|
|
Steve May knows firsthand just how difficult it can be to fill a pharmacist position.
He's been looking for part-time help behind the prescription counter at Goolrick's Modern Pharmacy in downtown Fredericksburg since last September.
"I've gotten a couple inquiries, but that's it," said May, who's been putting in 70-hour weeks as the store's pharmacist and owner.
His experience is not unique.
The demand for pharmacists is rising as baby boomers enter their 60s, researchers come up with additional drugs to treat diseases, and the range of careers available to pharmacists increases, experts say.
The Pharmacy Manpower Project Inc., which is sponsored by a consortium of 14 pharmacy organizations, currently rates Virginia's need for pharmacists as slightly higher than the national average.
That's an improvement from three years ago, when drug stores were going up on every corner and employers were screaming for pharmacists, said Rebecca Snead, executive director of the Virginia Pharmacists Association in Richmond.
It's helped significantly that there are now three universities across the state with schools of pharmacy, compared to just one a decade ago, she said.
The oldest, Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, plans to boost enrollment from 110 students to 130 next year. The other two are Shenandoah University in Winchester, which accepts about 100 students, and Hampton University, which takes about 40, Snead said.
But the increase in graduates with pharmacist degrees doesn't mean that Fredericksburg-area businesses aren't having a difficult time filling pharmacist positions--and that demand won't spike again.
Ukrop's, for example, recently went a month before getting one response to its ad for a pharmacist at its Spotsylvania County store, and the The Lloyd F. Moss Free Clinic in Fredericksburg can't find a pharmacist who will volunteer in the evenings.
"I think they're so overworked at their regular job that volunteering is not an option," said Donna Jadot, the clinic's pharmacy-access coordinator.
CVS and Giant say they do not have vacancies at their Fredericksburg-area pharmacies, but acknowledge that the market for pharmacists is hot.
"We do, from an incentive standpoint, make sure we're competitive," said Jamie Miller, a Giant spokesman.
Students graduating from VCU's School of Pharmacy this year were getting, on average, three to five offers with starting salaries of $75,000 to $95,000 plus signing bonuses, according to Dr. William E. Smith, the school's executive associate dean.
He said that about about 60 percent of this year's class of 92 graduates have taken jobs in a community pharmacy, about 25 percent are planning to get additional education or training, and 10 percent are working in hospitals. The rest have gone to work for pharmaceutical companies or are still weighing their options.
An emerging area of interest for pharmacists is in working in physicians' offices, Veterans Administration hospitals or specialized clinics to help manage patients' medications, said Susan Meyer, senior vice president of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy in Alexandria.
"It doesn't do any good to get the medicine into a patient's hands if it's not being used appropriately or not getting the outcome that everyone thought it would," she said.
These pharmacists can adjust the dosage of a patient's medication for such things as asthma or diabetes and suggest an alternative if a prescribed drug isn't working or is interacting negatively with other medications, Meyer said.
Many boomers likely will need these services as they enter their 60s, an age when the usage of prescribed drugs typically jumps from 18 prescriptions per year to 25, according to Katherine K. Knapp, director of the Pharmacy Manpower Project and the College of Pharmacy at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, Calif.
"This is a huge growth area for pharmacy jobs, and it's a market that's just beginning to develop," she said.
The demand for pharmacists is expected to get an additional push in 2006 when Medicare rolls out a new prescription drug benefit, experts say.
All this comes at a time when about two-thirds of all students enrolling in pharmacy schools are women. Studies show they aren't as willing to put in overtime as their male counterparts and prefer to work part time during their childbearing years, Knapp said.
"The work patterns are changing," she said. "Men typically work 60-hour weeks. As the workforce becomes more female, we're seeing a decrease in the number of hours worked."
Pharmacy schools across the country are keeping an eye on the future supply of pharmacists, and some such as VCU are increasing class sizes, said the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy's Meyer.
"Everybody is concerned about making sure that we do the best projections we can," she said, "so we can gear up for the opportunities that are before us."
To reach CATHY JETT: 540/374-5407 cjett@freelancestar.com
