3 Comments so far

1. Mike on November 10, 2009 4:22 pm

   I won’t be able to tell you anything about what it’s like to be a Civil Engineer but I can definitely express a few thoughts of mine about being a pharmacist.
   First off, there are different branches of pharmacy, you can work in a hospital and work in outpatient with patients who attend/attended the hospital or inpatient with the doctors and nurses. The pharmacists here don’t have to deal with insurance and getting sued/whatnot. You could also be a pharmacy tech or a clinical pharmacist who works with physicians and surgeons, many choices here.
   Then there’s retail pharmacy… which is probably what you’re talking about with stress and pharmacy. The pharmacists who work at Walgreens or CVS have to make sure everything is perfect, even if the doctor prescribing the medicine is wrong because the pharmacist will take the blame if anything happens to the patient and this equals a lawsuit. Also, sometimes, insurance companies will refuse to pay for a certain drug or medicine because they don’t cover it. Now you have to go back to the customer and tell them to cough up 100 bucks for the medicine. You’re the only person there so who do you think they will be angry at?
   Pharmacy is good because as the baby boomer population ages, more health care is required here which means good job opportunities.
   Good Luck!

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2. jloertsc on November 10, 2009 4:27 pm

   one indicator of stress might be suicide rate.
   Pharmacists are second only to cops

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3. ZenPengu on November 10, 2009 5:22 pm

   Engineering can be very stressful. It’s probably a different type of stress that pharmacy. You could very easily be a young engineer a year or two out of school responsible for models that could affect entire designs. At one end, millions of dollars could be at stake, at the other end, lives could be at stake. Plus there is the pressure of getting it done on time, 100% correct, and under budget. It can be stressful.
   Civil is one of the worst paid engineering disciplines, but that’s not bad. You will definitely be earning 6 figures sometime in your career. However, remember that employers do not pay nice salaries for cushy jobs. You might luck out, but for the most part of you work for someone (and pharmacists and engineers work for someone) then you are paid based on the amount of responsibility you have, and responsibility is stress.

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