My Advice To Current Pharmacy Students ~ What I Would Do Differently If I Were Still In Pharmacy School

I don’t consider myself a sage by any means but I want to give some advice to current pharmacy students so that they don’t end up bitter and resentful about their career choice down the road.

I think we already have way too many angry pharmacists and if folks just take some time to think through and plan out their career paths early on, they can find fulfillment as pharmacists.

Don’t get me wrong… This is not what I did as a pharmacy student. I admit, I did not plan out my career path but this post is all about what I would do differently and will probably be most beneficial to pharmacy students who still have a chance to make the right moves/take the right steps at the outset of their careers.

For those who are already out in the field working and pharmacy school is in your rear view mirror… You can always course correct. It’s hard but possible. I know it is because I did it. 🙂

I have been thinking about doing a post like this for quite a while but didn’t want to dilute the main message of this site. But then I realized… This IS the whole point of this site after all.

If you check out the Q&A Section of this site, you’ll see a number of questions from pharmacy students who already know what they do and don’t want to be doing once they graduate and they are actively seeking out how to get on the paths that they desire within this profession of pharmacy.

I recently received one of these types of questions and that was when I knew I needed to just go ahead and publish this post.

When I was in pharmacy school, I was a bit more occupied with getting through the program successfully, getting my degree, getting out, getting a job, paying off my student loans, and then living happily ever after. I thought my only (or at least, my most likely) options were to get a job as a retail pharmacist or a hospital pharmacist.

The Holy Grail of all jobs for me was to get a desk job as a clinical pharmacist (define that however you like… For me, it meant a job where I actually got to sit down for at least part of my work day and make “clinical decisions”).

So… What would I do differently if I were still a pharmacy student?

• Network – I loved going for the pharmacy conferences as a student. Not only did we get to attend at rock bottom prices, but they’re usually held at destination locations so these conferences doubled as mini vacations. My favorite part was always the exhibit halls because I’d load up on as much free swag as I could stuff into the free bags we got at the registration desks. Also, because I was still a student, getting CEs wasn’t a top priority so actually attending the seminars, talks, and lectures was not of great importance to me. Rewind… Here’s what I’d do differently:
  • At the exhibit halls, I would have real conversations with the people behind the booths (especially, those at the booths of companies that I might want to work for in the future) instead of quickly grabbing a freebie that they were giving away and walking away to get my next free thing.
    • I would ask more in-depth questions about the roles they held in the companies they were there representing and how that was connected to pharmacy or pharmacists in any way.
    • I would drive the conversation in a direction that would get me as much information as possible about what life as a pharmacist at that organization would be like.
  • I’d collect business cards and then immediately follow up with handwritten Thank You cards sent to them via snail mail.
  • I would then make it a point to connect with them via email at the beginning of my Spring Semester to inquire about summer internship programs. I would set a reminder in my smartphone so I don’t forget to do this on time (I would definitely rather do this than work as an intern just for the money, doing something I know I probably wouldn’t want to do upon graduation). There’s no point wasting your precious summer time and companies are more likely to hire people they’ve trained in their ways rather than some random person who applies through Indeed or wherever else on the internet… Just saying…
  • At many of these events you’ll find a broad swath of organizations represented including, but not limited to:
    • Pharma companies and drug manufacturers
    • Biotech companies
    • Boards of pharmacy, NABP, and other regulatory agencies
    • Hospital organizations
    • Retail pharmacy companies
    • And everything in-between
  • Don’t overlook companies that are ancillary to the profession because they do tend to hire pharmacists as subject matter experts so if I (as a student) saw a company I wasn’t familiar with, I would make a beeline to them to find out why they were there and why their organization was trying to get in front of pharmacists.
• Learn a Coding Language – Is this absolutely necessary for a pharmacist? No… But here’s why I’d do that now. Healthcare is going high tech. We’re never going to not need the human touch, but if you want to advance, if you aspire to do more than the basics, then you’ll need to position yourself in the pathway that your profession is headed.
  • Amazon is already in our playing field, can you even begin to imagine how they could possibly revolutionize the practice of pharmacy?
  • Over one or two of my summer breaks, if said internship above didn’t pan out, I’d take a course in a coding language like SQL, Java, Python. Technology, especially in healthcare is going to be even more data driven so I’d prime myself to be able to be valuable in that space.
  • Check out Codecademy, Khan Academy and General Assembly for different courses and bootcamps.

As I think of more things I would do differently, I will keep adding them to this post but as you can see these are things that even non-pharmacy students can do even now in order to course correct and get on a career path that is better suited to them.

No need to be angry and hate your job everyday… Be proactive. Do something about it. Take positive steps to make the changes you want to see. just remember to be patient with yourself, the process, and the systems in place.

Got comments…? Let me know what you think in the Comments section below!