My first blog post here at ASHP will deal with an issue that is unfortunately significant to many of us. Like many of us, despite being happy where I am, I've begun looking for other positions--positions with more challenge, positions with more prestige, and positions in my area of specialty. I've also been very discouraged in this job market because for position after position in the job listings we see the same thing: "completion of a PGY-1 residency required" or "residency preferred."
So my question is this: How does the experienced but not residency trained pharmacist compete in this market?
Let me begin with a bit of my background. I graduated with my BS from Temple University in 1997, and immediately began a career in the wonderful world of community pharmacy. I had felt that I would be a very good community pharmacist, and at the time, as we all know, community pharmacy was where the better money was, and what 23-year old graduate didn't want to make a little money?
As many of my colleagues have done, after 8 years, I decided that community pharmacy wasn't for me, so I transitioned into Health-System pharmacy. I liked what I did so much, that I volunteered to help start up a clinical program here at my small 135-bed community hospital. After reading many texts from ASHP, position papers, and receiving guidance from other hospitals, our program was born, and it has flourished. I even went back to school and completed my PharmD. So, here I am today, with 15 years of experience as a pharmacist, and 6 years at my hospital as the Pharmacy Clinical Coordinator, with experience in not just performing the clinical functions--I helped to CREATE these functions.
However, being the big fish in a small pond has its limitations. What if I wanted to work in a major medical center? What if I wanted to "spread my wings?" So, after completing my PharmD, I began looking around, just from curiosity, to see what was out there, and to see if the allure of a position could lure me away from the position that I had essentially created and grew.
I found quite a few interesting positions, and when just sending an application out to see what another place may have to offer, it began. Doors were literally and figuratively slammed in my face. I couldn't figure out why, so I decided to ask. I emailed one of the Directors at one of the hospitals I had applied to, in hopes of figuring out what I could do to make myself more potentially appealing. The answer was swift and simple--we don't want to hire someone for a clinical position without having completed a PGY-1 and PGY-2 residency.
I was taken aback. Maybe I was shooting too high. So I decided to call a few other places. I received the exact same answer. At this point, I was shocked. I knew the numbers, that 90% of practicing pharmacists in the US had NOT completed a residency program. So I decided I would ask at ASHP, where I soon discovered that in the 2015 Initiative, it was the plan of ASHP to have 90% of all new practitioners entering hospital pharmacy to have completed a residency program by 2015--to which I ask...
What about me and the remainder of the 90%?
It's difficult for me to keep this post short, so I'll leave it at this point for comments and discussion. The point is that there needs to be something so that a qualified, experienced pharmacist is not penalized and prevented from taking on a position that they are truly qualified for solely on the basis of not having completed a residency program. I'll ask this question in the open forum: Who is better qualified to be a clinical pharmacist in a tertiary care hospital--a pharmacist who has just completed a PGY-1 residency or a pharmacist who has been practicing in an advanced capacity with over a decade's worth of experience? Draw your own conclusions.