One year after forming an alliance with pharmacy schools, Walgreens says it has taken steps to get more people interested in the profession and improve working conditions at the chain.
Walgreens announced the Deans Advisory Council last February, framing it as a collaboration with pharmacy schools to boost the number of students enrolling and address some of the broader issues in the industry, like burnout and declining reimbursements from pharmacy benefit managers.
“Our goal is to really align the workplace with training to transform the future of community pharmacy on a national scale,” Angela Kashuba, dean of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s pharmacy school and co-chair of the council, told Healthcare Brew.
How we got here. There aren’t enough students graduating from pharmacy schools to meet job demand. In 2023 (the latest year for which data is available), 12,639 doctor of pharmacy degrees were awarded in the US, down from 13,323 in 2022, according to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), a trade group that represents pharmacy schools.
One reason for the decline, according to Kashuba, is that the pharmacy profession has “had a bit of a PR problem,” noting negative stories that have emerged in recent years about pharmacist working conditions and burnout. The Covid-19 pandemic also played a big part in increasing workloads, with pharmacists responsible for large-scale vaccination programs.
In addition, pharmacy school tuition has gone up while pharmacist salaries have largely remained flat, she added. In 2023, the mean total pharmacy school student debt upon graduation was $170,956, up from $123,063 in 2012, according to AACP data.
The median wage for pharmacists nationwide was $136,030 as of May 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Average salaries for both male and female pharmacists actually declined from 2018 to 2023, going from $153,800 to $136,200, respectively, for male pharmacists and $147,800 to $130,500, also respectively, for female pharmacists, BLS data shows.
While enrollment is dropping, the number of job listings is rising. There were 79,032 job postings for pharmacists in 2023, up from 73,327 in 2022, AACP data shows.
Progress made. During the council’s first year, Walgreens has worked to incentivize pharmacy school enrollment and encourage graduates to work for the chain, according to John Colaizzi, VP and head of enterprise pharmacy practice at Walgreens and the council’s other co-chair.
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One example is the 401(k) student loan match program, which lets Walgreens pharmacy workers pay off their student loans in a similar format as a retirement savings plan, with Walgreens making a match contribution.
Walgreens also increased a scholarship fund to $40,000 for pharmacy students who complete rotations at the company and later choose to work for them, Colaizzi said.
The company also plans to launch a two-year fellowship training program for post-graduates to receive training at Walgreens’ corporate office as well as in a pharmacy.
No silver bullet. Kurt Proctor, SVP of strategic initiatives for the trade group the National Community Pharmacists Association, told Healthcare Brew that Walgreens’s council is likely a good way to start addressing issues within the chain’s work environment—but it’s not clear how much of an impact it may have on the industry.
“I’m not sure how much [the council] affects the overall nationwide applicant pool for kids who want to go into pharmacy…or if [Walgreens is] just trying to get a bigger share of the graduates to work in their locations,” Proctor said. “[Walgreens] wants to create a better reputation with those pharmacy schools for their practice sites, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.”
Colaizzi acknowledged that Walgreens isn’t expecting to change the entire industry. But he hopes Walgreens can “serve as a proxy.” Since the company has been around for more than a century and is a large player in the pharmacy world, Colaizzi said it’s “hopeful that the changes we make will be adopted broadly.”
What comes next. Kashuba said the council plans to increase its focus on recruiting pharmacy students in rural areas where there is typically less access to healthcare services. Getting people interested in pharmacy as early as possible, such as by pairing high school students with pharmacists to get early training, could aid in that effort, she added.
“We want to start early in an individual’s education to have them think more about the clinical work that they can do as a healthcare provider in a community pharmacy,” Kashuba said.