Apparently not.

Can we talk about salary?

I’m a clinical pharmacist at a small-ish hospital in Wisconsin. We average 100-110 patient census (not including L&D). Graduated Pharmacy School in May 2024. Was hired WITHOUT residency training. I did an APPE rotation at this hospital and made a good impression.

I feel like I’m underpaid and undervalued and I’m curious where other people are at with my level of experience.

2.8% raise in 2025
2.5% raise in 2026
0.8 FTE
New hourly rate $67.28 (~$112k annually)

So far in 2026, I have worked over 156 extra hours above and beyond my FTE as we often have open shifts due to being short staffed. That’s essentially an extra months worth of shifts. I’ve been busting my butt to contribute to our team and make a good impression as one of the newest pharmacists on staff. I feel like my hard work goes unnoticed. A 2.5% raise this year feels insulting. Other people on my team got raises up to 3.5%. I did ask my boss if I was doing something wrong. Had there been too many mistakes? Had she received complaints? And she said that I am not doing anything wrong, there haven’t been mistakes, and I’m doing a great job as a pharmacist. I asked about all the extra hours that I worked and she said that my commitment to the team does not go unnoticed. It certainly feels like it goes unnoticed when I’m only rewarded a 2.5% raise. I’m just feeling very discouraged right now and I don’t wanna leave my job just because of money. I do truly love my job and I can’t picture myself working anywhere else right now, but my husband and I will never meet our long-term financial goals if I continue to get less than a 3% raise every year.

EDIT TO ADD: We are overtime exempt and do not get any differential. I do get my hourly wage for extra hours worked, but no overtime differential or time and a half.

Might be a dumb question, but I haven’t worked in retail pharmacy since before electronic prescribing became a thing.

Im studying for the UMPJE (license transfer), and for initial fills of controls, I understand you can only transfer to another pharmacy if it is an electronic Rx, and it must be transferred electronically. How exactly is this done? Is there an option in your pharmacy software that essentially “emails” the E-Rx to another pharmacy?

Thanks in advance!

My pharmacy just started using etransfers in Pioneer but we have no idea how to see what med was attached for the denied request for transfer ins. Does anyone know how to navigate by chance? Once it gets denied, the med disappears in the queue.

Has anyone received their PSI TCQR holistic assessment outcome recently? How many weeks were you in Stage 2 after paying the €1,000 assessment fee?
Bonus if you’re an American pharmacist!

Have a regular patient who gets Percocet 5/325 fairly regularly for chronic pain. She broke something and was hospitalized and discharged over the weekend with a script from the hospital for a 3 day supply of 5mgs oxycodone. Originally told her we wouldn’t fill it as she should still have Percocet left at home, but she swore up and down that she couldn’t find it anywhere. Never had an issue with her before trying to get meds early. Couldn’t get ahold of anyone since it was the weekend. I ended up filling the 5mgs for her with documentation to follow up with her primary ASAP, did I do the right thing? I felt I couldn’t in good conscience leave her in pain over the weekend if she was telling the truth but I’m still feeling very iffy about it

How would u rate a starting pharmacist working in retail hospital or industry ? How are the job opportunities and is the pay good ? Bad decent ? Im starting to stress out cuz genuinely the hate around this profession is absurd and idk why eventhough its a good job i sometimes feel like mc donalds have more respect than us

Since becoming a pharmacist, I’ve been told that I do too much (helping with first dispense and stat doses.. in retail it was picking up the phone too much) by other pharmacists, and that I’m going to “spoil the techs” and make them lazy.

As a former technician myself, and I hate being told that. We’re all adults, not children to be spoiled. But I would like to hear what other pharmacists think about this. I will note that the pharmacists telling me this are ones that spend 60% of the shift on their phones while complaining about not being able to get work elsewhere..

Edit: Just for context, we aren’t understaffed at my hospital, just busy and there are multiple pharmacists on my team. I’ve been looked at like I had three heads for practicing the way I do/remembering how it felt to work with pharmacist that didn’t believe in doing “tech only work” as a technician. Thanks you for the feedback!

Edit II: Used poor/incorrect wording, I understand that there is no such thing as a “non-pharmacist task”. I’m on the side of the RPhs that feel the same!

There are so many companies and routes to choose from. What's your dream company and/or area of pharmacy to work in? Why?

I'm not from the USA. My pharmacy dispenses fake scripts for a specific type of scenario. It only takes up about 5% of our entire pharmacy system i think.

I'm an intern. But I've been asked to continue as a pharmacist after becoming registered.

Every other pharmacist at work dispenses those scripts. I did it a few times as an intern. But now i know how illegal it is, so i refuse to do it from this point forward.

But the senior pharmacist says whenever auditors come, the auditors dont pick it up.

With my luck, the auditors will pick it up and my rego is at risk.

The owner is the one who took their time to explain to me why we do this and how to do it.

The owner really does want me to stay.

I know a solution is to just call the doctor and get the doctor to just prescribe the correct kind of prescription. But that takes time, the doctor usually doesn't end up doing it and the owner won't be happy about doing it this roundabout way, even though its the legal way.

I dont know if the owner will fire me if I raise that i will keep working here, but I wont dispense scripts in that manner.

Edit: it's been half an hour since I wrote this post and I realise how weird it sounds. So the owner and other staff would say, "so you're gonna do all tasks as a pharmacist but whenever you get a script like this, you're gonna handball it to another pharmacist who is willing to break the rules for you?" That's guilt tripping me, even though the actual task is illegal. Its just like hiring a cleaner that cleans everything for you except the toilet.

I like to help people but I can't do it anymore, for context i used to work in a pharmacy in the capital city of my country, i used to actually sell life saving med, mostly. I used to have 5k euros a day on average and there were 4 counters. I used to work 12h shifts sometimes 14h, i was miserable but i felt like i was actually a pharmacist. Now i work in a tourist town pharmacy and i mostly sell food supplements and cosmetics. I dont feel like q pharmacist my job is basically responding to emails, sending back expired meds, changing prices and receiving even more emails, that ask me to do things that nobody showed me how to do, and there is nobody that can help since my boss is evil af and has chased out 3 people. Not because she has any power but because she is just such, and I'm sorry to say this , a bitch that people can't stand working with her and they leave, we are all new people in this company and have a lot to learn. The 2 of us, me and my other colleague who is also a freshly graduated bachelors in pharmacy do our best but we cant do things we weren't taught how to do. I can't take it. I hate my company, my 72yo boss, everything about my current job is hell. I dont want to deal with tourists because i know 3 languages and that doesn't seem to be enough... I cant do this anymore.

Hi I’m wondering if there are any other Irish pharmacists in the US. I completed pre university exams in Ireland and did my degree in the UK and wondering if anyone has experience on whether the ECE/NABP will accept the Irish leaving certificate with a 4 year UK mpharm degree for equivalency. Thanks in advance!

This is a clinical Question, I am not asking about pharmacy school or anything like that, but it does have something do to with what we are taught in different classes, and something seems contradictory to me. I would like clarification please.

I am taking renal, and we were taught that SGLT2 drugs are nephrotoxic, but in foundations, endocrine, and cardio we are taught that they protect the kidneys, so how can something that protect the kidney be nephrotoxic,

Also this includes ACE and ARBS as well.

can anybody please explain to me.

Thank you

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We compound like 2 or 3 Rxs per day.

Ointments, liquids, veterinary stuff, some suppositories, etc.

The problem is that this PIC does not keep any compounding record sheets, has no BUDs specified on our records or for the patient, and does not use or extrapolate from any known formulas.

When approached about this, it is clear that she just expects to use the patient's ignorance about asking about these things to her advantage.

We also do mass liquid antibiotic compounding for an animal shelter. Same deal. No BUD specification, no storage specification, and no formula from official literature to support the compounding formula.

I am hesitant to bring this up to her because she is known for running her foul mouth at employees. I just work here to cover an injured friend but the idea of stamping my initials on Rxs that I know should not be handled in this way just irks me.

Am I overreacting here? Is she not making herself or the pharmacist vulnerable to state inspectors and the like?

Are we not supposed to be careful and specific about these things?

So as far as I know, Simethicone is not absorbed and has a virtually non-existent side effect profile. So what is the determining factor for its MDD? is it just one of those "That's just how it was tested" cases, or is there something else?

I have a job offer, and need to negotiate? Thank you.

i am a B pharma graduate, who is struggling with quarter age crisis ,looking for a job can anyone help me to find one even apprenticeship are encouraged or someone can give me tips to get hired

Hi all-- what are some QI projects for those in the infusion/oncology pharmacy space working on or thinking about? Struggling to come up with niche ideas to help improve our pharmacy workflow and/or some cost-avoidance projects. Any and all ideas appreciated!

Would love to know job title and state as well if you're comfortable sharing!

I'm looking at a clients claims data and seeing Inulin was acquired for $7.8K, but the insurance pay was nearly $19K. Paid by CVS Advantage on bin 004336.

Anyone know what's going on here? This is a wild quick win that's going to get us a bonus at the end of the year, but why the huge insurance pay?

Hi! Wondering if any clin pharms working in specialty pharmacy can share their experience. It seems like it’s blowing up fast and I’m interested in pivoting to that after a decade of inpatient clinical. I appreciate your help in advance!

I graduated with my PharmD in 2022 but haven't been able to get licensed, and I have no pharmacy work experience. I'm looking for remote, work-from-home jobs that don't require a pharmacist license, ideally with little phone work.

What I'm trying to find out:

- What jobs have you seen or held that take a PharmD without a license (medical writing, drug safety/PV, medical information, informatics/Epic, HEOR, PBM analyst, AI training, health tech)?

- What does entry pay realistically look like for those?

- How did you get your first role with no experience?

What I've found so far: medical writing associate roles (~$60-80k), PBM analyst roles (~$55-70k), and AI training contracts ($30-80/hr). Anything higher or that I'm missing?

Background: I'm comfortable with AI tools and have built a few health-related web tools with AI assistance, but I'm not a traditional programmer.

Thanks in advance for any ideas or advice.