Hey Jim, What is the pharmacist glut looking like and how do you think it will develop with added rxs from baby boomers, added rxs from healthcare reform, and loss of Pharmacists due to boomers retiring? I offered to take a wage cut at my independent because I want job security. Are wages falling? for pharmacists?
PLEASE ANSWER
I don’t know. I never “know”, but, because I write JP at Large, I have been “watching not just looking” and “hearing not just listening” for 25 years. First, read my column in the July, 2012 Drug Topics. There is a link here. If you haven’t, you can subscribe to the digital edition of the magazine. Very cool, delivered right to your e-mail in-box.
It looks to me that there is now two categories of pharmacists. ”Pharmacist Merchants” who know how to run the business (both PIC and Staff) and “Dispensing Robots”. The companies that gleefully go after the “Robots” will lose in the end because the companies that see the value of good “Merchant Pharmacists” will cream them. Be a good “Merchant Pharmacist”
When Americans go to the doctor, they think they are getting cheated if they leave without one or more prescriptions. The implications.. Again read my July column.
The avalanche of prescriptions coming. You ain’t seen anything yet. 10,000Americans turn 65 every single day. We won’t even hit the peak until 2023. You think that Pharma has developed expensive drugs for mature people now. Watch what happens in the next 25 years.
No, wages aren’t falling. If they try that, they are doomed to only employing the “Dispensing Robots”.
Please don’t worry. You are a good pharmacist. You went to U Dub. A great school that actually has good old-fashioned compounding labs. You will always have a job. Your choice of places to live may restrict your job opportunities, but that is a lifestyle choice, not a job choice.
PS: How can we, as a profession, allow people who cannot compound, who went to schools that do not teach compounding, to call themselves “Pharmacists”. Compounding is our quintessential skill. No one else can do it. It is worth big money. This is an ongoing mystery.
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