Erin Albert, MBA, PharmD, JD, PAHM

At first glance, a pharmacy student nearing graduation might think that he or she can just cruise through to graduation; the hard work is done, right?

Wrong. Checking out right before graduation or going on autopilot is a terrible approach to becoming a pharmacist. With 6 months or less to graduation, now is the time to crank up the volume in order to land an ideal gig upon graduating.

It is essential to make the last few months of pharmacy school count. Below are 7 major steps on how to make the final months of your pharmacy school experience the best they can be so you can become the rock star pharmacist you were always meant to be! Follow these, and you’ll be well on your way to the pharmacy hall of fame.

Success on your final few rotations is absolutely a must, as you may need references for your residencies, fellowships, and job applications, and now is the time for you to be shopping and interviewing for your first postgraduate experience. Make sure, however, you don’t blow off your final few rotations, as they are likely to have an impact—positive or negative&mdash;on your career launch.

Because you may also need some time off to interview during your final few months of rotations, make sure your relationships with your preceptors are well managed. Be proactive and honest with your final few preceptors about interviews; if you work extra hard and fully dedicate yourself to your final rotation sites, your preceptors may be more flexible with you.

It’s likely that you have already decided whether you want to pursue a residency or a fellowship after pharmacy school. You hopefully crushed it at Midyear or AMCP Nexus last year, and now it is time for the match process to continue with longer interviews. Because fellowships tend to accept applications and conduct interviews earlier than do residencies, you may have already nailed this down if that was the path you chose; if so, congratulations!

If you prefer to take the residency route, make sure that you do not accept a different job offer prior to the match process completion. It is critical not to burn a bridge even before you become a licensed pharmacist, and accepting an offer only to renege later is a bad way to start a career.  Pharmacy is a small world, and employers have long memories, so it is important to be honest with everyone with whom you are interviewing during your final few months of pharmacy school. If you really want to go toward the residency but have a job offer, try to see whether the potential employer can wait until the match process has completed; some may not allow you to wait that long, but at least they’ll appreciate your honesty and professionalism.

If you’re bound for a residency or fellowship, chances are that you have already locked in your references; if not, now is the time. Ask for letters from the professors and preceptors with whom you clicked, making sure to tell them your general time frame. Additionally, provide them your top 5 strengths, and give them a sense of what you’d like them to focus on in their letters.

For example, students who have asked me to provide references know that I’m not going to be able to comment on their clinical skills with patients because I don’t work in a patient care setting, nor do I have an Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences rotation in patient care. It is important to cover all facets of the job post graduation and find references who can back all your skills up to the job description.

Hopefully you’ve already been collecting your references, connections, preceptors, and professors over at LinkedIn; if you haven’t, start now. Get a professional head shot, work with a savvy preceptor in social media on polishing your LinkedIn profile, résumé, and curriculum vitae, and get your network growing right away. Building social capital and gathering your network now can plant seeds of opportunity for the future. You want to build your connections and your network over the course of your career so that people can find you later on when they might be looking for you.

The pass rates for the Multistate Pharmacy Jurisprudence Examination (MPJE) have not been stellar overall since the change to the competencies of the examination, and the coming changes to the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination (NAPLEX) may be a challenge as well.

Take both examinations—the law examination (MPJE or other law examination based on your state or jurisdiction) and the NAPLEX&mdash;seriously. The last thing you want to do is accept a job offer and then have to take the board examinations multiple times to become licensed. Take study review courses in the state or states you are attempting to get licensed in, and consider review books and resources as you near graduation. These examinations are not something you can easily breeze through; do it once, do it right, and be done with them!

Debt is a lack of freedom, so make it a goal to fully understand how much student loan debt you’re going to have upon graduation, to know the interest rates you’ll be paying, and to figure out a way to pay the debt off as quickly as possible. Until that debt is gone, you should also consider living frugally—much like a student&mdash;for a couple of more years so you can pay off the loans. Meet with your university’s financial or student loan department before graduation so you’ll fully understand the plan to pay back this debt.

If your school didn’t already require you to obtain a professional liability insurance policy, it’s time to look into one. They’re generally more affordable for new graduates, and even though most employers will cover you up to a certain point for a professional liability lawsuit, it’s never enough. Do yourself a favor and look into a policy now before you enter the vortex of graduation, studying for boards, and working in the real world.

Congratulations on making it this far! Just be sure to keep the energy up. With the steps above, you should be off and running as a first-time pharmacist in no time at all. Good luck!

Erin Albert, MBA, PharmD, JD, PAHM, is a health outcomes pharmacist, Pharmacy Podcast Network cohost, writer, entrepreneur, attorney, preceptor, career coach, and STEM advocate.  She has written several books on careers in pharmacy, including 

. More on Dr. Albert can be found on her website, 

National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. Multistate pharmacy jurisprudence examination passing rates for 2014-2016 graduates per pharmacy school. 

nabp.pharmacy/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/2016-MPJE-Pass-Rates.pdf

. Published February 15, 2017. Accessed December 30, 2017.

2. Catizone, C. Historic trends provide context to 2016 NAPLEX and MPJE performance data. 

pharmacytimes.com/practice-insights/historic-trends-provide-context-to-2016-naplex-and-mpje-performance-data

. Published January 10, 2017. Accessed December 30, 2017.

Articles

7 Steps to Rock and Roll Your Way to Graduation From Pharmacy School

Drug development never rests. With new sophisticated molecules, medical devices, and even gene therapies, there is a higher demand for clinical and drug information, creating new career opportunities for pharmacists in the growing area of medical affairs.

Medical Affairs teams within pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies may be charged with the following:

Relaying and providing clinical knowledge gained from trials to health care professionals and stakeholders.

Managing relationships with key thought leaders and stakeholders.

Developing clinical research protocols for investigational drugs or currently approved drugs in new indications.

Developing health outcomes research for long-term data and return on investment for new molecules.

The jobs and functions that often occur within medical affairs include roles in publication planning, in-house medical information, and health outcomes researchers. Many companies also have field based medical science liaisons (MSLs) and economics liaisons.

Kyle Kennedy, vice president of Customer Strategy with the Medical Affairs Company (TMAC) and 28-year veteran of the pharmaceutical industry, sees big changes coming for medical affairs.

 Century Cures Act will impact Medical Affairs. The bill would allow the FDA to rely more on short and simpler clinical trial designs when reviewing drugs for approval, and may eventually allow the FDA to rely more heavily on the use of surrogate endpoints such as biomarkers in the blood, versus harder outcomes data such as reduced death rates," Kennedy said. "In the medical device sector, the FDA could use smaller studies and real world evidence from company registries and other sources. These are additional opportunities for medical affairs professionals.”

William Soliman, PhD, BCMAS, Chair of the Accreditation Council for Medical Affairs, also sees changes in the health care landscape setting up huge opportunities for a career in medical affairs for pharmacists.

“With increased technology capabilities, ensuring seamless coordination between field based and internal medical affairs is becoming more important,” Dr. Soliman said. “Additionally, it is critical to ensure that medical affairs organizations are subject matter experts both internally and externally.”

All these changes support the need for more sophisticated and detailed clinical discussions with stakeholders in the health care industry for meaningful use of drugs. How, then, do pharmacists fit into medical affairs?

Roles within medical affairs are often filled by those with hard science PhDs, and healthcare professionals. In previous studies, 70% of MSLs had PharmDs, 10% had PhDs, and the rest were nurses or physicians.

 Many internal medical information call centers are dominated by pharmacists.

With the increased cost of specialty drugs, along with appropriate use and novel mechanisms of action, the medical affairs teams at biopharmaceutical and medical device companies are growing, and expected to continue to grow in the next few years. Providers need more clinical and real-world outcomes to make sound clinical decisions for their patients, along with payers struggling to understand when appropriate therapy should be utilized when new therapies cost tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient per course of therapy.

“Medical affairs has grown over 300% in the last decade and it will continue to do so,” Dr. Soliman stated. “Not only are physicians demanding more in depth information from highly trained clinical and scientific professionals, but our knowledge in medicine and science has grown exponentially, and with that comes an increased need for people who can deliver that information accurately and effectively.” 

Dr. Soliman also emphasized the appeal of working in medical affairs, noting that it gives pharmacists the opportunity to work towards improving patient health on a larger scale.

“As a health care provider in a traditional setting, you're impacting patients’ lives on a case by case basis, which is great, but with medical affairs you're impacting patient lives at a macro level,” he said. “And because medical affairs has so many different functions, you will find many options available to you, depending on where your interests lie.”

Kennedy also sees medical affairs, and specifically the medical science liaison (MSL) role as a great career choice for pharmacists.

“I have always said that the MSL position is the best job in the pharmaceutical sector. You learn so many skills as an MSL that prepare you to be successful in other positions in the industry and successful in life," he explained. "Those skills include communication, decision making, leadership, teamwork, strategic thinking, and tenacity. In medical affairs, you have opportunities to work in or with clinical trial activities, medical information, competitive intelligence, pharmacovigilance, medical writing, health outcomes, scientific platform communications, and key opinion leader development, and you may even be able to move over to the commercial side of industry, such as marketing.”

For pharmacy students interested in pursuing a career in medical affairs, Dr. Soliman offered several suggestions.

“Medical affairs has grown dramatically, so there are many more career opportunities for pharmacists than ever, but it’s also a very competitive space; for each MSL opening there are about 200 applicants on average,” he explained. “So, if you want to get into medical affairs, you've got to distinguish yourself from your competition. Becoming board certified in medical affairs has become the standard, and I believe this will eventually become a requirement as regulatory and compliance standards become more stringent.”

In addition to becoming certified within medical affairs, a pharmacist with little medical affairs experience could network with other medical affairs professionals to learn more about the roles available inside at corporate headquarters for pharmacists, and/or field based medical affairs positions. Several organizations exist where you can meet professionals within medical affairs across the industry, such as the Drug Information Association.

Kennedy also emphasized the importance of building soft skills and business acumen. 

“The most important soft skills include emotional quotient, assertiveness, business etiquette, business writing, change management, communication skills, conflict resolution, customer service and problem solving," he stated. "The pharmaceutical and biotech industries are big businesses, and it is critical that all employees understand that this is a for-profit industry; medical affairs is not exempt from that. You will need to understand strategy, operations, finance, supply chain, regulatory and even legal aspects of the industry."

There are significant opportunities for pharmacists within medical affairs. While some of the positions may not be for everyone, a career in medical affairs can provide many advantages amidst a shifting health care landscape. Explore, and enjoy the endless possibilities in this growing area of the industry.

Want to hear more about the field based medical science liaison (MSL) role? Listen to the Pharmacy Podcast on “What is a MSL?” also by Erin Albert at 

For more on the BCMAS certification in Medical Affairs, listen to the Pharmacy Podcast episode with guest Dr. Will Soliman at 

Erin Albert, MBA, PharmD, JD, PAHM, is a health outcomes pharmacist, Pharmacy Podcast Network co-host, writer, entrepreneur, attorney, preceptor, career coach, STEM advocate.  She has written several books on careers in pharmacy, including 

The Medical Science Liaison: An A to Z Guide. 

With new sophisticated molecules, medical devices, and even gene therapies, there is a higher demand for clinical and drug information, creating new career opportunities for pharmacists in the growing area of medical affairs.
 

Medical Affairs: A Growing Career Path

The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) Midyear Clinical Meeting and Exhibition is one of the largest and most intimidating pharmacy meetings of the year for pharmacy students. In 2016, Midyear broke attendance records again, and it was well over 20,000 attendees nearly a decade ago. It’s that big!

When facing any daunting challenge such as 

, it is important to manage the mischief and maximize your time via preparation and practice—including polishing your paperwork.  In this article, I will share resources that I and others have recommended to P4s in the past so that you can focus on what is most important for managing Midyear: you, and what you want to do after pharmacy school.

While the bulk of this article is focused on how students in their final year of pharmacy school (P4s) should prepare, here are some suggestions for P3s who are reading this ahead of time:

Find a P4 mentor or resident from your school now who can help guide you through the menagerie.

Choose advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs) that have residencies or fellowships so you can interact with the residents and fellows while you are on rotation.

Shadow individuals in sub-specialties, as some postgraduate year 1 (PGY1) residency sites don’t offer postgraduate year 2 (PGY2) residencies.

If you’re not already and if your grades are good, get involved in leadership at school, and take on extra projects and groups; if a group doesn’t exist in an area of pharmacy you have interest in, start one!

Pair up to do research and publish with faculty or other students, especially if you want a residency.

Start working on your letter of intent, and follow everything else I am about to share with the P4s.

First, you must begin with the end in mind. Who are you, and what do you want from your first post graduate experience?

Next, prepare your brand materials, because you need to brand yourself if you’re going to Midyear to stand out from the (very large) crowd.  This would include:

Résumés are more for fellowships, and CVs are more for residencies. It depends upon what the site requests from you on which document to hand over and when, but generally you want to have both prepared before Midyear. Your pharmacy school will most likely have sessions or a career development department to help you with your CV and résumé, so take advantage of every free offer you have in reviewing and tweaking either document. They need to be perfect in terms of spelling, grammar, and formatting. Try to get someone outside of pharmacy to review these documents as well, to catch acronyms that should be spelled out or to ensure that your syntax is clear on your descriptions in both documents.

After you have your CV and résumé ready, next go after your LinkedIn profile with the same level of tenacity, as many employers will take a glance at your LinkedIn profile long before they even look at your CV. Do all 3 of these documents match? Is your story consistent? With your LinkedIn profile, you can also deviate a bit and talk about who you are today where you want to go tomorrow. Match your pharmacy school experiences to the keywords in ideal residencies or fellowships you want next. If you want a specific residency down the road and have a job description, you can create an appropriately tailored cover letter. You may also consider uploading your CV online; if you are concerned about privacy, use your university or school address on your CV instead of your home address.

Your business card should include your name, address, phone number, and email address, as well as a URL to your LinkedIn profile, a shortened URL to your CV, and, if you keep them strictly professional and pharmacy-focused, other social media portals and handles. You might also choose to make your business card a unique shape or size to help distinguish it from the rest of the pile.

The one page leave behind is a document somewhere between a résumé and a business card that allows you to be creative and demonstrate who you are beyond pharmacy. For example, do you lead a fraternity or sorority? Do you play a college sport? Do you volunteer for nonprofit organizations outside of healthcare? Did you earn a cool scholarship for something you did or led? These are items that can tell a larger story about you than the information on a résumé or CV. Residency and fellowship directors appreciate the person beyond the future pharmacist, and want to know how you stand out from all the other pharmacy students at Midyear.

There are several other areas to prepare for before heading to Midyear, such as picking your top 10 post-graduation positions, mapping out where they are, preparing thoughtful questions, and picking attire. However, this article can hopefully get you started on the paperwork long before you head to sunny Orlando. Good luck!

The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Midyear Clinical Meeting and Exhibition is one of the largest and most intimidating pharmacy meetings of the year for pharmacy students.

Midyear Managed: Preplanning Your Paperwork

When I first graduated from pharmacy school with my BSPharm, I believed that I was done with formal education. Reality turned out differently, however, as I later returned to business school, pharmacy school (again), and law school. Throughout these experiences, I have grown confident that, as pharmacists, we must continue to polish our skills and further our education to meet the shifting demands of a fast-changing pharmacy landscape.

One way that pharmacists can do so is to return to school and earn another graduate degree. There are 91 schools of pharmacy that offer a joint degree program in addition to a standalone PharmD program, according to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP).

Other dual degree programs offered by schools in the United States include PharmD/MD, PharmD/PA, and PharmD/MHA programs.

“It is increasingly important to offer [dual degrees] as well as accessible post-graduate degrees, to help pharmacists advance a unique knowledge and skill development process beyond the amazing therapeutic expertise of the contemporary PharmD graduate,” according to AACP Executive Vice President and CEO  Lucinda Maine, PhD, RPh. “I still believe in a strong generalist pharmacist, especially for the care of complex patients with chronic diseases. Yet when you think about mental health, precision medicine/pharmacogenomics, and cancer — just to name three areas that our Argus Commission examined this year – clearly first degree depth of coverage needs fortification.”

Fall is the perfect time to consider continuing one’s formal education through graduate school, as the new academic cycle typically begins in Autumn. Below are the most popular options to tack on to that doctor of pharmacy degree, should you choose to return to school for more formal education.

The Master of Business Administration (MBA) is the most popular and available dual degree for pharmacists in schools of pharmacy. A recent Salary.com survey estimates that 13% of the pharmacists who responded to their survey also earned a MBA, and the combination demonstrated a slight increase in salary over a pharmacy degree alone.

An interesting option for those considering an MBA programs is to focus on an area of business such as marketing, finance or accounting. One interesting MBA program at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia is the Pharmaceutical & Healthcare Marketing MBA for Executives, a 24-month program that attracts both pharmaceutical industry professionals and practicing health care professionals. According to program director Terese Waldron, the two largest benefits of this particular MBA program for students are “industry focus and flexibility.”

Another option for pharmacists with a passion for public health would be going back to earn their Master’s in Public Health (MPH). Those in and around public health can find niches in epidemiology, biostatistics, health economics and outcomes research, healthcare administration, environmental science, and health and safety.  The most popular areas in which pharmacists with MPHs work are health plans, pharmaceutical industry roles, institutional or hospital systems, state public health departments, academia, and consulting.

There are both online and offline MPH programs; although some are accelerated programs that take just over a year to complete, most students take an average of 2 years to earn the degree.

  Pharmacists with a passion for preventative medicine may also want to consider this degree option as an add-on for their careers.

Informatics is a growing area for pharmacists considering a second degree. There is a wide range of longitudinal coursework in informatics for pharmacists, including a certificate in biohealth informatics, master’s programs, and 4-year PhD programs. Much like other degree programs previously mentioned, there are options to complete programs and coursework online or offline.

As the pharmacy profession rapidly changes with technological advances, future-focused pharmacists interested in health care IT, biohealth informatics, big data, and pharmacogenomics research may want to consider informatics as a career avenue to better understand how data can solve problems in health care.

It is generally rare for pharmacists to enter law school at the same time as pharmacy school, as demonstrated by the fact that there are only 5 schools with a joint PharmD/JD program in the United States. However, many pharmacists discover later in their careers they want to study law, as pharmacy is one of the most highly regulated industries in the US.

Pharmacist attorneys play a wide variety of roles, working in areas such as a traditional law firm, patent law, policy development, think tanks, and consultation. Many also take on academic and leadership roles in traditional pharmacy settings.

Law school generally takes 3 years to complete for students attending full time or 4 years for part-time students. Pharmacy law students must also pass the bar examination in many jurisdictions. 

An add on degree in pharmacology or toxicology can signify that a pharmacist is interested in working in drug development or a laboratory setting. Most schools of pharmacy have a pharmaceutical sciences department, and many professors in pharmaceutical sciences have MS or PhD degrees in pharmacology, toxicology, or medicinal chemistry, but pharmacists with dual pharmaceutical science degrees can also work in industry, laboratories, or toxicology companies, as well as in the federal government and the DEA.

Due to the laboratory and research components of pharmacology and toxicology, many programs have some component of on-campus research time during study. If you want to be part of drug development, consider this avenue for an enhancement to your pharmacy degree.

MS or PhD in Social Administrative Sciences

There are several MS and PhD programs in the social and administrative sciences of pharmacy, including in health policy, health economics and health outcomes research; health outcomes research is increasingly important to payers as well.

While there are some MS degree options available online under the umbrella of social and administrative, most if not all PhD programs require some type of residency on campus.

Some combinations are nearly one of a kind, including forensic science, management, and organizational leadership. Other combinations may be yet to come; personally, I’d love to see a master of the arts in design in combination with a pharmacy program, because we need to re-think and re-design health care, and we need pharmacists who understand both clinical practice and good design. Pharmacist writers could also pursue a MFA or master of fine arts.

Pharmacists and pharmacy students have more options than ever to advance their education.  Beyond time and money, of course, your imagination is the only other limit to moving forward with your career expertise!

Conversation via email with Dr. Lucinda Maine and Dr. Erin Albert, May 22, 2017. Document available online of pharmacy schools at: 

http://www.aacp.org/resources/student/pharmacyforyou/admissions/admissionrequirements/Documents/PSAR%2017-18%20Table%204.pdf

“Aligning the AACP Strategic Engagement Agenda with Key Federal Priorities in Health: Report of the 2016-17 Argus Commission,” AACP.  

Salary.com, “Pharmacist salaries,” available at: 

http://www1.salary.com/Salaries-for-Pharmacist-with-a-Masters-Degree-or-MBA

As pharmacists, we must continue to polish our skills and further our education to meet the shifting demands of a fast-changing pharmacy landscape.
 