The most efficient path for clinical pharmacology

Pre-Med & Medical School Careers in Medicine
1

<p>As a high school sophomore, I am constantly changing my career interests. However, I have recently taken a liking to clinical pharmacology and would love to work perfecting the development of drugs. My only concern is how to achieve the status of a clinical pharmacologist, as there seem to be many paths. For instance, there is a chart at this url detailing such <a href="http://www.phrmafoundation.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=69&Itemid=54"&gt;http://www.phrmafoundation.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=69&Itemid=54&lt;/a> </p>

<p>I would love to seek the advice of current clinical pharmacologists or university students aiming to become clinical pharmacologists. I would like to know what educational path and degree are most efficient and common in clinical pharmacology. </p>

<p>How difficult was it to obtain your career and degree? For those that obtained a PhD, how long and strenuous was the dissertation? For those who obtained a PharmD, how hard was pharmacy school and how did a pharmacology career result from it? For those with an MD, how did you achieve a clinical pharmacology career? I am leaning towards medical school, but primarily because I want to work in medicine and I might change my mind and pick a different residency. </p>

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<p>bump</p>

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<p>MDs and PharmDs do not train you in the scientific discipline of pharmacology - yes, MDs and PharmDs learn drugs, their mechanisms and side effects but if you really want to be designing drugs (not prescribing or dispensing) you should be doing a PhD in something like biological sciences, chemistry, biophysics, or chemical physics and try to train in a lab that will help you pursue a career in drug development. PhD trained scientists are the people who actually create these molecules and design the experiments to show what they do.</p>