<p>In six or seven years? Job security will be fine in six years. That's not a problem. The problem is what about ten years after that, when (I think) you will still want to have a career. And projections sixteen years down the line are never good ones, I don't care what anybody tells you.</p>
<p>Uh... Yeah, BRM probably explained it best. Maybe we'll leave it at that. (I will say, however, that economics and business are very different majors.)</p>
<p>^^^ thank you for correcting me...i did mean future prospects in the pharmacy line. there is such a thing as a business major? </p>
<p>BRM, your story reminds me of another question, if you don't mind: many people have told me that in interviews, when people ask when did you discover that you wanted to practice med, the interviewee should say that it has been a childhood dream...most probably this is not true, but im just curious if this is really what one should say...</p>
<p>another questoiN: when you apply for med school, do you have to send your high school transcript?
ANd, if anyone could comment on stevens premed and rutgers premed - which one is better in the overall picture.
Now that I'm learning more about what people do in medicine, my interest is caught now on medicine. but i'll still read forums/get info on pharm</p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>If you're saying anything in the interviews because you've been told it's the answer you should give, you're going about it wrong. You need to give your actual answers instead of the ones that you're told sound best. In addition, interviewers take notice when there's an answer that differs from the norm. It's one reason that we can't give people a list of things that, if they fulfill everything on the list, will definitely get them into medical school. No one wants a class of medical school students that are exactly alike. Giving form answers will sound fake and will probably hurt you. Personally, when I was asked why I wanted to go to medical school, I had to explain a progression from middle school all through last summer when I made my final decision about what programs I wanted to apply to.</p>
<p>You don't send your high school transcript. I've had a couple of secondaries ask me my high school rank and my SAT score, but no one wanted my transcript.</p>
<p>thanks ginnyvere for clarifying. I thought about medicine around my soph year so that's why.</p>
<p>I've always wanted to be a pharmacist since I was a little kid, but I didn't quite understand the reasons why until I went to college. If I had truncated any of my years in coming to this decision (up to the point where I had gotten in my senior year of college), I probably would have ended up resenting the profession and either dropping out or becoming The</a> Angry Pharmacist . Choosing a profession at 18 is important for financial stability, yes, but if it's not right for you, it's not going to be pleasant either way. There are so many things out there that you all will like, why choose so early? Take the time to explore and enrich yourselves in the liberal arts or the research of science; you all deserve to give yourself that time to reflect and to see if health care - and its empathetic goals - coincides with your personality and skills. By skipping those years and entering pharmacy school, you lose out in so many more ways in that you might gain a few thousand dollars. There will always be time for work, but school only comes once.</p>
<p>Also, I feel that I repeat myself everytime in every one of my threads, but it's also important to realize that different pharmacy schools have different focuses. Make sure you look at them carefully and speak with students - there are a number of 6-7 pharmd programs that are composed of a number of unhappy individuals.</p>
<p>^^ wow! i checked the angry pharm site and it was brutal. </p>
<p>are you planning to do retail pharmacy?</p>
<p>thanks.</p>
<p>I'll work in retail if I have no other job and if it's the only thing available, which given the job market, is extremely unlikely. After graduating from pharmacy school, I'll likely go on to a residency program and then a specialization to become a clinical pharmacist in a hospital setting. Who knows? Maybe I'll get tapped for industry or academia - that's the great thing about the PharmD, there's always choices and places to go and see that develop with every passing day.</p>
<p>
[quote]
MyAshes, did you find yourself overloaded with coursework (extra classes to fulfill chem major req.) because you had switched your path?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm right on track with the Chemistry major, and even maybe a little ahead than my Chem peers, due to very careful planning and the fact that I took Organic Chemistry I my freshmen year. However, I do tend to pack each semester with the most number of credits I can take. As I said, all of my classes overlapped very nicely. You said your pharm and biochem curriculums are very similar, so you shouldn't have that much of a problem should you switch paths. </p>
<p>
[quote]
there are a number of 6-7 pharmd programs that are composed of a number of unhappy individuals.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>These programs are not flexible because you have to squeeze in a lot of coursework within your 2 pre-pharm years. That means taking more classes in a given semester than the average student or taking classes you wouldn't have necessarily picked out. There might also be extra requirements (besides classes) that accompany your 6-year program.</p>
<p>pharma, that website still haunts me - why would they ocntinue with their jobs if they didn't like it? they only described retail, right? i bet that a lot of pharmacist's frustration comes from retail - or am i wrong? thanks!</p>
<p>Oh man, this thread is so helpful.</p>
<p>I have the same problem because I too have been accepted to the
Rutges 6 Year Pharm program and the college of arts and sciences.</p>
<p>I've heard of people that did get into med school while pursuing a PharmD degree. However, I have also heard that students in pharmacy programs have a harder time getting into med school. </p>
<p>My plan was to enroll in pharmacy and transfer to the school of arts and sciences if I didn't like it. But I really am still unsure of what to do.</p>
<p>I have to first enroll in either school or arts and sciences or pharmacy...
It's just that if I enroll in pharmacy...I would be losing my honors status, dorm preferences, and take expo.</p>
<p>
[quote]
pharma, that website still haunts me - why would they ocntinue with their jobs if they didn't like it? they only described retail, right? i bet that a lot of pharmacist's frustration comes from retail - or am i wrong? thanks!
[/quote]
Well a lot of pharmacists suffer from ego problems because they're more often than not labeled as pill counters when in fact they have a vast background of therapeutic knowledge. Any time people have doctorates and are not given due respect, people are likely to get upset. In pharmacy, a lot of graduates (like me) who are planning to go into clinical specialties have that urge to go and show the world that we're important. Nothing ticks us off more than dismissive doctors and patients who yell at us. But we are, nevertheless, health care professionals and things will never be perfect. The Angry Pharmacist represents one facet of that anger in a humorous way.</p>
<p>Thanks pharmaco! Now, I know the cons of retail pharmacy and I guess these can be applicable to the clinical side of pharmacy as well. What are you going to specialize in? How long does it take to do a residency to become a clinical specialist? Is it often that doctors and pharms and patients get into conflicts? </p>
<p>jkwon, we are in the same exact situation. Are you planning to attend the RU open house this saturday? If you go into CAS, what would be your major?</p>
<p>MyAshes, did you spend your UG years at Rutgers?</p>
<p>I have no idea what I'm going to specialize in because I still haven't taken the core of pharmacy sequence, which is pharmacology and therapeutics (that comes our second and third year). It takes one year to do a residency which gives one a broad exposure of clinical pharmacy, but an additional year is taken after that in order to truly specialize. There are fellowships out there that are also for industry minded pharmacists. Conflicts for doctors/patients/pharmacists? Probably. But things are changing in the health care field in where pharmacists increasingly apply their expertise. When I shadowed an infectious disease specialist at a veteran's hospital, he was a part of the hospital's infectious disease team where he was responsible for all antibiotic therapies for the ICU. It was interesting, as it's heavily debate involved and everyone researches literature to provide the best educated guess as to providing therapy. A lot of the times, interesting medical cases are never textbook in simplicity, so researching the literature is a very frequent activity for MDs and PharmDs to make drug recommendations and treatment actions.</p>
<p>that's really really interesting. how did you approach that specialist to ask to shadow? do Pharmacists/doctors usually mind people shadowing in an ICU room? I also like clinical pharmacy. </p>
<p>This question is open to all:</p>
<p>What happens if U.S. switches to Universal health care -- that means more regulation, scrutinization, hours for pharmacists and doctors - can you tolerate that?</p>
<p>oh it was a part of our curriculum our first year. I don't know how you would go around shadowing people, but I'm sure if you asked a clinical pharmacist about what they did, they would be able to help you with that. Pharmacists and doctors probably wouldn't let you shadow due to HIPAA regulations with privacy unless you are a professional health student. Also, you don't really know anything of use as a high school/college student.</p>
<p>About universal health care? That might hurt doctors more in terms of salary and help out pharmacists in the end due to the higher demand for drugs, but I haven't devoted much scrutiny to how it would affect health care in the US.</p>
<p>
[quote]
MyAshes, did you spend your UG years at Rutgers?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, I am currently an undergraduate sophomore at a different university that offered a 6-year pharmacy program.</p>
<p>Is hospital management a tough job? Do you need a MD for that? </p>
<p>I actually wanted to start my own clinic, but I guess I have to do that in many years after I get my MD (financial reasons).</p>