r/PharmacySchool

Hi all,

How do you guys deal with discrimination with preceptors? I am being threatened with dismissal from my APPE rotation because I do not have a “growth mindset”, because I do not initiate conversation during rounds.

This is literally just my personality. I come in, and do the work, but because I do not speak to anyone really, it is an issue. I have always had a naturally guarded personality, especially around much stronger personalities. It is the result of having very little autonomy for most of my life. I really need to know how to make it through this rotation, because I’m finding that I keep running into this issue just about everywhere I go.

I’m honestly at a point where I am irritated as hell and just need to get out of this program. I have really enjoyed this rotation too, which is sad.

So this is gonna be random but I’m a P1 and just started classes recently. I wonder how cliquey/catty pharm school is. I feel like everyone already has their unassigned assigned seats in my class and I feel awkward and out of place in my area. Are the people you talk to in class gonna be your “day 1s” or do most people meet their people and establish groups outside of class (orgs, events, etc.) I know this is not the most important part of pharmacy school but I’ve been questioning it a lot recently.

I know I’m probably being a cry baby but I just need to let it out! I seriously feel overwhelmed with APPEs right now. I’m on a specialty amb care rotation right now and I started my third week today. I have a journal club tomorrow which I’m really not feeling too great about despite working so much on it. One of my preceptors gave me like 10 patients to work up for GI clinic tomorrow and Wednesday. I also have a topic discussion to present for tomorrow and taking a look at other patients for a neurology clinic. I just feel like it’s so much and I’m not used it. Any advice to help with feeling overwhelmed? :(

Went to orientation today, and my pharmacy school is graduating its largest class yet. It went from a class of 47 to a class of 84 people in just 5 years. is this good or bad?

I know this is an unlikely ask but would any pharmacists working in industry be open to reviewing my CV and LOI for industry fellowships?

I have great mentors and folks who I’ve had review them but I really want a completely unfiltered and unbiased opinion if anyone is willing. Thank you.

I'm in my 3rd year of my doctorate in pharmacy degree and really don't want to work in retail. I've been wondering if I have good chances as a pharmd student to start breaking into sales/internships and whether my pharmacy background gives me a good opportunity for the field.
How can I start looking?

Hello, I've been worrying recently about debt I'll have after graduating from pharmacy school. While financial aid awards haven't come out yet for me, I am doubtful I will be getting a decent-sized award. Therefore, I think a majority of my loans will be private: ~225k. I will be living at home and am in a HCOL area, so this figure is tuition only.

As an aside, I read personal anecdotes on Reddit from pharmacists which get to me, but at the same time professional bodies and job trends for pharmacists show that the profession is growing and that there are broad opportunities. Am I drinking the Kool-Aid?

I just wanted to work in a lab and mix shit bruh... I did one internship in retail and brother I wanted to KMS. Pulling through cuz actual chem majors have shit pay. I'm going in for my third year so gimme good advice pls.

Dumb question but is there a rule that our APPE preceptors are required to take a 30 minute break throughout the day? If so, is it reasonable to ask for 2/5 days a week for my lunch break to be at a specific time to attend to a personal obligation? This obligation would basically secure my post grad plans so I would love to be able to for example take my lunch at 10am-10:30am on Mondays and 1pm-1:30pm on Tuesdays but I don’t know if that’s a reasonable ask help please!

How do you guys study for exams? I need to raise my GPA but I'm constantly surprised by the questions.

I’m currently on my second week of my second APPE rotation. I am with an ICU pharmacist in a large hospital. I have never had experience with using Epic prior to this, so getting use to the software took around 3-4 days.

I’m feeling pretty good with navigating epic now, but Vanco dosing is incredibly frustrating for me. I don’t even know what to begin to do when reviewing a patient‘s vanco order on epic. Even the bayesian software seems kind of hard to interpret.

In school, I understood Vanco dosing pretty well and we had to work out our Vanco Dosing math by hand. But I feel like school didn’t prepare me for this hospital rotation.

My Preceptor is a decent enough teacher, but most of the time, he walks me through what I need to do on the Vanco dosing. “Click here, do this, do that, click here”. But this isn’t helping me to understand it. I don’t want to keep telling him I don’t understand something after he explains it, because I feel like it will create frustration for him, it will waste time (he is busy working up other patients), and it will make me seem inept.

just venting

Hi everyone! I'm about to enter my P4 year and I'm really excited to start APPEs, but I've been struggling to secure rotation sites and could really use some advice or recommendations.
Unfortunately, I haven't received much assistance from my school with finding placements, so I've been trying to find opportunities independently. I've reached out to multiple pharmacies and organizations, emailed potential sites, and have even gone to a few places in person. Despite putting in a lot of effort, I currently only have 1 of my 6 APPE rotations secured, and I'm starting to get pretty anxious about being able to complete my schedule.
I'm located in Rochester, NY, and I'm open to a variety of pharmacy practice experiences. If anyone knows of pharmacists, preceptors, health systems, pharmacies, organizations, or other sites in the Rochester area that may be willing to take a P4 student for an APPE, I would be incredibly grateful for any leads or connections.
I'd also really appreciate hearing from anyone who has been in a similar situation. How did you find rotations outside of the opportunities provided by your school? Are there any resources, organizations, or approaches you would recommend?
I'm more than willing to reach out to potential preceptors myself and provide my CV or any additional information needed. At this point, I'm just trying to be as proactive as possible and make sure I can get the experiences I need to complete my P4 year.

I haven’t done any rotations yet but I have my intern license through my job. I’ve worked at a pharmacy for 3 years and recently transferred to another location but same company. My preceptor supposedly knew my experience level but I have reiterated it many times already. At the prior location I was at, it was very small and I did basically all technician duties, because we didn’t have enough employees for anyone to have a designated work station. I did doctor calls/faxes, cash register, shipping, etc etc. My preceptor talks to me like I’m a dumbass. She gave me a new task to “focus on/learn for a month” and it took me like two days to get the hang of it and do it by myself.

She has been “correcting me” regularly, by interrupting tasks I’m doing, saying I am doing them wrong and then shows me how to do it…but she does it identical to what I was already doing. She likes her other intern better than me and gives him interesting tasks like writing about and presenting about supplements and gave me a task of filing old prescriptions numerically and fixing spelling mistakes in formula names and instructions. This other intern in question is brand new and asks me for help/training on things sometimes. The other intern is nice, no shade to him. But damn dude wtf.

I went to send a fax and she made a big show of interrupting me, insisting I would do it wrong unless she showed me how, and then proceeded to do it the same way I was already doing. I can literally say “I already know how to do that” and she will show me anyway and seems a lot more critical of me than multiple other pharmacists here. Can I switch preceptors if this isn’t a rotation and is just my job? Am I stuck with her for a year? Any advice welcome. Other pharmacists here are nice but the lady I have is pretty passive aggressive and also straight up ignores me sometimes if I try to talk to her about stuff. Like ignores me IN PERSON sometimes, won’t respond to our team chat for days, etc.

Hey guys, I hate to come on here and be negative. It seems like I always am negative, but I could use some advice. I am on my 3rd rotation and it is going extremely rough. This rotation is ambulatory care. We work up patients, present them and use guidelines and studies to explain why we are making the recommendation. I thought I was decent at this, but every time I present a patient it is nitpicked incredibly hard. When it is time to interview the patient, I was told I paused too much. I have received nothing but negative feedback and now I am at midpoint this week. It hurts because I care so much about improving but something is just not clicking. It is like walking on eggs shells around my preceptor who is a faculty member. I do not want to risk failing a rotation and potentially ruining my GPA and am really scared it will delay graduation. Should I reach out to the experiential programs office about this? I haven’t been able to sleep because of the feedback. I am really scared. Any help could be greatly appreciated.

hello everyone,

I’m just starting pharmacy school and trying to decide how much tuition to pay out of pocket vs. using federal student loans (will graduate in 4 years + may do 2 years residency)

I’ve recently learned about PSLF and it honestly sounds almost too good to be true. I know people in my class who are planning on paying little or nothing out of pocket for school since they are planning to pursue PSLF after graduation.

We also live in an area with a lot of nonprofit hospital systems and other PSLF-qualifying healthcare employers so finding qualifying employment after graduation seems pretty realistic. I’ve also always wanted to work as a hospital pharmacist so this seems like a win-win situation.

I still don’t know much about it so for those who have
pursued PSLF:

1. Did PSLF affect how much you borrowed for school?
2. Do you regret paying a lot out of pocket instead of keeping your savings and borrowing?
3. is it risky to borrow more because you

want to do

1. PSLF? (I’m not talking about borrowing extra just to spend it. I mean using federal loans for legitimate school costs rather than draining savings to pay tuition).
2. What do you wish you knew before borrowing?

Any pros/cons…

And just any advice please …

Thank you

3rd year pharma student here. im interested in academic writing but i dont how what steps i can take to start. i get a lot of people telling me to just focus on my studies and worry about it later but i feel compelled to start working on something other than my grades, and i think ill be even more lost after graduation. i do know that it's too early to write something myself so idk. any tips?