Abstract
Background: It has been estimated that in 2018, 20% of pharmacy students were unemployed following graduation. However, many pharmacy positions go vacant each year, with the majority of these positions existing in rural areas. Methods: Pharmacy students completed a one-time, anonymous, online questionnaire. Measures of interest included: subject characteristics and preference in a variety job offers. Discrete Choice Experiment methodology of questionnaire design was used and Conditional Logit models were conducted to analyze the data to determine the financial incentive required for pharmacy students to take a post-graduate job with particular traits. Conclusions: A total of 283 students completed questionnaires from Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The majority of subjects were female, P3 students, and from a non-rural hometown. American students would need to be paid an additional $18,738 in salary to practice in a rural area, while Canadian students would require an additional $17,156. Canadian respondents would require an additional $7125 in salary to work in a community pharmacy with a low level of patient interaction compared to a community position with a large amount of patient interaction. Overall, pharmacy student preferences in post-graduation job attributes vary significantly between states and provinces.
Highlights
It has been estimated that in 2018, 20% of pharmacy students were unemployed following graduation [1,2]
There are many unfilled pharmacy positions each year, with the majority of these positions existing in rural areas or certain states [8,9]
The $18,738 in additional salary required for the American Midwestern pharmacy students to work in a rural area is drastically lower than the NHSC student loan forgiveness program offered to other healthcare professionals
Summary
It has been estimated that in 2018, 20% of pharmacy students were unemployed following graduation [1,2] Many relate this to the increased number of pharmacy schools producing more graduates than the available positions [2,3,4,5]. There are many unfilled pharmacy positions each year, with the majority of these positions existing in rural areas or certain states [8,9]. It has been suggested that increasing salary could be used to incentivize graduating pharmacy students to practice in these high-need areas due to their significant amount of student loan debt; 2018 American pharmacy students attending public schools have on average taken out $137,356 in loans whereas those attending private schools have on average taken out $193,296 in loans [10,11]. Many pharmacy positions go vacant each year, with the majority of these positions existing in rural areas. American students would need to be paid an additional $18,738 in salary to practice in a rural area, while Canadian students would require an additional $17,156
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