting to show optionality and optimism towards an MPharm (especially towards someone who already has locked it in). The sheer pessimism and petulant behaviour in this thread is alarming, especially from apparent professionals in this field. Barely any of this is constructive feedback. A bit disappointed in the responses.

Yes, that was a little rude! But can you give us figures.
You list a whole host of 'possible' careers with an MPharm, but how many of your peers in your year group are actually leaving pharmacy to go into say, banking?
This ploy was used recently by Sunderland university in an Ad, with a whole list of 'alternate' careers. But a survey a few years ago had well over 90% of pharmacy students who intended to practise as pharmacists.
If I wanted to do banking I would do a degree in something like finance or economics.
The last few years there seems to be this move to push the MPharm as a degree to use as a stepping stone to 'many other careers' but in reality you could just as easily do a degree more associated with any of these 'possible' careers.
The motto now seems to be ....'do a pharmacy degree, then do something else' !

Reply 87

Original post by mispelt

I kinda wish the nay-sayers would just @ me. But I do love being called the equaivalent of a polished turd 😌. I apologise for wanting to show optionality and optimism towards an MPharm (especially towards someone who already has locked it in). The sheer pessimism and petulant behaviour in this thread is alarming, especially from apparent professionals in this field. Barely any of this is constructive feedback. A bit disappointed in the responses.

I think you will find this is from graduates from a few years back, where you got a pre-reg split of 70% community and 30% hospital.
Can you update us on how this is changing with say, a split between a GP surgery and community ?
Are there lots of these kinds of pre-reg places opening up, and how many?
Remember, these simply weren't available a decade ago. It was a choice of 2 for 99% of grads.

Reply 88

04MR17

Volunteer Section Leader

22

Original post by Hoganballs

I think we should do away with this work nonsense altogether. Replace us all with robots, pay us all a universal basic income & sit back and watch episodes of family guy with a few beers. 😂

You've clearly not seen Wall-E :afraid:

Reply 89

04MR17

Volunteer Section Leader

22

Polite request to focus on discussing the point, not the person please folks. :smile:

Reply 90

mispelt

Original post by mrlittlebigman

I think you will find this is from graduates from a few years back, where you got a pre-reg split of 70% community and 30% hospital.
Can you update us on how this is changing with say, a split between a GP surgery and community ?
Are there lots of these kinds of pre-reg places opening up, and how many?
Remember, these simply weren't available a decade ago. It was a choice of 2 for 99% of grads.

I'm replying to both messages in one.

Firstly, I'm slightly biased, a large majority of my cohort have landed hospital positions. And again most of my cohort have stayed in London. However, if you go through oriel preferences, there is a growing push to offer GP surgeries combined with community (6 month/6 month split), as well as mental health combined with hospital etc (this opens up more clinical type positions), and even industry/community split. Whilst I would love to go through the lag-y oriel website to give you a list, I simply cannot be bothered.

However, my point stands; just because they didn't exist for you does not mean it's justifiable for you guys to show up and depress the next generation of people locked into the pharmacy degree. I'm here for solutions.

As for the banking thing; two of my personal friends have landed grad jobs at asset management funds, however if you take a look at LinkedIn for pharmacy grads, there is a huge range of exit strategies. Because of its positioning as a masters, again I know at least three people from my cohort going for PhDs. Now, these seem like puny numbers, but again, I want to reiterate to OP that it's very much possible and more people are pushing for different routes and setting the precedent (and I do not know everyone in my year). I myself had been offered a few banking internships at events fairs due to the healthcare angle of pharmacy.

It's hard to give examples when I would really rather not tell everyone which exact uni and graduating year I'm part of.

Edit; I realised that this has turned into an argument-type discussion which I do not enjoy. OP if you have questions or want advice PM me, but I’m on holiday right now and I’m gonna go chill.

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 91

Sarah H.

Original post by mrlittlebigman

Yes, that was a little rude! But can you give us figures.
You list a whole host of 'possible' careers with an MPharm, but how many of your peers in your year group are actually leaving pharmacy to go into say, banking?
This ploy was used recently by Sunderland university in an Ad, with a whole list of 'alternate' careers. But a survey a few years ago had well over 90% of pharmacy students who intended to practise as pharmacists.
If I wanted to do banking I would do a degree in something like finance or economics.
The last few years there seems to be this move to push the MPharm as a degree to use as a stepping stone to 'many other careers' but in reality you could just as easily do a degree more associated with any of these 'possible' careers.
The motto now seems to be ....'do a pharmacy degree, then do something else' !

The Pharmacy degree has traditionally always been geared (and promoted) to produce pharmacists who will almost certainly find employment in either community or hospital environments. A very small percentage finding employment elsewhere such as the pharmaceutical industry.

I suspect the novel idea of promoting the pharmacy degree as a stepping stone to something totally unrelated is a wheeze to fill the courses as prospective students wise up.

Reply 92

Original post by mispelt

I'm replying to both messages in one.

Firstly, I'm slightly biased, a large majority of my cohort have landed hospital positions. And again most of my cohort have stayed in London. However, if you go through oriel preferences, there is a growing push to offer GP surgeries combined with community (6 month/6 month split), as well as mental health combined with hospital etc (this opens up more clinical type positions), and even industry/community split. Whilst I would love to go through the lag-y oriel website to give you a list, I simply cannot be bothered.

However, my point stands; just because they didn't exist for you does not mean it's justifiable for you guys to show up and depress the next generation of people locked into the pharmacy degree. I'm here for solutions.

As for the banking thing; two of my personal friends have landed grad jobs at asset management funds, however if you take a look at LinkedIn for pharmacy grads, there is a huge range of exit strategies. Because of its positioning as a masters, again I know at least three people from my cohort going for PhDs. Now, these seem like puny numbers, but again, I want to reiterate to OP that it's very much possible and more people are pushing for different routes and setting the precedent (and I do not know everyone in my year). I myself had been offered a few banking internships at events fairs due to the healthcare angle of pharmacy.

It's hard to give examples when I would really rather not tell everyone which exact uni and graduating year I'm part of.

Edit; I realised that this has turned into an argument-type discussion which I do not enjoy. OP if you have questions or want advice PM me, but I’m on holiday right now and I’m gonna go chill.

I would say you are lucky Mis, but you only mention 'one or two', like for banking, but why not just do a degree in finance then?

All I can say is I wasn't aware there were so many options available now, but I would still be interested in some more solid figures, than simply a list of 'what' is available.
Although I will admit it sounds very interesting and it's unfortunate it wasn't available a decade ago, when as I said earlier you basically had the two usual choices. But good luck to you and your friends. Hopefully your career will turn out better than us old bitters!
Although, as my clinical tutor said, "people do pharmacy to become pharmacists", and that was to the university careers tutor who wanted to come and give us a talk, which was swiftly dropped! As we were all going to be pharmacists! so he told us!
I think there is still a little truth in what Sarah, says above.
But I'm pleased that your generation has more options opening up to you, and a little sad that we were a decade too early!

Reply 93

Original post by Sarah H.

The Pharmacy degree has traditionally always been geared (and promoted) to produce pharmacists who will almost certainly find employment in either community or hospital environments. A very small percentage finding employment elsewhere such as the pharmaceutical industry.

I suspect the novel idea of promoting the pharmacy degree as a stepping stone to something totally unrelated is a wheeze to fill the courses as prospective students wise up.

Sarah, although i find the posts by Mis very interesting, and wish they had been available in 'our day', I do tend to lean towards your point of view I think at the moment, until we see some solid figures from universities as to how many of these alternative careers are being filled with MPharm grads. At a rough guess I would say it is 65% community, 30% hospital and possibly 5% 'other'. But I stand corrected if any Uni reps can give us a more solid idea of actual alternative jobs and figures.

Reply 94

Sarah H.

Original post by Claremont4ever

Community pharmacy is a niche area of pharmacy which only a few pharmacists like myself enjoy. Pharmacy is a vast profession and you can choose to work in different areas. When you have qualified as a pharmacist, the world is literally your oyster. If you choose to relocate to the areas where there is a scarcity of pharmacists like in the North, companies will be on their hands and knees begging you to come cover a community pharmacy for £40/hour £450 a day. If your focus isn't money and you want to work outside of community pharmacy, you can get a decent salary working for agencies that send you to different GP surgeries to work as a Gp pharmacist. minimum of £55,000/year is more or less guaranteed. there are agencies in Newcastle, Leeds etc who are begging pharmacists to come work for them.

If there are CPs in this forum who are based in the North East and earn less than £25/hour, I would find that literally unbelievable. I can post links on here of shifts begging to be filled for £40/hour as standard week day rate and £45/hour weekend rate.

“Community pharmacy is a niche area of pharmacy which only a few pharmacists like myself enjoy”.

Hardly niche. It is where the great majority of pharmacists are employed. Other than that accurate.

Reply 95

Original post by Sarah H.

“Community pharmacy is a niche area of pharmacy which only a few pharmacists like myself enjoy”.

Hardly niche. It is where the great majority of pharmacists are employed. Other than that accurate.

That did make me LOL too, Sarah, around 70% is hardly niche! unless that definition has changed!

Reply 96

ChillBear

Anyway, undergrads tend to have rose-tinted glasses before they hit the working world. I've been lurking on TSR for over 10 years since before I even started university and the negative message with community pharmacy has always been there, I remember it as a student working as a part time counter assistant and just thought 'can it really be that bad?'.

I went through that optimistic period as a student, but once you qualify and spend a few years working in community the excitement just hits the gutter. It's a retail environment. The patient is a customer, and the couple bad apples you get every shift drag you down. I've been sworn and shouted at, I've had to confront abusive people and shoplifters, I've had unreasonably demanding people, I've had to apologise for other people's mistakes, eventually you just get tired of the mental toll. And for what pay? £40,000 a year, the same as I earned 5 years ago when I first qualified? Then there's the monotony of doing the same dispensing process day in day out - you think to yourself, am I really needed? Can't a robot just pack and check and do my job? Hell, ACTs can technically do my job and they're not clinically trained.

The times you get to flex your clinical skills OTC is a joke, you're not clinically trained to the level of hospital or general practice pharmacists, most of conditions you deal with you don't know the appropriate management for, and if you do most of the times you'll just say 'oh, you'll need to speak to your GP'. And when you try to do a thorough questioning of some customers it's almost like a bother that you're even asking them questions when Boots down the road will just sell them a pack of co-codamol no questions asked.

The negative message has been repeated for years now. Here's a thread from 8 years ago with a totally different set of people that don't even engage on here anymore: https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2132208&page=5

Same message, different people.

Then we have a large survey by the GPhC in 2019, page 149 (https://www.pharmacyregulation.org/sites/default/files/document/gphc-2019-survey-pharmacy-professionals-main-report-2019.pdf):

"Half of community pharmacists were satisfied in their main job (50%) and 29% were dissatisfied. A further 20% were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied."

Only 50% positively said they were satisfied with their job in community pharmacy.

I don't know what else to say than a large scale survey by our official regulator can say.

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 97

Claremont4ever

A few google links from 'happy' doctors, dentists and optometrists. The same careers certain people on here want you to leave pharmacy to pursue.

https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2019/01/25/why-are-so-many-doctors-quitting-the-nhs-its-time-to-ask-the-right-questions/

Optometrist - https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4224306

https://www.opticianonline.net/features/why-are-optometrist-vacancies-in-the-uk-so-difficult-to-fill

Dentist - https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2018235

Reply 98

ChillBear