Re: Outlook for Pharmacy (was "Message for Carol")

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On 5/11/06, Mr. Blue wrote:
> On 5/10/06, L wrote:
>
>> why not pharmacy? better pay, hours, etc. If I could start
>> college again, I'd go into pharmacy. I'd already be rich by
>> now.
>
> Since I have a biochemistry background, I've wondered about
> this. My concern is that although the job market might be good
> now, it might not be so great for pharmacists in the future. I
> think we'll see increasing amounts of mail-order prescriptions
> (less need for local pharmacists) and that perhaps some of
those
> mail-order prescription jobs will even be outsourced. Why does
> counting and dispensing pills need to be done locally? I don't
> see any reason why this work couldn't be done in Mexico nor
even
> in China, at least for medications that are not needed
immediately.
>
> That's my concern about making a large investment of time and
> money in Pharmacy.
I sure don't know any rich pharmacists. The hospital
pharmacists make roughly the same as nurse at least in my neck
of the woods and have to work the same hours, off-shift,
weekends holidays. store pharmacists are not well paid at all
and with many store pharmacies having extended even 24hr
service, weekends ect. Owning your own pharmacy has the same
problems as being a solo attorney, high overhead, getting
customers in the store, slow pay from medicare/medicaid etc. And
with many of the HMOs requiring mail order prescriptions the
pharmacist's job is in definite jeopardy for outsourcing.