<p>I'm a current third year pharmacy student (0-6 program), and very recently I've been toying around with the idea of pursuing medicine. I still intend to finish my pharmacy studies, because at this point, I'm nearly halfway invested (time-wise), plus the whole deal getting a better grasp on pharmacology than what's covered in medical education, not to mention about having something to fall back on (not to say pharmacy is a plan B or anything) in case med school doesn't pan out.</p>
<p>If I do choose to pursue med, I would be taking a few summer classes this summer to make up my premed coursework; my pharmacy program doesn't include physics, has only half a year of calc and english.</p>
<p>I am in good academic standing- at the end of this semester, I have a 3.8/4.0 GPA and have worked in children's hospital as a pharmacy intern for 2 years.</p>
<ul>
<li>Do medical schools care about where you take classes?</li>
<li>Am I setting myself up to be an un-competitive med applicant? Besides academics and some work experience, I feel like my application is lacking</li>
<li>Would I be better off pursuing a pharmacy fellowship or residency with a clinical bent?</li>
<li>Has anyone you know taken this route? Did they take a gap year to get there stuff together while they apply?</li>
</ul>
<p>I think you need to really ask yourself WHY going to medical school is a consideration at this point.</p>
<p>It's going to be difficult to convince a medical school admissions committee why they should accept you and take a spot away from someone who hasn't reached a significant career milestone. If there's some aspect of being a physician that is completely lacking from being a pharmacist, it makes a little bit more sense, but you're really going to have to sell that. </p>
<p>I do know two individuals who had PharmD's and then entered medical school, but applied to medical school only after they had been pharmacists in practice for several years (both more than 4 years). They were able to delineate very clearly what they needed and why pharmacy wasn't cutting it. </p>
<p>Answer that question, and then we can start discussing the rest.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If there's some aspect of being a physician that is completely lacking from being a pharmacist, it makes a little bit more sense, but you're really going to have to sell that.
[/quote]
Isn't the obvious one that pharmacy = little to no patient interaction? Unless you work retail, you don't see the patients the medicine is being dispensed for. Even in retail, it's not always the patient who comes and there is little exchange except for them pestering you with "is it ready yet???" I suppose you would have to prove why you wanted that interaction, which is a lot of times miserable.</p>
<p>Clinical hospital based pharmacists, the type that round with physicians during multi-disciplinary rounds (especially common in the various ICU settings) certainly get patient interaction if they want it. There are also a growing number of outpatient clinical pharmacists that tie themselves to a clinic and serve as a resource to answer physician questions as well as serving as a point of care for individuals coming in for IV medications through a PICC or infusaport, or INR checks and modulation of coumadin dosing and so on (just a couple of examples).</p>
<p>If it's simply patient interaction the OP wants, I think that's going to be a difficult sell because there are options. </p>
<p>The woman in my med school class with her PharmD switched to medicine because her interests had moved on to management of a very distinct subset of patients - namely the transitional care of adolescents with chronic health conditions (like Cystic Fibrosis and repaired congenital heart defects) from pediatric subspecialty to adult subspecialty care. She's going to be matching into a combined medicine/pediatrics residency in March as a step towards that goal, and has a number of different fellowship possibilities she might end up in.</p>