Jun 29, 2018
I go over the weekly blogs, podcasts and videos and news I've found helpful. This week I go over the new salary survey that just came out. Check out my new book Memorizing Pharmacology Mnemonics in audiobook if you're starting APPEs or studying for the NAPLEX:
https://www.audible.com/pd/Science-Technology/Memorizing-Pharmacology-Audiobook/B01FSR7HLE
Full Transcript:
welcome to the pharmacy leaders podcast
with your host Tony Guerra the pharmacy
leaders podcast is a member of the
pharmacy podcast network with interviews
and advice on building your professional
network brand and a purposeful second
income from students residents and
innovative professionals a welcome to
the pharmacy leaders podcast it's like
four in the morning here in central Iowa
and I forgot to record an episode I was
gonna do it last night
didn't do it but I wanted to get this
out before I met with my ap PE students
later this morning they don't get here
to like 8:30 or so so but I got to take
the kiddos to Living History Farms for a
last day of that but a lot to talk about
the biggest thing I'll talk about but I
think I'm actually saving till the end
is the new pharmacy compensation survey
put out by pharmacy week on pharmacy
week's blog and that's just gonna take a
lot of time to talk about so let me talk
first about what's going on with the
pharmacy leaders that are out there
blogging and vlogging let's see so TLDR
pharmacy he hasn't put anything out
since June 9th but I wanted to give him
a shout-out thank you for spreading the
word about my new book I had some free
audio book codes for the memorizing
pharmacology mnemonics pharmacy
flashcards and fillings for the future
nurse doctor physician assistant and
pharmacist and I put all those in there
because again I want this to be
interprofessional I want people to be
able to talk about it and like well that
was a cool mnemonic that's an easy way
to remember you know all the SSRIs like
UPS effect so your effect is your mood
so you know paroxetine sertraline
fluoxetine fluvoxamine escitalopram
citalopram and then the tea for titrate
up you know so you don't actually cause
anxiety you know you take your time
getting them on board but that's I
appreciate TLDR spreading the word with
his email list yeah I think he was doing
bcop which is
the oncology pharmacy from the board of
pharmacy specialties which I'm sure was
a very difficult test and I think he's
got something going on with a new job so
thanks again to Brandon Dyson at TL DR
happy PharmD had a couple new blog posts
so alex barker talked about the
difference between a CV and a resume and
pharmacist actually need both and he
explains why that is I have all of my AP
PE students work on their LinkedIn while
they're here with me because really
that's where people are going to find
you and Paul Tran has mentioned that
every you know a couple of months he
gets another email about people looking
to to hire him but he already has four
jobs so maybe he's looking for a fifth I
don't know I think he's actually doing
some cool stuff with Home Depot and
things like that not related to pharmacy
Jackie Boyle she did a blog post called
multi passionate and I remember Erin L
Albert talking about multi-patient Isles
and maybe that's where it comes from I
the word multi patient all comes from
because I never understood what that
word really meant I thought it just
meant multiple jobs or something like
that
but in terms of you know knowing that
you have these multiple things that you
want to go into pharmacy certainly isn't
you know I've got this one job and this
is the only thing I'm gonna do I think
there's many many things that we want to
do and she does a good job kind of going
over how to you know you don't want to
go in all directions you want to go in
one direction at a time but you can
certainly have them all in your life so
I definitely recommend her blog post one
that I follow that I haven't really
mentioned much but pharmacy practice
it's actually out of Scotland its
pharmacy in practice dot s Co t dot
Scott and they had a guest blog talking
about psychiatry and how somebody
talking about medical school and kind of
deciding you know how they made their
decisions and anyway I like farming
this it's something that I I tend to
follow and it's just kind of neat to see
perspectives from across the pond let's
see so the podcast next week we're going
to have a couple of people someone that
wrote a book that was very successful
and she had a bit of tragedy happen in
her life and I I don't want to create a
spoiler but it was just that you know
there there are some tragedies that defy
defy you know what you would normally be
able to handle and this is Christine
McAllister and she talks about how you
relate we replace your income and she's
talking about the numbers that we
usually make you know around the hundred
thousand and higher than that really and
how to do that and how she did it but
how she did it after what was a terrible
terrible tragedy
then on Wednesday I think I'm gonna move
one of my podcasts from the Ankeny
podcast because it was with a pharmacist
local here in town and kind of I talked
about how if you want to highlight a
pharmacy that's in your town um you know
happy to publish the episode but it was
just an interview with one of the
pharmacies that's literally a couple
miles down the road from me and she has
ties done in the pharmacy podcast
network so those two episodes and then
you know can I think I'm going to talk
about home buying the difference between
house townhouse and condo and then
renting maybe those three as well so I
haven't talked about the real estate too
much but I'm deep into it right now as
my hopefully home closes early early or
early July so it's gonna be another week
away but excited to get the keys to that
new place thanks to the your financial
pharmacists team for having me on
we titled that one pharmacist journey
from financial ignorance to financial
independence
we always hear the term fi as financial
independence but really where it starts
is financial ignorance I just had no
idea what I was doing when I got out and
I don't necessarily some of my habits I
haven't really changed like I still
don't budget but I just look at the end
of the year and do I have more than I
had the year before yeah all right well
I feel like I did a good job but I
really taken time to talk about how I
made many mistakes Tim talked about how
he made many mistakes and really we're
just trying to make things better for
other people trying to help them with
some of the advice just with the
perspective we have having been out a
decade in two decades respectively so
hopefully you'll get a chance to go over
the yfb and it's at your financial
pharmacist comm and then the podcast
link I'm there in episode 53 real life
pharmacology from Eric Christensen of
med ed 101 this is cool because it's
it's like Pharmacy Joe for pharmacology
and Pharmacy Joe limits it to like seven
minutes I don't know how he does it but
he's like always like right at seven
minutes and Eric's done the same thing
somewhere between seven and fourteen
minutes just to talk about one
particular pharmacology topic this last
one was on tramadol the one before it
was on phenytoin and so forth so he's
pretty consistent every week a new
pharmacology podcast episode and I
definitely recommend his podcast Hilary
Blackburn haven't heard anything from
her from the talk to your pharmacist
podcast but if you've not gone back
through her back list
she's got 41 episodes I definitely
recommend her podcast as well let's see
I missed rx radio I think I don't know
if there's usually it pops up if there
was anything new so I'll wait till that
loads but farm the mother ship pharmacy
future leaders who
if it's Whitney I can't I don't remember
how to pronounce the last name it's ly
but she talks about going to I want to
say it was Honduras they were supposed
to go to Nicaragua and I'm hearing more
about this from many schools and in
terms of getting this you know
experience abroad and and I definitely
definitely recommend it you don't have
to do this a whole week where you go
into a country that's underserved though
I you know obviously that's an amazing
experience
honestly just going to Ireland when we
went and we went for vacation and just
seeing how things are different where
you can just walk up to the pharmacist
you can get that clothing that cream
over the counter you can you know it's
just like 10 pounds or whatever it was
or 10 euros 10 15 euros and just seeing
how different it is and appreciating
what it is to be in a different country
really like the the topic of the
Waypoint Financial Group's are been
Coakley's working to live or living to
work that was you know that that is
really one of those things where they
talked in the beginning of the episode
and kind of divided into you know you
want to spend time with family you want
you know spend some time at work and and
you know your hobbies and passions and
and how do you decide where to put the
money and which way to go with the money
and then pharmacy pie inspection podcast
had a triple episode I think on Monday
advanced compounding education 795
proposed revision and then Christine
Russell I think is how you pronounce her
last name who's the assistant director
of pharmacy down at Doylestown hospital
in Pennsylvania so five episodes from
the pharmacy podcast network and then I
don't know if yeah I didn't think rx
radio had anything new but if you are
listening dr. Richard weaith I would
like to hear what you think of the news
coming out of Amazon so my understanding
is that Walmart passed on buying pill
pack because
they wouldn't pay a billion dollars in
Amazon's like a billion that's a
rounding error by it for a billion and I
don't know too much about it but I'd be
curious to hear no experts like Richard
weaith and cork consult and I had a
Martin those guys hopefully they'll be
able to kind of shed some light on what
the Amazon thing means I know those guys
are big in the Alexa and kind of
understanding how the technology is
moving forward how you can really take
advantage of people just not really
understanding Alexa and the power that
it has and and it's really ground-floor
and now is the time to get in on those
kinds of things but Amazon's buying
pillpack for a billion and and so they
said they're not getting into pharmacy
but it seems like they are we'll see how
that kind of works out if and I'm I'm
sure it's going to be a disruption just
like the Express Scripts putting out the
what is it red box pharmacies basically
with what it is where you you can just
go up to it and I can I can already see
how it's going to go at first I think
there's going to be some hesitancy to to
adopt it but once people see the
convenience I can see how they're
definitely going to adopt it but as
retail pharmacist or past retail
pharmacist we we're kind of you know the
speed at which patients expect to move
through the line and they say you know
we can get it done in 90 seconds well
you go ahead and count backwards from 90
and see how that's gonna go so even if
they got it at the full speed you know
it's just going like what and the thing
is is that you can't go to the side so
the big thing with pharmacy right now is
you know you you go to pick up your
prescription and then somebody says okay
pharmacist council and then that's to
decide and then the next person can go
but with this machine the you might you
know I have my masters in human-computer
interaction the one thing that they
didn't really think about was well only
one person
can use it at a time so what you would
really have wanted to do is create like
this kind of double-faced machine or on
one side is dispensing and then on the
other side you actually talk to the
person because what's gonna do you want
to really have two lines one line to
pick up product one line to talk to the
pharmacist but if you create that as the
same line that means that the person's
gonna one feel uncomfortable that the
person behind them is just looking at
their back with like laser eyes and like
hey are you done you know are you done
with your counseling how are you gonna
keep somebody back far enough that you
can protect their you know private
information you know is the person even
gonna talk to the farm it's just like
hey you know I wanted to talk to you
about this very private thing and then
there's a person right behind you hey
are you almost done like why why are you
still there you know 90 seconds is over
and so forth so I think it's gonna be
kind of an interesting interesting
development but if I had built that
thing I would have made two sides to it
so the person can get counseled on one
side and then and then even better you
know have those like voting booth like
blinders so and maybe some sound
proofing or something like that you know
make it more like a you can kind of go
into one of those photo booths where you
can kind of just go in behind the
curtain and talk to somebody but putting
product and counseling in the exact same
front place is ridiculous like that's
that's just silly you know it's like
somebody it's like it's like if the red
box were to have like audio where
somebody goes in and it's like hey
that's an r-rated movie that's an
r-rated movie and you know something
like 12 year old or 14 year old kid is
in front of it and like oh my gosh
what's going on so I just think that
there's gonna be some definite growing
pains with that new Express Scripts red
box that's coming out yeah that's gonna
be fun let's talk about the videos
before we talk about the salary survey
so Brian Fung he went 15 minutes into
his Hopkins experience and
he stayed up in Charles Village and that
was a little bit of ways from where they
were meeting I I know you're going to a
different town and and you know you
decided to stay one place versus another
but I would have stayed in Kim so well
I'm assuming that the public health is
just you know only on the medical campus
but in Kenton you can go straight north
on Wolfe Street and get right to Hopkins
in a couple miles so but I would have
stayed by the water and Canton that's
just me but he has a 15 minute video
about his mph in Hopkins he's obviously
very happy about it really enjoys what's
going on there and what what he's doing
Kevin Yi I didn't get the last one he
said why I quit pharmacy but I get why
he left his last job but I didn't get
why he like I didn't get that he quit
pharmacy like it sounded like I know he
quit a pharmacy job but I think he went
to a different pharmacy job I'm just not
sure and then he's got the don't do
pharmacy one I haven't listened to it
yet because that was just 14 hours ago
so Paul Tran had two episodes so talking
about night shift sleep schedule and
then reaction to Paul Tran had a
transition from retail to hospital
pharmacy so I think it's Paul Brian and
Kevin all in one package I'm not sure
but I'll listen to that one a little bit
later
all right so piece de resistance let's
talk about the salary compensation
survey over at pharmacy week so the
first thing to know is that it's not for
you the people that make this survey
they're making the survey to sell it to
the company so then over pay you buying
the survey costs I think somewhere
between five and twelve thousand dollars
that's three zeros at the end of that
it's tremendously comprehensive and it's
meant for those executives at come
who need to know okay well I have you
know 30 stores in this region I'm paying
my pharmacists this much am I paying too
much am I paying too little where do I
stand that's really where it's for so
when the company is billions of dollars
you know five ten thousand dollars is
you know it's super rounding error it's
just not a big deal some things to to
know so again I I know how much work it
takes to do something like this so
certainly commend them for for figuring
that out but I want to make sure that
you don't miss read it as you know well
if this is happening then I should do
this I guess that's that's my big big
concern so it it says there were three
hundred and forty six thousand one
hundred and fifteen incumbents and I
want to make clear that they did not
talk to three hundred and forty six
thousand people it's just that the three
hundred and three organizations have
three hundred and forty six thousand
people so there are fewer organizations
that were participating there were more
people that were hired by these fewer
organizations and and we know that
that's true
right with the mergers and things like
that we got it and that there's more
positions which also it speaks to
something good that you know there are
more different things that you know as a
pharmacist we can do there's a lot of
topics to go over and I just want to
kind of go over some of the the
highlights and really it's just making
sure that you understand what this means
so some of this the big you know kind of
headline I'll go over the headline first
so the staff pharmacist retail dropped
for the first time ever and if you look
at the numerical drop I think it was
thirty five cents an hour and I'll tell
you why that drop is actually
underreported not over reported and then
the healthcare retail satellite
pharmacists increased twenty three
and the hospital technicians earned 54
percent more than retail technicians so
let's take those one at a time the staff
pharmacist retail dropped let me look at
the actual number I think it went from
61 35 and 2017 to 60 95 this year and
what that's saying so it's going to go
below pre 2016 numbers if this you know
continues and we're going the other way
and certainly we've had some exponential
increase in our salaries as things have
gone when I graduated it was 60,000 a
year now the base pays like double that
mm-hmm but then again I paid 4,000 a
year for college and so what somebody
would say is oh well I should move to
hospital pharmacy it pays $3 more an
hour or you know and things like that or
clinical pharmacists pays a little bit
more than retail or I should be in a
healthcare retail satellite and it says
that it went from $65 in 2016 then 76
2017 then 81 dollars an hour in 2018 so
you know what is that what is that that
it pays $20 more an hour and usually a
job is inversely proportional to the
quality of life so it makes it sound
like you should not be a mail-order
pharmacist because that pays the least
and I've worked for mail order I worked
for Express Scripts and I absolutely
loved it it felt a little bit like being
at a factory but I love that we had
15-minute breaks I loved that we had
full hour long lunches and I ended up
taking a full-time job as I don't want
to say did I take no no I came from a
supermarket job where I was a pharmacy
manager and then I think I moved home
after that but I really enjoyed it I
kind of liked the
it was like seven two three or something
like that and then it was just I could
had time to talk to other people that
were there I had time to meet people
they were there I did some counseling
and things like that and a lot of times
I was on the factory line but of the
jobs like I was sitting down all day it
was just a very very cool job and I just
really enjoyed it and I felt like I
could do that for a long time but it was
just at a place in my life that I was
like you know I just I just want to go
home I just wanted to go back to
Maryland but the first thing is that if
you're looking at yourself by hourly pay
you're you're looking at yourself as a
worker bee and I think that I've heard
the yfp team talking about how people
will talk about you know money and we're
in the month versus kind of looking long
term and things like that so you know
you punch in your clock and you trade
time for money and that's a lot of money
to trade time for but you're still
trading time for money and I'd encourage
you to read or listen to the first first
even just I think it's the first two
chapters of Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad
Poor Dad and I think it's his dad the
rich death at that challenges him and
says okay well I'll pay you this much
and then I'll pay you this much and he
finally gets the picture to some extent
that okay I get what you're doing you're
saying that you know I'm gonna
eventually have a price that I'm willing
to to sell for you know and and that I
should be a little more entrepreneurial
about things so in terms of hourly pay
this is also a bit deceiving in that you
know you could have somebody that's only
been given 24 hours or you know 32 hours
and they wanted 40 hours so they might
be getting $60 an hour but they're you
know only getting you know three
quarters you know four fifths of what
they really wanted in terms of a salary
so if you if all things were perfect
what you would really want to do is you
go to somebody that says I'm a
pharmacist
you look at their income tax statement
and you see how much they made because
if you were to look at me and you were
looking my pharmacist salary you would
say oh my gosh this guy's you know this
guy's making nothing but I actually yeah
I make more than that healthcare retail
satellite guy so I'm I think I come in
around 90 an hour is what I I make a
year so and it's not from this job it's
just from all sources of income and it's
gonna go up because I've got the new new
place so paying yourself investing in
yourself working entrepreneurially don't
worry about the hourly pay that's a
great thing that you know we're still
making 60 an hour or whatever it is that
you're freaking out that that we're down
35 cents to $60 an hour still you know
that's just ridiculous talk so anyway
the first kind of thought is you know
get away from the hourly start thinking
about things in terms of amount of money
that you're going to make in in the year
or even in the month is fine just as
long as you've got something else going
on besides just pharmacy because it is
absolutely disrupted right now the other
thing is to look at pharmacy technicians
and it's you know the obviously there's
a huge disparity between Hospital and
retail and we should think about why
that is when somebody hires a hospital
pharmacy technician they don't really
tend to hire a ton of part-time people
so those Hospital jobs are a little bit
harder to get but they're certainly ones
that pay more but that person has
probably been there a long time when you
talk about retail there's a lot of
part-time help there's a ton of turnover
and so if you were kind of like look at
how long they've been there and how much
they make for how long they've been
there I feel like that number would kind
of get a little closer together that you
know somebody that's at
you know a hospital for ten years and
then a retail pharmacy for ten years
those would probably be a bit bit closer
because there would be a lead technician
and it would be a little bit closer that
way the Greek tragedy of course is the
the resident pay I'm really not sure so
this is this is a bit misleading in that
they separate hospital pharmacists from
the residents because a resident is a
hospital pharmacist working in a
hospital and that they say well there
are a resident in yeah I get that and I
get why you would separate it when
you're talking about hourly but if you
look at the number of so they they've
you know they're very excited that they
added 1,500 new positions in you know in
residency and what that means is that
you multiply 1500 times you know that
the difference which is about 80,000
between what the the person would make
is a full-time employee and I don't know
how that number
you know wouldn't go down if you have
1500 because that's 120 million dollars
that changed so five years ago there was
120 million more dollars coming to this
50 group of 1500 and then now we've lost
that hundred and twenty million dollars
per year because of all these residences
so I don't understand how there's just a
barely move on the needle with that but
I have I'm trying to find the resident
pay I want to say it went up like a
dollar and it's really kind of a silly
way to talk about resident pay because
it doesn't residents don't get paid by
the hour they get paid salary for the
year and I don't know what here it is
that it is so meeting in out hourly pay
of a newly licensed pharmacy resident
went from twenty to dot twenty sixteen
to twenty three thirty two and twenty
seventeen to twenty three fifty six as a
pharmacy resident but what that's doing
saying that's a 40-hour week and if you
know residents that's a ridiculous thing
to think about because they don't work
40-hour weeks so that the average
pharmacy residency salary and what
they're saying is forty nine thousand
dollars but the average resident is
probably going to work closer to fifty
hours which means that we're kind of if
you if you okay so if you've got that I
mean let me get it right so if you've
got nine hundred and forty two dollars a
month or a week then you're at forty
nine thousand for the year okay but if
you divide that by the number of hours
that you actually work which is closer
to 2,500 you're making 19 an hour and
then if you divide it by yeah which is
19 an hour and then if you multiply that
times you know the 40-hour salary you're
kind of figuring that okay wait I'm only
making you know X number of dollars an
hour so we're the hourly I think is
actually helpful is to figure out okay
well I'm a pharmacy resident I'm making
forty nine thousand and a year what is
that per hour and I feel like it's $19
an hour if you if you it's $19 an hour
if you break it down at 50 hours a week
and it's I want to say $16 an hour if
you do it by sixty because it'll be
sixty times 50 which makes three
thousand hours and so yeah you're making
sixteen dollars an hour so sorry I went
all on the tangent there but if your
pharmacy resident and you are working 40
hours a week then on average you will
make 23 fifty an hour that's the number
if you are working 50 hours a week
you're down to $19 an hour and if you
were working 60 hours a week you're down
to sixteen dollars an hour and if you're
working more than that I wouldn't do the
math because then you would just cry but
just to make clear that 2356 an hour
you don't get more you know you don't go
up to you know 14 13 a week which would
be a salary of seventy three thousand
dollars okay so just to make clear that
our lateness comes from a 40-hour
benchmark which is simply that's simply
a fiction
so do pharmacy technicians make more
than pharmacy residents the answer would
be yes especially if the pharmacy
technician works more than forty hours a
week so pharmacy technician supervisor
makes twenty five twenty eight an hour
Pharmacy resident makes twenty two an
hour and then if you you know if a
pharmacy technician works extra ten
hours they get an extra you know ten
hours worth of pay for pharmacy resident
works an extra ten hours it's just part
of their salary anyway so I kind of went
a little bit long this week but I
thought it was important to talk about
that and and what it really means and
honestly if you want one take-home point
from this whole thing do not let your
pharmacy salary be your only salary
there is tremendous opportunities every
time you walk into any place you see
they're hiring they're hiring they're
hiring take this time in this fantastic
economy with these fantastic job
opportunities and and many of you are
only getting 32 hours anyway but go do
another job go do something that you're
like man if I didn't have to worry about
money I would do blank I guarantee it's
one going to be fulfilling and make you
feel better about things too it'll bring
in a little bit of money but three it
may lead to something a lot a lot bigger
and you know people laugh at me saying
oh you got an English degree what are
you going to do with an English degree
well my books make more than the double
the the median income in the United
States so that's what I'm doing with an
English degree so and but it took me a
long time that for that to happen so
just kind of don't put all your eggs in
the far
see basket it's really volatile make
sure that you've got a side hustle make
sure you've got something else going on
I really think it will help you so
anyway I will talk to you guys next week
and have a great rest of your week
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