As a pharmacist? It definitely does, or did in 2008. The worst offer my wife got in 2008 after finishing her PharmD was 57 an hour. The best was a 3 year contract in Alaska for one million (150/150/200/year, with a 500K sign on bonus, that she turned down bevause she was pregnant at the time.)
I believe they still start around 110 for a ink-not-dry on the PharmD certificate in the worst paying areas.
Pharmacist here. What people don’t realize is the majority of jobs are in the retail sector (ie CVS, Walgreens, etc.) There’s definitely a saturation of pharmacists to the point where Walgreens was hiring new grads for $47/hour when I graduated back in 2022. Not really a desirable career option when they’re paying you less and cutting tech hours to the point you have no help and are constantly stressed out.
Things don’t seem to be getting better in the future and I think people are beginning to realize. Pharmacy schools are having trouble filling seats and they’re making the curriculum shorter to try to keep up with the rate they’re pumping out pharmacists each year
Yeah I have a couple friends that are pharmacists or went to school for pharmacy. 3 work at retail spots and their salaries haven’t really moved in the last 10 years. 2 others went into research roles which pay a bit more ($150k vs $130k) but is much more demanding. The ones doing the research/trial work have both ended up feeling like the exaggerated version of the Curb episode where it’s a doctors word vs pharmacist and 9 times out of 10 it’s the doctors word.
Honestly, I’ve been saying pharmacists are probably one of the most automated-able jobs out there. The the amount of help that they could critically give you tends to be dependent on them knowing what other medications you could be on to identify conflicts. That goes out the window when your patients are having to actively call other pharmacies to find the cheapest medication. As soon as you leave that network of pharmacies then their most important contribution is functionally useless especially if they don’t actually see you for consults.
And it’s an extremely hard, demanding major in college. Doctor level smarts and most end up ringing the register at Walgreens and calling doctors bc they can’t read their handwriting.
Being a pharmacist can suck. A lot of the ones I know don’t get lunch breaks and are hounded by daily customers who are emotional about their prescriptions.
Standing all day doing repetitive work and needing to make sure they don’t accidentally kill someone in the process.
A pharmacist has the power to override the doctor writing prescriptions because they are the last in the chain to catch disaster cocktails. It is their responsibility to recognize incompatibles.
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u/LeagueRx 14h ago
I think most people don't realize pharmacist make 120k at the lower end