Pharmacy Outlook

    Pharmacy has gone through many changes over the years, some that have improved the profession for the better as well as some that have cast dreary doubt on the future of the profession. I'm going to focus on some interesting trends I've noticed in the field, and how it's going to influence prospective job market for pharmacy. In particular, I'm going to discuss the rise pharmacy programs in the U.S., predicted pharmacy job growth and application & admittance trends for these programs. 

    It's no secret that from the late 90s to present day there has been an explosion in pharmacy programs across the U.S. with many of these pharmacy schools not even being ACPE accredited. Since the year 2000, the number of pharmacy schools has almost doubled from roughly 80 to 142 U.S. based pharmacy schools as of December of 2022. It seems this exponential growth in large part is due to many academic institutions trying to capitalize on the increase of pharmacy school applications that began in the late 90s early 2000s when there was actually both a pharmacist shortage & increase in pharmacist pay. As you can imagine, more students to a school equates to more tuition, which results in an increase in revenue for a school. This also coincided with ACPE's decision to only give accreditation to doctorate programs, which I could imagine contributed to increase of tuition as graduate programs are generally much more expensive than undergraduate programs. However, in the last few years there has been a slow down in the number of pharmacy schools being opened, with really only one new program being well on their way to receiving ACPE accreditation in the next few years. 

    I believe this recent slow down in opening of new pharmacy schools has to do with the recent trend of declining applicants to pharmacy programs. Pharmacy applications peaked in 2011 with 106,815, but has declined significantly with there only being 40,552 applications in 2021 according to data from AACP. It is speculated that this stark decline has to do with bleak outlook for pharmacist jobs in the upcoming years, which has many students deciding to pursue other career options. It is projected that U.S. job growth for pharmacists from 2021 to 2031 is only expected to grow a measly 2%, which is much lower than average growth for other professions according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This bleak outlook must have discouraged students from applying, since there is now added risk of not getting a job for a very expensive education. I also see the issues that plague community pharmacy further turning more and more students away from pharmacy school. Specifically, potential pharmacy applicants who worked as pharmacy technicians and may have experienced the burnout that came with all the recent pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a current pharmacy student at the University of Michigan, I cannot deny the amount of my peers that have community pharmacy experience that absolutely despise it and claim they will never work as community pharmacists. You can do much more with a PharmD than work at a community pharmacy, but I feel many applicants will be less inclined to apply to a school that does not help prepare them for a jobs outside of community pharmacy.

    Despite the decline in applications to pharmacy schools, pharmacy programs have still done a decent job of reaching full enrollment for their programs. There is only been a small decline in PharmD enrollment these last few years with it dropping from 57,375 in 2020 to 53,516 in 2021 according to data from AACP. This I believe has to do with academic institutions trying to keep the revenue incoming, so they have began loosening requirements ever so slightly, such as no longer requiring the PCAT. Ideally, these pharmacy programs should be finding ways to cut tuition costs and expanding their curriculum if they want to attract more students. They should also be cutting down on the number of students they accept. I think lowering requirements of students they accept is a slippery slope, and will do nothing to help the current saturation of the field. 

    If the current trends continue in the years to come with decreasing number of pharmacy applicants and decreasing opening of pharmacy programs coupled with expansion of the roles & responsibilities of pharmacists, I think the pendulum might just swing back and we could see demand for pharmacists again in the near future.

Sources:

1.) https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/despite-rapid-growth-of-institutions-pharmacy-school-applications-decline

2.) https://www.ajpe.org/content/84/10/ajpe8136

3.) https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/pharmacists.htm#:~:text=in%20May%202021.-,Job%20Outlook,on%20average%2C%20over%20the%20decade.

4.0 https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/pharmacists.htm#:~:text=in%20May%202021.-,Job%20Outlook,on%20average%2C%20over%20the%20decade.