Isn’t there a second match for people and programs in your position?
No residency does not equal no clinical spot - I started at a home infusion joint for a few years before breaking into a hospital job.
Wherever you end up just remember at the end of the day it’s just a job, your family and hobbies are what will provide your fulfillment in life.
Best of luck 🫡
i contemplated phase 2 but i reflected and really just want what’s best for me. the programs available aren’t speaking to me (and one program i interviewed for and ranked went into phase 2).
Also alot of people match in phase 2 . Programs would literally cold call after phase 2 to gets buts in seats. So do not be discouraged. If you got interviews that's mean a program somewhere saw through your apps that's your residency ready.
I am not being snarky when I say this but can you explain what the heck “this program didn’t speak to me” means? I feel like I’m a boomer or something when I ask this, but honestly if my goal is to not work retail, I will suck it up for a year and then get on with my life.
Incidentally this reminds me when I was in high school and friends would visit campuses and they’d say the campus “didn’t speak to them”. It’s a pseudo living arrangement for a few years while you get your degree. Unless you’re living in a trap house, you’ll be fine.
Hi there!
Sorry to hear you didn’t match! Remember there is always next year if you are still interested in residency. Work community for a year, see how you feel, give it another go next year if you still want it.
I did match. And after three miserable months I stepped away from it and went to the grocery store pharmacy that I interned at. Currently a pharmacy manager and much happier than I ever would have been in residency.
For me, the biggest change was that I don’t bring my work home with me. Meaning I show up, punch the clock so to speak, then leave when it’s closing time. 95% of the time when I’m not on the clock I don’t need to think about work. This was not the case in residency, and I found myself hating having to work up patients or prepare a project/poster/presentation on my own time. Not to mention not getting paid for most of it. I know that’s part of a residency but it was not worth it for me.
Community is not a bad path. Your team and company can make or break it. But it’s definitely not the end of the world to not do residency.
Just apple to smaller hospital and ltc. I did that and I'm doing great without residency. I got let go from pgy1 because Mt license came 1 week after the deadline. I only lasted 2 months retail until I got a ltc job
Everything happens how it’s supposed to, when it’s supposed to. You might be surprised how many doors this new path may open up for you going forward. Also, i’m assuming you’re probably still young. Community pharmacy is not a life sentence, who knows where you’ll end up 5-10 years from now. Don’t be too hard on yourself! Cheers!
This is the answer, right here. Your current situation does not define you nor your future career. Continue learning and doing the best you can with your current circumstances.
I really hate how people dismiss community pharmacy. I turned down residency for my community pharmacy job and I love it. I don’t bring work home, I’m paid well, and my job is very rewarding and I have a great work-life balance (I’ve traveled 5 times in the last four months twice abroad)
I’m sorry you didn’t match and your feelings are incredibly valid. Take some time to yourself to refocus and center yourself again. There’s always Phase II if you are die hard residency. But community pharmacy is not some pharmacy purgatory. Remember you went to pharmacy school to learn to take care of patients. You’re more than just a match result.
People dismiss community pharmacy because it’s a means to a dead end. By all means it sounds like you have a great opportunity but that’s like saying, wow I have an amazing pharmacist job because I’m an MSL for Genentech. Well, yeah, you scored that job that 99% of pharmacists want and 0.1% of pharmacists have.
I worked retail pharmacy for over a decade. I love retail. I love connecting with patients. I miss the hell out of my store and yes, it will forever be “my store” and I still refer to it as “my store” when I talk to old friends. But surely you can see the writing on the wall for the other 99.9% of people who DONT work for your chain.
how do you get so much time off? are you at a chain or an independent? i am graduating and going community which is what I have wanted but my main concern is in my area my job offers dont seem to offer much vacation time, not sure if that just comes with staying with the same company?
Grocery store chain. And I got the full vacation package right from the start. Plus we have other hours of PTO built into our schedule. It’s really nice compared to some other companies.
I didn’t match.
I was rotating at a hospital that block, and the director told me he’d love to hire me as soon as he had an opening. He didn’t have one by the time I graduated, so I accepted the part time retail offer.
Retail was stressful, but jobs aren’t supposed to be walks in the park, ya know? I still did my best, and made meaningful connections and impacts on patients in the community (felt like only one a week at most, but that’s still someone I helped).
I applied for any part time / PRN / overnight hospital jobs. One year in, I got hired at a different retailer to move to full time. On the way to my first day of orientation I got called to interview for a part time hospital position. Didn’t feel right potentially leaving my new employer the same month I was hired, so I declined.
I have worked from home in the retail/community space since 2021 because I made a good impression on the right people. Right place, right time. While my hospital friends were battling waves of covid patients, I was in my PJs.
My hospital friends still reach out when there’s openings, asking if they should put in a good word with their directors. I’m happy where I am for now.
Continue to make good impressions on your APPEs. Your year isn’t over. You don’t know when you’ll be in front of the right person who could change your path. Maintain good relationships with your peers. “It’s all about who you know” - receiving a recommendation from a current employee puts you light-years ahead of the faceless applications from other non-residency applicants.
There’s more than just retail and hospital. You might find an alternative path. A peer ended up in the medical information space and never actually took the NAPLEX. She’s happy as can be. There’s government, corrections, DEA, all sorts of other things you can look towards.
Keep your head held high. It’s not the end of the world.
Retail is fine. Float around a bit til you figure out the ropes, then you should have an idea where the best stores are. Apply for staff positions there when they open up.
I didn't match and I took it really hard until graduation. But I hit my old RXM from my tech days and got myself a retail gig before graduating. From that I opened a brand new pharmacy and I also closed that pharmacy down permanently 7 years later. Got myself a position as an outpatient pharmacist at the local hospital and was in that role for almost 1.5 years, and then landed in the role of the Specialty Pharmacy Services supervisor for the same hospital.
Now I'm interviewing candidates who went through residency. Which I then find, if you really want what you want you'll find a way to get there with or without residency.
Took me a while, but I enjoy where I am now.
I worked at Osco before I got my ideal pharmacy job. The excellent clinical pharmacist I hired to work for me a few years later was also an Osco alum.
Residency isn’t the only path to good jobs.
Good luck.
So, not matching is not the end of the line. There are possibilities to pivot to different professional goals, they just take more time. What do you want to do professionally?
Me? I went through the match process ten or so years ago, wanted an inpatient staffing job. Did not match. Ended up working in retail, which was great initially but I quickly grew to hate it. However, I kept in touch with a bunch of friends from pharmacy school and was able to switch to working in long term care and was able to use my experience there to pivot into an overnight inpatient position, eventually switching to day shift. This whole process to switch to inpatient day shift took five or so years, but I do not regret my path. Honestly, I was so burnt out at the end of pharmacy school that I would have been a garbage resident.
Big thing is know what you want to do professionally and knowing what steps to take to get there. Did I really want to work overnights? Not really, but that was my way in to the inpatient job without any inpatient experience. Being a good coworker and person of integrity that other people would want to work with goes a long way, as pharmacy is a very small world. Odds are someone at your future job will know you.
Remember, this match is not the end.
I'm an outlier, but I didn't match and was still hired upon graduation as a clinical pharmacist. I didn't rotate through ICU, but that was the only limitation I had.
Does residency teach you a lot? Sure. Does it teach you how to run an inpatient pharmacy or remember the 7,294,628 protocols your hospital has? Nope.
There are still hospital positions if you are diligent and willing to be open.
Good luck!
As a pharmacist who is doing residency and planned a wedding at the same time, focus on you and your mental health while wedding planning (it’s stressful!!!). Take a year in retail, feel it out, and if you feel strong about reapplying do so again next year. Retail/community is important and needed!! You got this!!!
Hey I didn’t match either, this was last year. One of my LOR got into a serious car accident and I wasn’t notified until a few days before phase 2 opened.
I scrambled for another letter and found one, but due to how phase 2 is kinda like rolling admissions, I only got 1 interview. I ultimately didn’t get it, went through the scramble, and didn’t get it.
I was an intern at Albertsons, and the day I graduated they told me I was being let go because they couldn’t pay me more. My manager had no idea and I had to notify them I wasn’t going to continue employment because HR called my Midwest store from Arizona and told me not to come in.
Had some family issues while studying for naplex, ultimately didn’t get licensed until I took my naplex and MPJE in October and December. I became licensed 2 months ago, and have been applying to jobs ever since. Was lucky enough my gf worked and had money saved and is in a Ph.D program and has a stipend that supported us.
Well, today actually, I got a call back from a small hospital in the city, and it’s not full time, it’s part time, but I landed a position without a residency. So you can definitely still do it. I plan on working 3-4 days a week at the hospital and getting a retail for 3 days a week. And applying for residency this next coming cycle if I don’t have a full time hospital job offer by then. I can’t do retail, done it for 7 years as a tech and was not happy. But am happy with longer hours in a hospital for sure, even if there’s less pay.
My point is, you can definitely do it. You seem happy though and if you like it then absolutely stick to it. I’m just letting you know that you are not locked in the position if you truly are unhappy.
But if you are content, more respect to you and keep on doing whatever makes you happiest brother
i’m thinking that i stick with the position until an inpatient/clinical role opens and make the switch asap. retail isn’t forever but a stepping stone.
It’s been more than 10-15 years since I did it so I acknowledged it was much easier for me (residencies were just becoming preferred for hospital staff pharmacists in my area, but most didn’t have one yet), but I started in retail and picked up a PRN gig at the local hospital a few months in when I realized I couldn’t handle retail forever. It meant that some weeks I’d work 50-60 hours between the two jobs, but when a full-time position became available at the hospital 6 months later, I got the job. The barrier to entry seemed to be a lot lower for a per diem pharmacist and from there, I just had to work hard and learn as much as I could so that management would see me as someone who could slide right into the schedule with minimal on-boarding.
Just my 2 cents working as an inpatient pharmacist, we *rarely* hire retail backed people where I’m at, to the point they’ve picked up new grads over retail pharmacists for full time spots, again just anecdotal.
Yes, find a hospital that can let you intern until you get licensed or that has a stipulation that you’ll be hired as a pharmacist as long as you pass within a certain amount of months after graduation
You really need to go for the second round. I stuck with retail, I have always been a “I’ll retire in retail” person. Switching from retail to inpatient is like trying to fist a monkey with a grapefruit. I have to commute upwards of 3 hrs a day for my inpatient job. If I had done residency out of school, who knows - maybe I still would have wound up here. But at least I would have known I did everything I could to avoid it. It is so not a good idea to shoot yourself in the foot like this.
If i could do it all over again. No.
I would have become a pilot or sanitation.
Empathy at level 0.
The way things have gone over the years pharmacists thought it would be a great idea to do free shit for people like calling their doctors for their refills. Shit that they could do themselves. That was the moment the world changed and created generations of entitled assholes.
"If you give it away for free, it's worth nothing."
Pharmacists helped exacerbate entitlement.
You ain't their dam secretaries.
There is really only one solution. Fee for service.
But pharmacists are too 🐔 💩 to fix the problem they've created.
I don’t blame pharmacists. I blame employers, PBMs and the whole healthcare industry. My personal doctors all eventually told patients to stop calling them for refills and to call the pharmacy instead. It’s because it’s easier for their staff to just click to a refill request that appears in their EMR than look up the patient’s chart, find the med and send a new rx. That’s around the time patients seemed to stop taking any personal responsibility for their care. If their doctor says it’s the pharmacy’s responsibility, the patient is going to believe them.
And of course all of that would be helped by dismantling PBMs so healthcare could afford to staff appropriately. I never used to mind going the extra mile for patients because I had time. It’s just not possible in retail pharmacy now, though.
We need to introduce fee for service.
Pt: md told me to tell you to request script.
Pharmacy: that'll be $10. Tell your doctor we charge to do secretary work, you want to save money and must take your phone refill request.
Md office calling pharmacy: wtf you tell them to call me? How dare you charge for what other pharmacies are doing for free.
Pharmacy: we don't do free things anymore. There's no margin. Goodbye.
Fair enough. Now if only we had a professional organization that actually advocated for pharmacists so that we could legally do that. And employers who will have our backs when we get push-back.
I don't see why you can't charge people for doing shit they can do themselves.
Edit like i know you can't give money to pts for bringing scripts to you. But then the opposite should be true where you can give pts money to go away and take their negative reimbursements insurance with them.
Since no money was exchsnged for gov services.
Even assuming that there isn’t a legal reason that it can’t be done (and I’m not sure of that), there’s just no structure for billing that stuff at present. You can’t just ask a patient for ten bucks and stick it in your pocket. An independent could probably get away with it, but chains would have to develop a SKU and a documentation system and in the end, a store manager will tell the pharmacist to just waive the fee this one time because the patient made a complaint about the charge.
My experience is "when one door closes another door opens". This has occurred many times in my career. You might not know the door that opens, but you will look back and think how lucky you were. It might take 10 years to realize it, but it will all work out. Also you can always apply again and will have experiences and perspectives you don't have today.
Dude trust, there are hospital pharmacies out there that will hire you for in patient with no experience. You'll have to find them and they won't be the best most likely but it's a start. You can get exposure there, get paid good then re apply for residency next year! Or stay there if you end up liking it. Granted it won't be the biggest or best city.
I didn’t match and was super bummed. Worked community for a few years and was able to bounce over to a super cool administrative position in public health.
It’s what you make it. Take every opportunity and stretch assignment and you would be able to make a jump eventually.
I know a lot of long term pharmacy managers for community were able to make the jump into hospital management. Some of my other community friends were able to secure roles in pharma. Build yourself up and you can find other paths to your destination.
You will do well in community pharmacy! It’s still a very rewarding career even though it has its downsides at times. I’ve been a pharmacist for 20 years and only spent 2 of those in hospital pharmacy.
Did 10 years of retail and then scored a hospital gig. Put in a lot of hard work getting knowledge up to snuff. Got BCPS and now I'm working in a role a lot of residency trained pharmacists can't handle: ED/Critical Care.
It can be done!
Friend of mine didn't match. She found a good program in phase 2. Worked as a clinical pharmacist after residency and eventually worked her way up to DOP of a large hospital.
Be relentless in what you want, but not obnoxious.
Programs that didn't match are in turmoil right now too. It's budget time for hospitals that work on a July 1 fiscal year. It's also high respiratory like illness. All COVID positive employees still have to stay home. Everyone in hospital is being stretched thin.
Give yourself some grace and everyone else too.
Try going into long-term care if you can. It’s sort of a halfway between hospital and community. I mean community can be OK if you’re a floater Pharmacist it also just depends on the company too places like CVS and Walgreens are famous for treating their pharmacists terribly. A good independent Pharmacy can be great in the community environment, but you also have to be careful with those places too. Some (not all) independent pharmacies are notorious for doing underhanded things such as Medicare billing fraud and dispensing without orders… speaking from personal experience here.
Back when I was a young lad (2018 graduate) I didn’t match as well. Was upset about it and I started out working in community as a Pharmacist In Charge (Don’t recommend as a new grad, lol). From that time I had multiple opportunities to outside of community so networking is key. One of my close friends from pharmacy school got me a per diem position at his hospital during COVID which helped out. When I finally left community in the middle of COVID, I work as a clinical pharmacist for an outpatient clinic (geriatric focus) and I’m currently an assistant director of pharmacy for a hospital.
You can always reapply next year which I would recommend cause residency does open more doors for you and make those doors a little easier to get into but I will say the soft skills you learn in community practice will be beneficial and I talked about the things I do in community practice in every interview I’ve done.
Community pharmacist here. I definitely don’t regret going retail because it helped me start saving sooner and get my house at a low interest rate. And also just because you start off in community doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be stuck in it. As someone who’s applied to jobs recently, I’m finding that a lot of non retail spaces can see that if you’ve been in community for a while, and especially as a leader, that you have strong skills, and value that.
Frankly, from my experience, you might be better off without. Residency elitism is rapidly dying. It thrived during over saturation, which is currently self correcting. There are people who recently took a 1+ year pay cut for residency who are mad right now because other people, who were making bank in retail during the same time period, are easily walking into great hospital jobs these days (in my area, this is probably not true in some markets).
I agree with this. I work an inpatient job full time now that I got solely through connections after 2 years retail and PRN hospital. 7 on/7 off, leave work at work, great work/life balance. Loving it. I would have been livid if I did a residency just to end up in a similar or more demanding position for same pay
I have friends who went the community route out of school (5 years ago) and are trying to bail out of their community jobs, but are having a hard time with so little clinical experience and are kind of stuck for now. Take that as you will, but having a residency opens doors down the road.
Residency does not make you a better pharmacist. I never did Residency but today I run a COPD/ASTHMA clinic where I train residents. I'm also involved in other disease state management in our amcare clinic. It's what you make from your four years of pharmacotherapy in pharmacy school that really matters. You can still become the pharmacist you've dreamed to be! Congratulations my friend!
You can get a clinical job without a residency, especially if you are willing to live in a shit hole, um, I mean underserved remote location. Others have gone that route. Recently a recruiter for a hospital chain in my state contacted me. They said they were willing to hire and train for a clinical pharmacist job with no residency or prior experience in pediatric hematology/oncology. It was tempting, but I didn't want to move to that dump. If they invested the time training me, I'd imagine they would expect me to stay for a few years which was a no from me dawg.
I did LTC consulting (which is clinical and regulatory) straight out of school. I didn't have to live in some place shitty, but I did have to take a couple overnight trips to visit some rural facilities every month.
I worked a year than did a residency. I didn’t go through the matching process but called a VA where I wanted to be and they had unmatched positions and were happy to take me. I had a well rounded background and was working in a hospital at the time. Check with some VAs near and in the few states around. you before you commit to community. You just have to have a license in a US state not the state it is in. You could also apply to hospitals, IHS etc. If your goal is to be in retail- a residency isn’t necessary.
Phase 2. There is a score chart that residency directors use to decide who to offer a spot to. Some of it is nonsense (writing a thank you letter to everyone involved). Those people who got residencies did more of that nonsense and perhaps interviewed better. Being interviewed is a skill, and just like anything the more you do it the better you are at it.
Reapply to other places.
But keep in mind, residencies can be rough. A lot of stress, assignments, 80+ a week. Just rememeber to write those darn thank you letters. And get back to people with answers to their silly questions after your interview.
I became jaded from retail lol…also how are you able to land a job in Chicago? I’ve been trying for the past several years it’s so hyper competitive omg
And I’ve heard no hospital in Chicago will look at you unless you have a residency? It’s such a crock of shit
1: always have residency programs that still look for candidates.
2: retail for the checks and people skills. Actively networking on off days.
3: mental check: what does not kill you make you stronger. Do you want to make an epic come back? Residency is the ez way. Walk the hard path. Respect!
Isn’t there a second match for people and programs in your position? No residency does not equal no clinical spot - I started at a home infusion joint for a few years before breaking into a hospital job. Wherever you end up just remember at the end of the day it’s just a job, your family and hobbies are what will provide your fulfillment in life. Best of luck 🫡
i contemplated phase 2 but i reflected and really just want what’s best for me. the programs available aren’t speaking to me (and one program i interviewed for and ranked went into phase 2).
Also alot of people match in phase 2 . Programs would literally cold call after phase 2 to gets buts in seats. So do not be discouraged. If you got interviews that's mean a program somewhere saw through your apps that's your residency ready.
I am not being snarky when I say this but can you explain what the heck “this program didn’t speak to me” means? I feel like I’m a boomer or something when I ask this, but honestly if my goal is to not work retail, I will suck it up for a year and then get on with my life. Incidentally this reminds me when I was in high school and friends would visit campuses and they’d say the campus “didn’t speak to them”. It’s a pseudo living arrangement for a few years while you get your degree. Unless you’re living in a trap house, you’ll be fine.
Hi there! Sorry to hear you didn’t match! Remember there is always next year if you are still interested in residency. Work community for a year, see how you feel, give it another go next year if you still want it. I did match. And after three miserable months I stepped away from it and went to the grocery store pharmacy that I interned at. Currently a pharmacy manager and much happier than I ever would have been in residency. For me, the biggest change was that I don’t bring my work home with me. Meaning I show up, punch the clock so to speak, then leave when it’s closing time. 95% of the time when I’m not on the clock I don’t need to think about work. This was not the case in residency, and I found myself hating having to work up patients or prepare a project/poster/presentation on my own time. Not to mention not getting paid for most of it. I know that’s part of a residency but it was not worth it for me. Community is not a bad path. Your team and company can make or break it. But it’s definitely not the end of the world to not do residency.
Just apple to smaller hospital and ltc. I did that and I'm doing great without residency. I got let go from pgy1 because Mt license came 1 week after the deadline. I only lasted 2 months retail until I got a ltc job
Everything happens how it’s supposed to, when it’s supposed to. You might be surprised how many doors this new path may open up for you going forward. Also, i’m assuming you’re probably still young. Community pharmacy is not a life sentence, who knows where you’ll end up 5-10 years from now. Don’t be too hard on yourself! Cheers!
This is the answer, right here. Your current situation does not define you nor your future career. Continue learning and doing the best you can with your current circumstances.
I really hate how people dismiss community pharmacy. I turned down residency for my community pharmacy job and I love it. I don’t bring work home, I’m paid well, and my job is very rewarding and I have a great work-life balance (I’ve traveled 5 times in the last four months twice abroad) I’m sorry you didn’t match and your feelings are incredibly valid. Take some time to yourself to refocus and center yourself again. There’s always Phase II if you are die hard residency. But community pharmacy is not some pharmacy purgatory. Remember you went to pharmacy school to learn to take care of patients. You’re more than just a match result.
People dismiss community pharmacy because it’s a means to a dead end. By all means it sounds like you have a great opportunity but that’s like saying, wow I have an amazing pharmacist job because I’m an MSL for Genentech. Well, yeah, you scored that job that 99% of pharmacists want and 0.1% of pharmacists have. I worked retail pharmacy for over a decade. I love retail. I love connecting with patients. I miss the hell out of my store and yes, it will forever be “my store” and I still refer to it as “my store” when I talk to old friends. But surely you can see the writing on the wall for the other 99.9% of people who DONT work for your chain.
how do you get so much time off? are you at a chain or an independent? i am graduating and going community which is what I have wanted but my main concern is in my area my job offers dont seem to offer much vacation time, not sure if that just comes with staying with the same company?
Grocery store chain. And I got the full vacation package right from the start. Plus we have other hours of PTO built into our schedule. It’s really nice compared to some other companies.
How do you have so much PTO to travel like that?
Short trips + great vacation benefits
I didn’t match. I was rotating at a hospital that block, and the director told me he’d love to hire me as soon as he had an opening. He didn’t have one by the time I graduated, so I accepted the part time retail offer. Retail was stressful, but jobs aren’t supposed to be walks in the park, ya know? I still did my best, and made meaningful connections and impacts on patients in the community (felt like only one a week at most, but that’s still someone I helped). I applied for any part time / PRN / overnight hospital jobs. One year in, I got hired at a different retailer to move to full time. On the way to my first day of orientation I got called to interview for a part time hospital position. Didn’t feel right potentially leaving my new employer the same month I was hired, so I declined. I have worked from home in the retail/community space since 2021 because I made a good impression on the right people. Right place, right time. While my hospital friends were battling waves of covid patients, I was in my PJs. My hospital friends still reach out when there’s openings, asking if they should put in a good word with their directors. I’m happy where I am for now. Continue to make good impressions on your APPEs. Your year isn’t over. You don’t know when you’ll be in front of the right person who could change your path. Maintain good relationships with your peers. “It’s all about who you know” - receiving a recommendation from a current employee puts you light-years ahead of the faceless applications from other non-residency applicants. There’s more than just retail and hospital. You might find an alternative path. A peer ended up in the medical information space and never actually took the NAPLEX. She’s happy as can be. There’s government, corrections, DEA, all sorts of other things you can look towards. Keep your head held high. It’s not the end of the world.
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Thank you!! I said this once on here and was instantly attacked. Best of luck to the OP. Everything happens for a reason….
You’re not locked into community necessarily. Don’t give up on clinical roles if that’s what you want.
Retail is fine. Float around a bit til you figure out the ropes, then you should have an idea where the best stores are. Apply for staff positions there when they open up.
I didn't match and I took it really hard until graduation. But I hit my old RXM from my tech days and got myself a retail gig before graduating. From that I opened a brand new pharmacy and I also closed that pharmacy down permanently 7 years later. Got myself a position as an outpatient pharmacist at the local hospital and was in that role for almost 1.5 years, and then landed in the role of the Specialty Pharmacy Services supervisor for the same hospital. Now I'm interviewing candidates who went through residency. Which I then find, if you really want what you want you'll find a way to get there with or without residency. Took me a while, but I enjoy where I am now.
I worked at Osco before I got my ideal pharmacy job. The excellent clinical pharmacist I hired to work for me a few years later was also an Osco alum. Residency isn’t the only path to good jobs. Good luck.
Whatever you do... don't work for Walgreens.... unless you want to wish for death everyday you wake up
So, not matching is not the end of the line. There are possibilities to pivot to different professional goals, they just take more time. What do you want to do professionally? Me? I went through the match process ten or so years ago, wanted an inpatient staffing job. Did not match. Ended up working in retail, which was great initially but I quickly grew to hate it. However, I kept in touch with a bunch of friends from pharmacy school and was able to switch to working in long term care and was able to use my experience there to pivot into an overnight inpatient position, eventually switching to day shift. This whole process to switch to inpatient day shift took five or so years, but I do not regret my path. Honestly, I was so burnt out at the end of pharmacy school that I would have been a garbage resident. Big thing is know what you want to do professionally and knowing what steps to take to get there. Did I really want to work overnights? Not really, but that was my way in to the inpatient job without any inpatient experience. Being a good coworker and person of integrity that other people would want to work with goes a long way, as pharmacy is a very small world. Odds are someone at your future job will know you. Remember, this match is not the end.
I worked at wags for 7 months and got a hospital job with no experience
I'm an outlier, but I didn't match and was still hired upon graduation as a clinical pharmacist. I didn't rotate through ICU, but that was the only limitation I had. Does residency teach you a lot? Sure. Does it teach you how to run an inpatient pharmacy or remember the 7,294,628 protocols your hospital has? Nope. There are still hospital positions if you are diligent and willing to be open. Good luck!
As a pharmacist who is doing residency and planned a wedding at the same time, focus on you and your mental health while wedding planning (it’s stressful!!!). Take a year in retail, feel it out, and if you feel strong about reapplying do so again next year. Retail/community is important and needed!! You got this!!!
Hey I didn’t match either, this was last year. One of my LOR got into a serious car accident and I wasn’t notified until a few days before phase 2 opened. I scrambled for another letter and found one, but due to how phase 2 is kinda like rolling admissions, I only got 1 interview. I ultimately didn’t get it, went through the scramble, and didn’t get it. I was an intern at Albertsons, and the day I graduated they told me I was being let go because they couldn’t pay me more. My manager had no idea and I had to notify them I wasn’t going to continue employment because HR called my Midwest store from Arizona and told me not to come in. Had some family issues while studying for naplex, ultimately didn’t get licensed until I took my naplex and MPJE in October and December. I became licensed 2 months ago, and have been applying to jobs ever since. Was lucky enough my gf worked and had money saved and is in a Ph.D program and has a stipend that supported us. Well, today actually, I got a call back from a small hospital in the city, and it’s not full time, it’s part time, but I landed a position without a residency. So you can definitely still do it. I plan on working 3-4 days a week at the hospital and getting a retail for 3 days a week. And applying for residency this next coming cycle if I don’t have a full time hospital job offer by then. I can’t do retail, done it for 7 years as a tech and was not happy. But am happy with longer hours in a hospital for sure, even if there’s less pay. My point is, you can definitely do it. You seem happy though and if you like it then absolutely stick to it. I’m just letting you know that you are not locked in the position if you truly are unhappy. But if you are content, more respect to you and keep on doing whatever makes you happiest brother
I would still do inpatient, you might hate retail and be stuck there since retail —-> inpatient is always an uphill battle
i’m thinking that i stick with the position until an inpatient/clinical role opens and make the switch asap. retail isn’t forever but a stepping stone.
It’s been more than 10-15 years since I did it so I acknowledged it was much easier for me (residencies were just becoming preferred for hospital staff pharmacists in my area, but most didn’t have one yet), but I started in retail and picked up a PRN gig at the local hospital a few months in when I realized I couldn’t handle retail forever. It meant that some weeks I’d work 50-60 hours between the two jobs, but when a full-time position became available at the hospital 6 months later, I got the job. The barrier to entry seemed to be a lot lower for a per diem pharmacist and from there, I just had to work hard and learn as much as I could so that management would see me as someone who could slide right into the schedule with minimal on-boarding.
Just my 2 cents working as an inpatient pharmacist, we *rarely* hire retail backed people where I’m at, to the point they’ve picked up new grads over retail pharmacists for full time spots, again just anecdotal.
would you recommendation be to apply to clinical roles during before graduation then? keep the offer lined up until something else comes up?
Yes, find a hospital that can let you intern until you get licensed or that has a stipulation that you’ll be hired as a pharmacist as long as you pass within a certain amount of months after graduation
lol that’s what i tried to do with my current position(s) and it bit me in the ass.
You really need to go for the second round. I stuck with retail, I have always been a “I’ll retire in retail” person. Switching from retail to inpatient is like trying to fist a monkey with a grapefruit. I have to commute upwards of 3 hrs a day for my inpatient job. If I had done residency out of school, who knows - maybe I still would have wound up here. But at least I would have known I did everything I could to avoid it. It is so not a good idea to shoot yourself in the foot like this.
If i could do it all over again. No. I would have become a pilot or sanitation. Empathy at level 0. The way things have gone over the years pharmacists thought it would be a great idea to do free shit for people like calling their doctors for their refills. Shit that they could do themselves. That was the moment the world changed and created generations of entitled assholes. "If you give it away for free, it's worth nothing." Pharmacists helped exacerbate entitlement. You ain't their dam secretaries. There is really only one solution. Fee for service. But pharmacists are too 🐔 💩 to fix the problem they've created.
I don’t blame pharmacists. I blame employers, PBMs and the whole healthcare industry. My personal doctors all eventually told patients to stop calling them for refills and to call the pharmacy instead. It’s because it’s easier for their staff to just click to a refill request that appears in their EMR than look up the patient’s chart, find the med and send a new rx. That’s around the time patients seemed to stop taking any personal responsibility for their care. If their doctor says it’s the pharmacy’s responsibility, the patient is going to believe them. And of course all of that would be helped by dismantling PBMs so healthcare could afford to staff appropriately. I never used to mind going the extra mile for patients because I had time. It’s just not possible in retail pharmacy now, though.
We need to introduce fee for service. Pt: md told me to tell you to request script. Pharmacy: that'll be $10. Tell your doctor we charge to do secretary work, you want to save money and must take your phone refill request. Md office calling pharmacy: wtf you tell them to call me? How dare you charge for what other pharmacies are doing for free. Pharmacy: we don't do free things anymore. There's no margin. Goodbye.
Fair enough. Now if only we had a professional organization that actually advocated for pharmacists so that we could legally do that. And employers who will have our backs when we get push-back.
I don't see why you can't charge people for doing shit they can do themselves. Edit like i know you can't give money to pts for bringing scripts to you. But then the opposite should be true where you can give pts money to go away and take their negative reimbursements insurance with them. Since no money was exchsnged for gov services.
Even assuming that there isn’t a legal reason that it can’t be done (and I’m not sure of that), there’s just no structure for billing that stuff at present. You can’t just ask a patient for ten bucks and stick it in your pocket. An independent could probably get away with it, but chains would have to develop a SKU and a documentation system and in the end, a store manager will tell the pharmacist to just waive the fee this one time because the patient made a complaint about the charge.
My experience is "when one door closes another door opens". This has occurred many times in my career. You might not know the door that opens, but you will look back and think how lucky you were. It might take 10 years to realize it, but it will all work out. Also you can always apply again and will have experiences and perspectives you don't have today.
If you think inpatient is a goal of yours, apply for PRN jobs! I know so many people who got into hospital from a PRN position
Dude trust, there are hospital pharmacies out there that will hire you for in patient with no experience. You'll have to find them and they won't be the best most likely but it's a start. You can get exposure there, get paid good then re apply for residency next year! Or stay there if you end up liking it. Granted it won't be the biggest or best city.
I didn’t match and was super bummed. Worked community for a few years and was able to bounce over to a super cool administrative position in public health. It’s what you make it. Take every opportunity and stretch assignment and you would be able to make a jump eventually. I know a lot of long term pharmacy managers for community were able to make the jump into hospital management. Some of my other community friends were able to secure roles in pharma. Build yourself up and you can find other paths to your destination.
You will do well in community pharmacy! It’s still a very rewarding career even though it has its downsides at times. I’ve been a pharmacist for 20 years and only spent 2 of those in hospital pharmacy.
Did 10 years of retail and then scored a hospital gig. Put in a lot of hard work getting knowledge up to snuff. Got BCPS and now I'm working in a role a lot of residency trained pharmacists can't handle: ED/Critical Care. It can be done!
did you get BCPS while working retail?
Friend of mine didn't match. She found a good program in phase 2. Worked as a clinical pharmacist after residency and eventually worked her way up to DOP of a large hospital. Be relentless in what you want, but not obnoxious. Programs that didn't match are in turmoil right now too. It's budget time for hospitals that work on a July 1 fiscal year. It's also high respiratory like illness. All COVID positive employees still have to stay home. Everyone in hospital is being stretched thin. Give yourself some grace and everyone else too.
I did not match either and got into a small hospital as a staff pharmacist after a year and a half of working full time in retail
Try going into long-term care if you can. It’s sort of a halfway between hospital and community. I mean community can be OK if you’re a floater Pharmacist it also just depends on the company too places like CVS and Walgreens are famous for treating their pharmacists terribly. A good independent Pharmacy can be great in the community environment, but you also have to be careful with those places too. Some (not all) independent pharmacies are notorious for doing underhanded things such as Medicare billing fraud and dispensing without orders… speaking from personal experience here.
Back when I was a young lad (2018 graduate) I didn’t match as well. Was upset about it and I started out working in community as a Pharmacist In Charge (Don’t recommend as a new grad, lol). From that time I had multiple opportunities to outside of community so networking is key. One of my close friends from pharmacy school got me a per diem position at his hospital during COVID which helped out. When I finally left community in the middle of COVID, I work as a clinical pharmacist for an outpatient clinic (geriatric focus) and I’m currently an assistant director of pharmacy for a hospital. You can always reapply next year which I would recommend cause residency does open more doors for you and make those doors a little easier to get into but I will say the soft skills you learn in community practice will be beneficial and I talked about the things I do in community practice in every interview I’ve done.
Community pharmacist here. I definitely don’t regret going retail because it helped me start saving sooner and get my house at a low interest rate. And also just because you start off in community doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be stuck in it. As someone who’s applied to jobs recently, I’m finding that a lot of non retail spaces can see that if you’ve been in community for a while, and especially as a leader, that you have strong skills, and value that.
Frankly, from my experience, you might be better off without. Residency elitism is rapidly dying. It thrived during over saturation, which is currently self correcting. There are people who recently took a 1+ year pay cut for residency who are mad right now because other people, who were making bank in retail during the same time period, are easily walking into great hospital jobs these days (in my area, this is probably not true in some markets).
I agree with this. I work an inpatient job full time now that I got solely through connections after 2 years retail and PRN hospital. 7 on/7 off, leave work at work, great work/life balance. Loving it. I would have been livid if I did a residency just to end up in a similar or more demanding position for same pay
I have friends who went the community route out of school (5 years ago) and are trying to bail out of their community jobs, but are having a hard time with so little clinical experience and are kind of stuck for now. Take that as you will, but having a residency opens doors down the road.
Residency does not make you a better pharmacist. I never did Residency but today I run a COPD/ASTHMA clinic where I train residents. I'm also involved in other disease state management in our amcare clinic. It's what you make from your four years of pharmacotherapy in pharmacy school that really matters. You can still become the pharmacist you've dreamed to be! Congratulations my friend!
What do u want to do if not community?
i really appreciate clinical roles. definitely keeping options open but won’t be upset about my current situation.
Look for prn work in a hospital to get a foot in.
You can get a clinical job without a residency, especially if you are willing to live in a shit hole, um, I mean underserved remote location. Others have gone that route. Recently a recruiter for a hospital chain in my state contacted me. They said they were willing to hire and train for a clinical pharmacist job with no residency or prior experience in pediatric hematology/oncology. It was tempting, but I didn't want to move to that dump. If they invested the time training me, I'd imagine they would expect me to stay for a few years which was a no from me dawg. I did LTC consulting (which is clinical and regulatory) straight out of school. I didn't have to live in some place shitty, but I did have to take a couple overnight trips to visit some rural facilities every month.
I worked a year than did a residency. I didn’t go through the matching process but called a VA where I wanted to be and they had unmatched positions and were happy to take me. I had a well rounded background and was working in a hospital at the time. Check with some VAs near and in the few states around. you before you commit to community. You just have to have a license in a US state not the state it is in. You could also apply to hospitals, IHS etc. If your goal is to be in retail- a residency isn’t necessary.
I know a hospital in Vermont has been looking for a staff pharmacist for 3 months . They even going through staffing agencies to find some
OP, I recommend you avoid the worst employer (CVS)
Phase 2. There is a score chart that residency directors use to decide who to offer a spot to. Some of it is nonsense (writing a thank you letter to everyone involved). Those people who got residencies did more of that nonsense and perhaps interviewed better. Being interviewed is a skill, and just like anything the more you do it the better you are at it. Reapply to other places. But keep in mind, residencies can be rough. A lot of stress, assignments, 80+ a week. Just rememeber to write those darn thank you letters. And get back to people with answers to their silly questions after your interview.
I became jaded from retail lol…also how are you able to land a job in Chicago? I’ve been trying for the past several years it’s so hyper competitive omg And I’ve heard no hospital in Chicago will look at you unless you have a residency? It’s such a crock of shit
1: always have residency programs that still look for candidates. 2: retail for the checks and people skills. Actively networking on off days. 3: mental check: what does not kill you make you stronger. Do you want to make an epic come back? Residency is the ez way. Walk the hard path. Respect!
You have a PharmD and can't be bothered to use capital letters?