Pharmacy is a small, incestuous field.  Most of the time pharmacists stay in a local area for decades.  Often working for one employer for 10 or 20 years.

However, with script numbers climbing every year and not enough pharmacists to go around the offers are always coming into pharmacists to jump ship and go somewhere else.

Many do.  Many also jump ship because they’ve built a good reputation as someone who works hard, is easy to get along with, is fair and overall, is someone you would want to hire.

When you are that kind of person the stars line up and the world is your oyster.

Like sports free agents

Recently, a pharmacist I worked with had come to us from another pharmacy.  I lured her in originally because of what I said above.

I knew she was easy to work with, a hard worker, got along great with other employees and patients and was a pleasure to work with.

We offered her more money and a better schedule.

About every six months her old employer (a chain retail) came back and made offers to her.  But she liked her schedule too much to leave.

Finally, after four years of marginal offers they bucked up and offered her 20% more on her base salary then we were paying her and then performance bonuses to sweeten the deal.

With her raise she went from five 8-hour days to four 9-hour days.  With better, full-time benefits than we could offer.

Pharmacists now are like free agents in sports.  Get a good name and you are always on the market.  Waiting for a better offer to come along.

The opposite is also true

Of course, the opposite is also true.  Get a bad name and a bad reputation as someone who is hard to work with and nobody will touch you with a ten-foot pole.

Under Handed

Recently, I talked to a pharmacy owner who I know that told me of a pharmacist he hired to do temporary work.
The pharmacist came in and did what was re-quired.  Although he didn’t impress anyone, he got the job done.

A few weeks later this owner gets a statement from the state basically saying that this pharmacist had found a ‘loophole’ in the system and was considered an employee now rather than a contract worker.

He then filed unemployment benefits or some such which the owner was then legally liable for.

I can guarantee you that word got out quickly about this pharmacist and that he will never be hired again in the area even though pharmacies are dying for relief work.

Leave work at work

The other night I attended a continuing education (C.E.) put on by a family practice doctor out of California.
After his talk we had an interesting discussion.  He asked me how I liked pharmacy.  And I told him something that I think really resonated with him.

At one time, I wanted to become a doctor (during my last year of pharmacy school).  I was rounding every day in the hospital and clinic with resident physicians.

Spending a little time with them stopped me from applying to medical school.  Why?  They were never able to go home at the end of the day.

I don’t mean physically go home (although that did happen on occasion).  I mean they were never able to leave their work.  Their pagers were like umbilical cords to the hospital.  They were always going off.  They were always being called at home.

In fact, I’m told that if a patient now calls the doctors office they have to, if the patient asks, get a hold of the doctor at home.  No matter what.

You’ve got to be kidding me!  No wonder no-body wants to go into medicine anymore.

In my next post I’ll talk about the choice of pharmacy versus other medical fields.  In fact, I came pretty close to going to medical school until I heard a story of a doctor who already had done that.

Related posts:

1. Become A Doctor or A Pharmacist?
2. Pharmacist Salary and Perks
3. Buy A Pharmacy