Students should think twice about pharmacy

H miss alice i'm a newly qualified pharmacist and i share your sentiments, what post-grad course are u gonna do?

I just don't understand your attitude. You're acting like you are owed a job just because you completed a degree. You have yet to graduate and register as a pharmacist. I would take your comments more seriously if ONCE you graduated and experience first hand all you that you claim above.

May I point out that its not only pharmacy; medicine is also in a deficit of foundation year positions. The telegraph suggested that 1000 medicine graduate would be without a job in 2013. It's not just us!!!

wow even medicine grauates won't have jobs. Wish we were in the 80s. We are all f*cked.

Yeah, it is that bad. It is going to probably get worse for medicine also.

In this current economy, no degree is safe and will not lead automatically to a job.

There's so much naivety on this page it makes me feel very sorry for you all. I'm tired of reading this lip service. So much of it is parroting back idealization heard at University. You will soon learn. I am taking a post-grad in a non-pharmacy subject and moving onto better prospects and better working conditions. There's a lot of people vehemently defending their course just because they don't want to live up to the fact that it's all down hill from here on. It just highlights how little experience you have, how few contacts you've made, and how short sighted you are when presented with all the obvious signs. Go talk to some real pharmacists, not the ones employed by the university or a lecturer. Real honest to God hard working pharmacists on the front line. Pick up the C&D or the PJ. Get informed, then get out of this dead end.

I'm not saying any more on this matter or replying to any more notes. If you don't like the bald truth, there's nothing more I can help you with.

Pre - reg places are getting very difficult to come by now with companies rejecting students on the basis of 'overwhelmingly this year too many applicants, applying for pre-reg' there are simply too many applicants per pre reg places avaialable and too many pharmacists per job either in hospital or community (there simply are not enough jobs to go round in community and hospital to cater for all the qualified pharmacists right now...can you imagine things a few years down the line?)

The pharmacy board/society probably saw this coming a few years ago and as they cannot cap student numbers (unlike Dentristy and Medicine can) they cannot do much about it. It looks like 4 years of intense study and then no job for pharmacy students. Other sectors of pharmacy will have few jobs as it is and the situation is getting bleak now, let alone by the time students qualify in a few years.

This once secure healthcare job is now entering intense saturation territory and students should think long and hard about studying. Of course if pharmacy student capping was introduced this would not have happened but we still have new pharmacy schools opening next year...one shudders to think what effect that will have on an already bleak situation. Dentistry and Medicine will not allow new schools to open like this as they want to control their workforce and hence ensure secure job employment. Unfortunately the pharmacy profession does not have the power to do this. New schools of pharmacy can keep on opening and bring in lots of money for universities.

Pharmacists themselves are very worried about the situation and are urging students to save their money and time as forget 4 years down the line, here and now is getting very difficult.

Yes we can talk about no course guarantees jobs etc but pharmacy is heading towards the historical 90% job prospect rate to a 40% job prospect rate, that is even lower than those already saturarted job/course markets.

Things have changed dramatically since 5 years ago.

Because of the ridic amount of medics who use biomedical science as a back up choice, less space is available for those who ACTUALLY want to be biomedical scientists or go into research. Biomedical Science is most definitely not for those wanting to do medicine. Medicine for for those wanting to do medicine

why are you morons negging this! this is absolutely true, my mums been a pharmacist for 20 years and this is exactly what she said when I was choosing my courses. pharmacy is saturated and is shifting towards a whole lot more paperwork rather than dispensing

Exactly. Here is another poster who has validity to talk about this situation as his mum is a pharmacist and she is telling him that job prospects are looking bad. So please guys listen to that, the situation is getting very bad, there are just too many pharmacy students compared to the number of pre reg and qualified positions available. You should ask yourself if the pharmacy profession cared about job prospects they would not have let this happen, but they have!

I think you guys are being harsh on Miss Alice, she is telling you the grim truth but I guess those of you applying for pharmacy or are in your first few years of the course do not want to hear it even though you may think its true- its understandable, all that hard work and then no job, its just too depressing to contemplate.

Yes no course can guarantee a job, but this is pharmacy, with full time intense study over 4 years and very few of the other 'no job guarantee at the end' courses involve this sort of gruelling schedule,commitment and money! So having no job to go to after the degree makes it even more depressing.

You don't seem to have read the point behind my post and the blatant warning. Don't ignore the facts, people. Go out and read up on popular pharmacist opinions. Go speak to the people in the job and they will warn you away. Don't be sucked into the airy fairy talk of the University who want your money. There are no caps on students and there never will be, and the Uni won't take the ethical high ground and cap themselves.

When there are so many students, the competition is becoming so fierce that even the most deserving students are looked over. I'm warning you, you need to pick hospital or community in year one, then do A LOT of unpaid work to stand a chance. You got to get in there from day one, and sadly some of the mainstream pharmacies are not pleasant to work for.

Getting lots of variety is not going to help, though you may quickly get sick of eating, sleeping and breathing pharmacy everyday for years. You will be rejected for lack of focus and lack of brand name. Though it's nice you can afford all this unpaid work (sadly for me, I have kids to pay for and a mortgage). Maybe you're aiming for a low-competition area as I just sadly happen to be in the most competitive region (too bad for me). But this is the face of things and how everywhere will be soon. With 150+ students per year at one school, trying to find work is damn impossible, especially if you expect to pay the bills while getting experience. A huge majority of students never secure summer experience. I worked in more than one pharmacy over those 7 years and demonstrated complete accredited skills in all areas that any pharmacist would then be expected to demonstrate in their pre-reg year and beyond. No doubt I have one of the most heavily weighted CVs for experience and I don't know anyone in my year who comes close. But I'm pipped at the post by Mr 50% who has 5 weeks unpaid work at Boots. Thanks to Uni I got even more time under my belt in hospital, but it seems that hospital experience has no value anymore. Ah, the great hospital-community divide. But now someone with a few weeks glorified work experience is telling me I should throw in my mortgage, turn back the clocks and do more shelf stacking in lloyds for variety's sake. Take a step back everyone and look at the state of pharmacy. It's not worth it. This could be you 4 years down the road, no life, worked like a dog for nothing, no hope, sent away from friends and family to some undesirable area to do some rotten pre-reg, in distressing levels of debt. All for a job that pays less and less (check out the recent Boots wage cuts deemed unlawful, but they are still pressing on with them unabashed. They rule the market so they can treat you like dirt). Don't forget mounting stress and zero respect.

This is the last time I'll say it to all you undergrads. AVOID PHARMACY.

I'll be looking for alternative employment this summer. I've had enough that is this joke called pharmacy.

I wasn't aware that 3 new dental schools had opened in the last 5 years. Which are they?