Poor Pharmacist Career Prospects? What do Universities tell you?

at uni, they should tell you to expect to clean toilets and hoover everyday during pre-reg also to expect that there will be people trying to get you sacked from day one due to skin colour, religion or people just being dicks

Similar reasons to a lot pf people, Medicine applicant had to put it down as a back up. I knew at that time the profession was not what it used to be 20 years ago and maybe i could use the degree to get into industry. The university made it out that being a pharmacist was the best thing in the world. Only after working for an independent pharmacy for every summer i realised how bad the profession is and its going to get even worse.

Thats why I am encouraging kids to research about it before they decide to go ahead as there is way more information available out there now than there ever was to help make the right choice.

So you didn't do Biomedical Science?

Supply and Demand.

The market is over saturated with pharmacists, a lot of them people who wanted to do medicine. Every university in the country (nearly) now offers Pharmacy. You are churning out tons of pharmacy graduates into a system which is shutting down pharmacies.

So this is just the beginning my friend, I say it gets worse over the next 3-4 years when the real cuts on the NHS funding come in. I see the average locum rate dropping to £17 an hour, an extreme rates going from £11 an hour to £22 an hour.

well no..

as it is a lot of hospital bank jobs I saw advertised on NHS jobs have had their pay slashed from £26-31/hour to £19-22/hour).

additionally all major chains, minus asda and potentially boots/well have capped pharmacists at a most of £19/hour. on top of that most employers have stopped paying for travel, advanced and enhanced services

Locums have it tougher though. Usually the regular pharmacists leave all the **** for the locums to do. Like imagine if the workday was from 8 am to 10 pm, the pharmacist would piss about from 8 am to 2 pm, locum would come in at 2 pm. Then the regular pharmacist will run off somewhere and swipe out at 4 pm (after leaving all the work for the locum to do).

Sorry, I keep thinking you are someone that I know. I probably shouldn't try and prod more information out of you.

If you went to Medway School of Pharmacy, I think I know who you are.

so so true that. its especially bad when methadone patients are involved and the regular pharmacists a) dont keep the scripts anywhere, b) dont make up the doses in advanced and c) are soo lazy they leave the CD registers blank for weeks at a time and expect the locum to fill it in (this is illegal btw as law requires you to do it within 24 hours)

What's worse is the malaria service. Some pharmacists get the dispensers to fill in the online consultation form (which is illegal) and usually after 24 hours (again illegal). They do it because they are too lazy and we are usually short staffed.

out of curiosity, are you and @MarketsMove the same person...you both have similar backgrounds

out of curiosity, are you and @MarketsMove the same person...you both have similar backgrounds

No, this is my only account on TSR

But I see what you mean, haha, maybe a lot of PhDs need extra money!

weird how you both are working as asda dispensers and both are quiting in march

I know what a coincidence (serious, this is my only account on TSR). I find it strange as well.

ASDA in general is bad, I think everyone would quit if they can.

Yes I am a final year student but I have got into a graduate scheme in the Big 4 so leaving pharmacy for good,

In a way I agree but in fairness, Id say asda is probably my fav large chain as the rest are worse from personal experience (trust me). the absolute worst however is working as a non-clinical community pharmacist at a GP surgery as you have to deal with 800-1200 items a day in a 16 hour day and get paid low rates (the ones I have seen / gained experience in pay £15-19/hour and no additional expenses for 16 straight hours)

the clinical/practice based pharmacist however dont do any dispensing and in fact do more or less what GPs do minus diagnosis (outside minor ailments/area of expertise) and minor surgical interventions and their pay essentially matches what they are doing (ie similar to GPs in hourly wages, however they work 20 hours a week instead of 40 odd GPs so overall pay is ~ half of GPs).

I'm just going to join a big bank. Pharmacy seems messed up. How the hell can you do 1200 items in 16 hours, that would kill everyone. You are working in a factory!