For as much as I really hate my retail pharmacy job (which I only do for a scholarship), at the same time I LOOOOOVE my hospital pharmacy job.
Pretty much every negative for working at a Rite aid or CVS is reversed in the Hospital
When people think of a pharmacist, 90% of them will only think of Rite aid and CVS, but hidden away in the hospital are pharmacists as well and its so different.
What most people don't really even realize is that
every single order written by a doctor in the hospital must first be reviewed and verified by a hospital pharmacist before the nurse can give the med. So if you go to the Emergency room and say you have a headache while you are there, the nurse can't even give an Advil or tylanol until the pharmacist reviews the order.
What I love about Hospital pharmacy:
1. Fixing one problem at a time. Sadly I'm just not a great multi-tasker. At Rite Aid, you are handling a drop off, while having a phone on your shoulder, while checking another prescription, while ringing someone up on the register, while giving a flu shot, while pulling a new script off the Fax. Screw that. A lot of people make mistakes, potentially deadly ones since their attention is divided. With hospital pharmacy, I can review one order at a time. There's 3 other pharmacists there so everything is balanced out so that I can focus on what I'm doing and I have other people to bounce Ideas off of or ask questions.
2. Every problem can be fixed, either right away or with-in an hour max. Need to talk to a doctor? well, they are in the same building as you, so you just call them and resolve what ever issue, right there on the spot. Your computer dies, you call IT and the in-house IT person comes down in like 15 mins. Out of a med? just call one of the neighbor hospitals and borrow it. A courier usually arrives in about 20 mins. Hospitals are huge machines with a lot or resources. The resources you need to do your damn job.
3. I get to take a lunch Believe it or not, pharmacists at CVS and rite aid work 12 hours a day and don't get a lunch. Fucked up? Yeah, but that's the way it is. They will nibble at stuff through out the day, but that's usually interrupted constantly. Hospital, I get a lunch every single day, without question.
4. Random food- once a week there's typically a catered inservice lunch in kind of deal where Drug reps come to discuss a new drug being developed. Bitchin good food and learning about new meds. Win-Win
5. Good tunes- We get to listen to music all day long. Huge plus and good motivator.
6. I get to use what I went to school for- Pharmacist's go to school for 6 years and get a PharmD (Doctorate of pharmacy). Every retail pharmacist that I've met spends 90% of their day billing insurance (
) which is awful and then getting yelled at over 2 dollar co-pays. If they are lucky, they might get 2 seconds to tell somebody to take an anti-biotic with food, as the person is staring at their watch, ready to haul ass out of there and get on to the next errand they have to do. You have the knowledge of a medical doctor for the most part but never get to use it. In hospital, I have a full picture of a person's medical profile. Age, weight, height, liver function tests, lab values, kidney function, ect. I have to necessary information to actually safely decide if a patient should receive a drug or not or if the dose is correct. On top of that, when a person is laid up in a hospital bed because they weren't taking their meds right, they are
much more willing to listen to your counseling. And you can actually take the time, one on one, with privacy to make sure they understand their meds and how to take them.
5. Dysfunctional yet loving family- There's like 20 people that work in a hospital pharmacy, as opposed to 1 pharmacist and 1 tech at a lot of retail pharmacies. These 20 people I pretty much consider family. Its a huge group of people working together to hold this crazy hospital together. We bust ass, get the work done and then just chill and have a good time.
Hospital pharmacy is a job I look forward to going to everyday, and presents reasonable challenges to keep my mind challenged and makes me feel fulfilled each day, without overwhelming me. I am happy as a clam working this job that I love
TLDR- screw Rite-aid and CVS. Hospital pharmacy for life