Should I enter the pharmacy profession?

I agree totally with your confusion. As a pharmacist in australia at the moment, both hospital and community pharmacists are well respected and have professional satisfaction from our jobs, and the pay is not bad either. I would like to move to hong kong for personal reasons, but because of the limited career opportunities available, i am hesitating, especially since i am told that there is high competition for hospital positions. And i don't want to be wasting my time and my degree selling nothing at Watsons.

Can anyone tell me WHEN this "division between doctors and pharmacy" will occur? i have heard it for a little while but is anything actually being done?

Actually, 2 years ago when i went to hk for holiday i saw an advertisement encouraging people to "ask their pharmacist" about common ailments, but if over-the-counter medications is all we ever get to sell in community pharmacy then i believe my knowledge will 1. be wasted and 2. gradually decline.

So, what is the point of having a community pharmacist in hk pharmacies?

I am speaking from experience as someone who was born in the UK with very little chinese reading and writing skills but can communicate in cantonese.

Don't forget you need to register first which involves sitting 3 papers, 3 hours long each. It is like studying for your finals again!

Anyways I started my pharmacy career as a community pharmacist in the UK which I found fulfilling for about 3 years. For personal reasons I came to HOng Kong and worked for one of the two large pharmacy chains for about 20 months, after which I applied for a position in the HA where I am currently practising as a resident pharmacist.

With my limited chinese skills I managed to communicate with my customers and read chinese memos(this was after a few months), although there were difficulties at times I somehow got by. I suppose the novelty of having loads of time to counsel customers on the use of diagnostic devices and lifestyle changes wore off and I decided I needed to be in the presence of more drugs that pushed me to look into hospital pharmacy.

I must admit, even though the career prospects does not look too good for resident pharmacists I am really enjoying what I am doing now.

My final word of advice would be, you need to find out what is important to you. If your career is extremely important then I would not come to Hong Kong as it is a harsh road to walk. Unless the reason for you to be in Hong Kong will lead to more permanent personal changes i.e. marriage I don't think I would even consider giving it a try.

Dear clwk
Thanks for your post, its great to hear about others in similar position to me.
can you tell me more about your job as a resident pharmacist? what do you do? and how do you find it enjoyable?
secondly, what is the approx pay?
Career is quite important, what are the chances of opening a community pharmacy in hk and doing things the same as "back home" wouldn't the hk public come to appreciate that kind of service?

The fact that I have never worked in hospital pharmacy before might make my experience not as comparable. I am working in a large hospital which has a good program for the RP. I am enjoying myself because I have found it interesting to be learning something new everyday. In most hospitals in hong kong clinical is still not very strong so the main role of pharmacy is to dispense. However we have a compliance clinic and warfarin clinic. Calling up the doctor to amend problems on a prescription has not been as difficult as I first thought.

I have heard that RPs from other hospitals are sent to General Out patient departments which are like mini health centres where the drug formulary is very limited and left there for months on end.

The salary is approx 27000 hong kong dollars per month, so it isn't that great, this sum is before tax.

It is not workable to have the kind of community pharmacy we know as it would be impossible to survive to open an independent pharmacy without bending the rules. As you know doctors dispense medication to their patients directly and the partition from this lucrative business will never see the day in my opinion. Think about it, why should doctors share their profits with us?!

It is all gloom and doom. I am just lucky to be in a good hospital, however who knows what will happen to me once my contract is up, I am just enjoying myself while it lasts.

hmm...change of career...or change of boyfriend?? :)
hard decision!

So what is the workload like? is it a 9-5 job, and do you have on-call?

And which hospitals would you say are the "good" ones?

Thanks for the input its been a great help!!
Cheers

WOW~! I have indeed learnt a lot from ur sharing! THZZ... I still have some queries. From what u see, is the competition to be a resident pharamacist keen? And, is the prospect good? Like will there be promotion or sth? And will there be any slary increment? What will be your typical working day like?? Sorry for the chunk of questions...but I really want to know more about this field..=)thzz

....I would not consider this field as the future is bleak, no matter what we do, we are still at the mercy of the doctors. Actually we are at the mercy of cuts. As you know the HA is stretched to its limits, the reason that so many posts were created in the past few years for hospital pharmacists is mainly because the starting salary is lower and our funding comes from the Authority replacing senior dispensers with us. There will come a time of saturation as everyone entering hospital pharmacy are young and enthusiastic, so for someone to give up their hard earned post will be few and far between. For the time being everything is ok but even I don't know what will happen to me after my contract is up. If I don't perform well, my contract won't be renewed. ANd if I am lucky to get my contract renewed I may not get a pharmacists posts. And if I get a pharmacists post, it may only be contract again, so if there isn't enough funding I can still be made redundant.

It is of course up to you!

Hong Kong is a very difficult place, unless you work for the government there isn't really a 9-5 job. I can tell you my typical week....4 days are 9-5, 1 out of those 4 days I go to relieve a pharmacist in one of the clinics for half a day. The other day I work 2-10, one of the late shifts. I haven't mentioned saturday, sundays and public holidays yet!

It really depends what hospital, there are a few hospitals that run a 24 hour pharmacy, not on-call but the pharmacy is actually opened 24 hours, 365 days a year!

I guess it depends what kind of work you are looking for to define what you think is a "good" hospital. If you want exposure to lots of areas of pharmacy then obviously the large teaching hospitals give you greater range.

Like I said I am enjoying myself while it lasts.

You have a hard decision to make. What you can do is to ask one of the hospitals to allow you to have a look around for a few days to experience hospital pharmacy in Hong Kong so you can get an idea.

Good luck!

As seen in other posts, is it true that one should be able to promote from resident phramcist to pharmacist after reading a master degree? And how often do u usually need to work on saturday and sunday??

it depends whether there is funding for new pharmacist posts. so the outlook is uncertain.

saturday and sundays are hard to say depends which hospital usually there is a running rota. you can be off some weekends.