In Italy it is possible to undertake the career of the medical-scientific informant, increasingly mistreated in recent years and accessible even with a shorter degree, namely the one in ISF

Following the publication of the much discussed data from Almalaurea regarding the professional status of pharmacy graduates, there were many graduates who felt anything but represented by those statistics. Moreover, when it comes to the labor market in Italy, the data corresponding to practically any sector often appear to those directly involved in the research, if not suspicious, at least quite strange and not very consistent with their direct experience.

 26 Dec 2015 – Daniele Di Stefano – LiveUniCT

But trying, for a moment, to forget the statistics, we want to ask ourselves the fateful question again: is graduating in pharmacy and CTF worth it? This time, however, let's broaden our views a bit, and focus on the professional outlets that really exist after obtaining the title.

Let's start with Italy.
Despite the numerous and diversified careers professed by universities, on balance, in Italy, graduates in pharmacy and CTF have a handful of roads in front of them:

become collaborators in the pharmacy, with all that follows;

become the owners of a pharmacy or parapharmacy themselves, if you have a family business that has already started, or if you have the necessary resources to start one;

embark on a career as a medical-scientific informant, increasingly mistreated in recent years and accessible even with a shorter degree, namely the one in ISF;

continue his studies and, with a little luck and further sacrifices, be able to enter a specialization school in hospital pharmacy, with the aim of working in public health.

As far as opportunities in companies are concerned, in Italy they are quite rare, very slightly more frequent for CTF graduates than those in pharmacy. To complete this scenario there is the social and working status of the pharmacist, a role that can be said to have practically remained unchanged over the years, but which has even been devalued and considered less necessary than once believed.

But is the situation the same even outside the national territory?
Not exactly. USA, England and Canada, for example, they have discovered that with a training period of six months to a year, even a pharmacist can prescribe some medicines, saving considerable amounts for healthcare, allowing the use of the surplus graduates even outside the saturated market of pharmacies, and giving greater responsibility and dignity to what is and remains a basic health figure. That's why they've introduced the Pharmacist Prescriber, a role that is likely to be the future of the profession. A fairly unspecified future in Italy, but increasingly real in other countries, and, therefore, a new career perspective to be seriously considered, given the constant search for these figures and respectable salaries.

Even the work in the pharmacy, outside Italy, follows different tracks. The Italian pharmacy, in fact, closed in its inability to completely detach itself from the past, certainly cannot be said to be comparable to the large pharmacy chains that exist abroad, especially in the UK. In reality of this type, much more extensive and prolific, department pharmacists are needed, as well as pharmacists responsible for the entire point of sale who, although not the owners, exercise a managerial role. Managerial roles are also those sought after by large companies, which in Italy are not many; these career and growth opportunities are also accessible, but not only, to graduates in Pharmacy and CTF, and the marketing Manager role is an example of this.
Continuing the overview, in some countries one can even think of living by doing research, but, alternatively, the right specialization through a master's degree, and therefore after investing money in training, allows, again in companies, to operate in pharmacovigilance, sales and in many other sectors.

Obviously, these are not absolute certainties, but achievable possibilities. Working abroad is not all roses and flowers: you have to proceed with the conversion of qualifications, settle in, support yourself, work a lot, fight being away from home, without perhaps getting the desired results. And it is also true that these possibilities may appear unlikely, if not impossible, in the eyes of a recent graduate or a student close to graduating in pharmacy and CTF from an Italian university, especially one from the South. But in a market and a world of work that insistently desire flexibility, mobility and adaptability, perhaps it is also true that the idea of packing your bags and leaving the nest without too much remorse before life gets out of hand must necessarily be a possibility to contemplate too .

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