My wife is trying to get into pharmacy school right now (U of F). They have a distance learning center in the Tampa Bay area where we live and we attended their open house two evening ago. U of F, in the last few yeaars have more students in distance learning programs than at the main campus. All the lectures are steaming video on the internat and ar available 24/7 to students. I looked at the coursework and it is very intense. A tech counts pills. The pharmacist is a health care provider and has to know how every drug works, what drugs can work in place of other drugs and how drugs interact with each other. That is a huge matrix of information to have to know off the top of your head. On top of that, they have to know all the government and insurance regulations and have patient consultations.
She wants to avoid the chain stores and work in a hospital pharmacy. Also, the corner drug store pharmacists still do compound medication, too.
Has your wife ever considered nuclear pharmacy? That is becoming a huge demand in our area because of patient testing (like bone scans) and chemo.
Nuclear Pharmacy - salary around $95,000 (mostly done at hospitals)
Nuclear pharmacy is a specialty area of pharmacy practice dedicated to the compounding and dispensing of radioactive materials for use in nuclear imaging and nuclear medical procedures. These procedures use small amounts of radioactive material for the safe diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of disease. Diagnostic nuclear imaging is used principally for bone, brain, kidney, liver, gall bladder, heart, lung and infection assessment.