As part of the American Pharmacists Association’s (APhA) Annual Meeting last week, I attended the National Alliance of State Pharmacy Association (NASPA) Meeting.
Classic pharmacy – SO many acronyms! 😊
At NASPA, there was a panel representing both technicians and pharmacists and a comment was made that I want to share with you:
We need to stop talking negatively about our profession, and instead encourage qualified young people to be pharmacists and pharmacy technicians.
The backstory:
Pharmacy student enrollment is down ~60% throughout the country.
Think about that.
If you graduated with 50 people, that number is now 20.
If you graduated with 100 people, that number is now 40.
Add to that the high turnover rate of pharmacy technicians.
This is not enough healthcare professionals to take care of our growing older population.
There are lots of reasons for this issue, but one of them is the way we talk about our profession.
No one will argue it’s a tough time for pharmacy – reimbursement rates are low and burnout is high.
But things will get better because they always cycle.
And in the meantime, we need smart, caring, and entrepreneurial healthcare providers in the pipeline. It takes time to grow a workforce, and we can’t let our guard down by thinking this isn’t important.
How do you talk about our profession?
Do you encourage young people to go to pharmacy school?
Do you share the great things about pharmacy, or do you dwell on the current tough times?
We need to lift up our profession as we are “shooting ourselves in the foot” by being negative and not encouraging qualified people to choose pharmacy as a career path. We can continually work to solve our issues, while at the same time being positive about the role we play on the healthcare team.
I’d love to hear your thoughts about this mindset shift. Thanks for sharing with me.
And as always, have a great week and keep learning!
Jen
