Pharmacy is complicated and exploring career paths in pharmacy is even more complicated. Anyone entering this field knows how challenging it is to navigate all the career options available as a student or professionals. Classes in pharmacy school attempt to prepare and expose young professionals to all the opportunity that is out there to take advantage of but usually fall short. There are too many factors that play into this exposure, including location, style of school curriculum, and network of pharmacists previously attending the school. Since this is a challenge for most students to figure out, let’s break down some key areas of pharmacy that are available for hire with opportunities for advancement and basics to get in. *many of these summaries should give you a basic run down of what it may offer but are not fully inclusive of every opportunity*
1. Retail Pharmacy
Retail pharmacy (CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, etc) does fall under the largest proportion of pharmacy jobs available for hire in the United States. It is the “typical” route pharmacy school train students to pursue after their didactic curriculum. Upon completion of your pharmacy doctorate, you can walk into a retail pharmacy role without pursuing further education. Opportunities for advancement in this area typically include becoming a pharmacy manager or moving into corporate roles for these retail organizations managing over stores within your city or location. Advancement isn’t a large perk in this area but there are ways to progress upward once getting into the corporate setting for these retail chains. It’s important to note that corporate roles are not typically where retail pharmacists move into. These can be competitive and will include more people managing versus patient interactions. One key benefit is the salary and ability to not bring work home.
2. Hospital Pharmacy
The hospital setting offers a diverse set of roles that pharmacists can obtain and branch into depending on the speciality chosen. The basic role that may not require additional education following completion of the pharmacy doctorate is a staff hospital pharmacist. Once students want to obtain roles in specific therapeutic areas, they will require additional education such as residencies (PGY1 and/or PGY2). Examples of therapeutic areas include oncology, cardiovascular, pediatric, transplant. Other interesting areas for residencies include pharmacy administrative roles which open roles to management roles within the hospital setting (ex. Pharmacy directors). Pharmacy school are very clinically focused and will prepare students for obtaining residencies but residency positions are competitive. Opportunities for advancement in this pathway are relatively limited given there aren’t many senior roles to branch into when in the clinical setting. Students should pick this pathway if they are extremely passionate about patient care and direct patient interactions. If not, choose another pathway given the amount of work required to remain in this field long term.
3. Pharmaceutical Industry
This area of pharmacy has many opportunities for pharmacist to take advantage of and is seen as one of the harder routes to go into based on the smaller number of roles available. Because these companies employ professionals across a variety of educational backgrounds, it opens up increased competition for positions regardless of functional area. The functional areas available include medical affairs, medical information, marketing, business development, regulatory affairs, sales, research/development and many more depending on company size. Within each of these functional areas, there are a wide variety of leveled positions ranging from associate all the way to Vice President or higher.
Pharmacist typically break into industry settings after having previous experience (ex. internships, externships), medical experience, or fellowship programs available following graduation. Fellowships have grown in competitiveness but offer direct entry into functional area roles within these types of companies. The nice feature is that they are only available to pharmacy students and offer not only educational opportunities (ex. MBA, MPH) but also networking opportunities. Since there are so many of these fellowship programs, entering this style of network is critical to open other doors into other companies for work opportunities. Although these positions are competitive, they offer some of the greatest opportunities for advancement out of all the career paths and the ability to stretch skills across numerous job roles depending on interest. The number or roles available at each company depend on the size and stage in the drug development process. Each team within these company supports the competitive goal of bringing a medication to market/patients and then successfully making money off of these products to support further innovation in their pipelines. Because pharmacist have a diverse and unique set of medical skills/background, they are well suited to fit into a number of functional roles given they seek experiences in them.
4. Consulting
Consulting is yet another lucrative area of pharmacy and encompasses a wide variety of roles that either support pharmaceutical companies (medical, commercial, regulatory, etc) or sell services to clients for whatever speciality a pharmacist chooses to offer. Something students aren’t aware of is that pharmaceutical companies pay a wide variety of consulting companies to do the majority of the work they require. Working for these supporting companies is incredible experience and allows professionals to gain hands on ownership of projects across a wide variety of problems/requests. Companies supporting pharmaceutical companies are hiring pharmacy professionals more and more given their diverse backgrounds in the medical field. Many professionals work for consulting companies for a few years and then branch into pharmaceutical companies. There is a great amount of advancement at these companies but heavily differs depending on the company structure as size, similar to pharmaceutical companies.
Other forms of consulting include opening your own company to sell services based on your expertise. This can range widely and depends on your specific interest. Examples are pharmacogenomics, informatics, medical writing, medical affairs, etc. Advancement for this would be based on the individual and how far they are able to grow their own business.
Additional Links to Check Out
Here are a few links to organizations that offer students and professionals the ability to explore career paths in pharmacy:
