Oh the Pills you can fill! (An ODE to Pharmacy)

by Mike-the-Pharmacist

Oh! the scripts you could fill, on your pharmacy stool

Upon finishing 8 tedious years stuck in pharmacy school

Don’t be shocked if it’s longer or even 9 long, long years

Just before retirement you can graduate along with debts to your ears

The future at times will look hopeless like one not on a lifeboat on the Titanic

all the while taking nonsense classes like calculus, statistics, and my favorite, Organic.

You will begin to see the most complex laws and rules that one has ever saw

And you will learn a hand book of intricate rules in a course called Pharmacy Law

Soon you will you see friends out in the world, friends in full time vocations

And here you are, now just stuck in rotations.

Never ending semesters of full time work, farther than the naked eye can see

As you travel all over different pharmacies, paying tuition yet working for FREE!

You studied so hard with a high GPA worthy of the greatest trophy or awards

But no matter how great you did, you still barely pass those pharmacy boards

The family is so proud, you are now officially part of the pharmacy tree

And have a 100 grand piece of paper, known as your brand new degree

Despite your powers, you are an insignificant blip compared to a King or a President

And just to land an entry level job, you likely now need to first be a Resident

More underpaid hours, the fun might never come to any ends

All over Facebook are pics of all your other working friends

You thought this job would be lucrative and full of pharmacy thrills

Instead you are just like a trained monkey pouring and counting pills

But on the positive side a job in pharmacy sure beats scrubbing floors

That is until you come to work one day and find they closed your pharmacy doors

Life feels like you just got slammed to the ground by a huge pharmacy truck

After years of school and being told this is a great field, now it’s “good luck!”

Yes, the pills you can fill from a boat or a car or with a pig or sheep or a fox

Sometimes and more often most times, life forces you to think outside the pharmacy box.

This career may seem soon outdated, it may soon seem way way out of fashion

I have learned not to give in or give up, but to go find another non-pharmacy passion

May I encourage you to GO take small steps or big steps or giant steps like me

It was great to be tied to a pharmacy career, but it’s also wonderful to be FREE!