It’s back to school season, and to celebrate, we’re taking you back to the days of pharmacy school—no medication memorization required this time.
Whether you’ve been in the industry for two, ten, or 20 years, you probably look back on your time in pharmacy school with an equal mix of fondness and surprise (how exactly did you manage to juggle so much in such?).
No matter how long it’s been, it’s probably safe to say that pharmacy school was one of the most formative experiences you’ve had.
But how does pharmacy—not just the training but the practice itself—operate today? What’s changed across the generations, and what can we learn from today’s pharmacy students, professors, and professionals?
Here’s what the next generation of pharmacists has to teach us:
To get a sense of the current state of affairs, we’re sitting down with Brandon McEwen, a current P2 student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy and RedSail Technologies Pharmacy Intern.
Even as a student, Brandon has had his fair share of experience in the pharmacy world, serving as both an intern and a technician at CVS and several UMPC outpatient and inpatient pharmacies.
Coming from a family of pharmacists and taking an interest in STEM, he always knew he wanted to be in the health sciences. Pharmacy felt like a good fit for an open-ended career path focused on patient care.
After finishing undergrad, he found his home at Pitt Pharmacy.
While he laughs about adjusting to increased workloads and endless exams, he’s been pleasantly surprised at how much he’s learned and how much his cohort at Pitt has to offer the profession.
As Brandon reveals, this generation of pharmacists—like all others—has its own sets of challenges, opportunities, and ways of engaging with the industry.
Current pharmacists can learn a lot from them, just as students can learn from collaborating with practicing pharmacists.
First, Brandon highlights the importance of immersion, which is becoming increasingly common in pharmacy schools nationwide.
At Pitt, immersion isn’t reserved for rotations in later years but rather built into the curriculum from the very first semester. Mornings may be spent in the lecture hall, but afternoons are often spent on site in different pharmacy settings.
“It’s been great having the ability to actually work hands-on and talk to patients,” Brandon says, “because, at the end of the day, we’re all focused on patient care.”
Nicole Pezzino, a Clinical Pharmacy Consultant at RedSail and former Associate Professor at Wilkes University Nesbitt School of Pharmacy, echoes the same. Pharmacy programs across the country, she notes, are undergoing “curricular revivals” that prioritize hands-on learning and innovation.
In her own teaching practice, Nicole not only introduced skills-based training (physical assessments, immunizations, patient counseling) but also ran a practice site where students gained real-world experience.
Together, they implemented nationally recognized diabetes prevention and self-management programs and a CPESN payer program.
The goal, Nicole explains, is simple: keep students engaged and prepare them for the realities of practice.
But immersion doesn’t have to stop after graduation.
For practicing pharmacists, it might look like:
As pharmacists well know, learning is a lifelong commitment that doesn’t stop once you step out of the classroom—and the next generation reminds us to take this commitment seriously.
If immersion is about deepening your expertise, experimentation is about broadening your horizons.
When you were in pharmacy school, you may have been exposed to only one kind of path, but as Brandon says, today’s generation is interested in different paths that align with their interests, skills, and desired career trajectories.
About half of his cohort, he relays, wants to go down the retail path, but the other half are interested in the “a typical path.”
Brandon himself has explored retail settings, hospital settings, and as a pharmacy intern at RedSail, is getting acquainted with the industry side.
Currently, he’s combining his background in pharmacy (and minor in economics) to explore the financial lifecycle of medication fulfillment:
“What’s really piqued my interest is seeing how finances actually affect the pharmacy space… In pharmacy school, we don’t really talk about how finances play a role in obtaining medication. It’s usually like, ‘This medication is specific to this patient based on their profile and their disease state…’ but if they don’t have the money to pay for it, there’s nothing to go off of.”
At RedSail, he’s been able to get a closer look at the backend of pharmacies and see what challenges—financial and otherwise—both pharmacies and patients face.
“I think [RedSail] gave me an outlook and a chance to deal with the backside of pharmacy that I didn't think I would have this early on,” he says.
Nicole similarly emphasizes the importance of exploring different paths in pharmacy, which the next generation is certainly taking advantage of.
“There's so many different ways that you can utilize your pharmacy degree, whether it be working for pharma, whether it be in technology, whether it be in academia, whether it be in community,” she says.
She goes on, “Community pharmacy was the right choice for me. Maybe for somebody else, it's working on an interprofessional team in a hospital setting. Maybe for someone else, it's in academia where you're teaching students. Maybe it's ambulatory care. Maybe, again, it's technology.”
That flexibility—and that willingness to experiment with non-traditional paths—is a hallmark of the next generation of pharmacists.
While you certainly don’t have to stop and switch careers, you can find ways to explore within the model you’ve already built:
The lesson is clear: Whether you’re early in your career or decades in, it’s never too late to try something new.
As Brandon says, it’s important for the next generation to choose the right path because pharmacy is much more all-encompassing:
“Very common in my generation is [the notion that] pharmacy is more of a lifestyle than a job.”
And when so much is wrapped up in your career, Brandon says that advocacy is all the more important. The biggest change, he’s noticed, is the increased notion that advocacy is essential in the industry:
“I would like to think that our generation isa lot more outspoken than past generations. One thing that Pitt Pharmacy has preached to us since the jump is that we are worth what we get paid.”
That outspokenness translates to a willingness to advocate for the profession—whether in expanded clinical capacities or patient advocacy.
But both Brandon and Nicole note gaps in awareness—especially around PBMs. Nicole recalls that as a faculty member, only about half her colleagues knew much about them:
“You’d be surprised [how few professionals do],” she says, “If you're siloed in community, you know [the toll of PBMs]. If you're an owner, you know it. If you're in the larger chains or if you're in hospital or you’re in pharmacy, they don’t always know.”
Nicole also emphasizes mentorship as a form of advocacy. A good mentor can set the trajectory for a young pharmacist’s entire career and, quite literally, change the trajectory of the industry.
The solution is clear: advocacy is stronger when the generations work together. In an age of seemingly deep intergenerational divides [MS1] [TG2], pharmacists can bridge the gap and show the healthcare system at large what partnership really looks like.
Experienced pharmacists bring hard-earned wisdom about the industry’s challenges. Students and new grads bring fresh energy, innovation, and a willingness to push back.
If you feel called to working with pharmacy students, you have a few options in front of you.
You can, of course, work in a teaching capacity. Adjuncting is generally a lower-lift option that can allow you to maintain your own practice).
You can become a preceptor with a pharmacy school in your area and help students get immersed in pharmacy practice.
Megan Smith, Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice at the UAMS College of Pharmacy, breaks down exactly how you can do it:
And, finally, you reach out directly to your alma mater to find out more specific ways that alumni can get involved.
Pharmacy is always evolving, and so is the education that fuels it.
Today’s pharmacy students are full of passion, purpose, and industry-pushing ideas that current pharmacists can learn from.
Current pharmacists are full of knowledge, experience, and guidance that new pharmacists need.
The profession’s future depends on bridging those strengths. When generations collaborate, advocate, and learn from one another, pharmacy (and patients) win.
