go for it.
PharmD here, completed a residency, worked as a clinical pharmacist and taught pharmacy students. Now a current Medical student. I figure I can give some good information to people...
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09-26-2011, 09:02 PM #1
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09-26-2011, 09:02 PM #2
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09-26-2011, 09:03 PM #3
Why not just take your 130k salary and fill prescriptions for the rest of your life? Srs.
I am Ratdawg.
I rape back 2k+
The Legion of Good Samaritans.
*S&P Crew*
*Misc Baseball Crew*
Thinking about the next 100 feet.
With those who don't give a damn about baseball, I can only sympathize. I do not resent them. I am even willing to concede that many of them are physically clean, good to their mothers and in favor of world peace. But while the game is on, I can't think of anything to say to them. ~Art Hill
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09-26-2011, 09:04 PM #4
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09-26-2011, 09:04 PM #5
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09-26-2011, 09:05 PM #6
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09-26-2011, 09:08 PM #7
pharmacy field has changed a lot. there is a surplus of pharmacists where hours are being cut, pharmacists get fired and laid off for nothing, and the job satisfaction is not very high.
i looked at the field and asked myself if this was a job i could do the rest of my life, the answer was NO. $130K???? There are not too many pharmacists making that much money. If they do, they do overtime (while it is still there) or some strange specialty. Most pharmacists I know make below or around 100k a year.
Life isnt all about money to be honest.
I paid 50k for pharm school. moonlighting while in medical school to pay rent. wasnt really a waste, it gave me a lot of knowledge that i have over other physicians and will make me a better health care provider in the long-run because I can use the medication and understand a lot of pharmacotherapy challenges.
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09-26-2011, 09:09 PM #8
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09-26-2011, 09:11 PM #9
so what if you end up in the medical field and find out you dont like that **** either? gonna quit and become a deep sea diver?
lol..
anyway more power to you man.. you probably did that six year program that most schools have from high school...thats what a lot of my friends did and they're balling now driving the latest whips and ****....my ass is stuck in a lab smelling chemical fumes all day with a measly paycheck..:feelsbadman:
so what specialty are you fantasizing about taking up?
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09-26-2011, 09:14 PM #10
30
my mcat best or my mcat combined top?
why not PA school? I didnt want to be someone's "assistant". PA's do resident work their entire life. I know myself and I didnt want to go around looking for a physician group to hire me to be their errand boy. I hate to say it that way but that is how i view PA work. You will be locked in with what you are doing and cannot progress. Less options than as an MD.
I didnt want a "job". I wanted a "Career". Working as a pharmacist was just a job to me. Perhaps it was the experiences I had, I just kept saying all the time "I should have went to medical school". I didn't want to go to PA school and end up the same way. You spend majority of you days at work, so you NEED TO be happy doing what you do. As a physician, you have more control over your schedule (depending on specialty). Also, if money is on the downswing, PA and NP will be the first to get the axe in clinics.
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09-26-2011, 09:16 PM #11
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09-26-2011, 09:18 PM #12
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09-26-2011, 09:18 PM #13"Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor."
Cancer free since 2013
Misc Plastic Surgeon
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09-26-2011, 09:22 PM #14
actually that is a legit fear I had which held me back for a long time from pursuing it. I have resident friends that HATE MEDICINE and want out so bad. However I resigned myself to the idea that I have to work the rest of my life no matter what. I am going to make sure I follow my heart. I really like sports medicine because I think it complements my interests in weight training, nutrition, etc.
The goal is to be happy with my job I do. GF is a physician who does not think this is the best idea. However, she will be earning $400,000 a year in around 3 1/2 years from now (She in surgical sub-specialty).
Pharmacy school was HARD. I am not going to lie. I earned my bachelors degree before doing pharmacy school. I spent countless all nighters. Orgo was orgo, pharmacy is more memorization. It isn't very "intellectually heavy". You just memorize and regurgitate.
I never worked for Rite-Aid. I did intern for Walgreens and for a Supermarket. I worked in Hospital Pharmacy as an ICU pharmacist and then later a Clinical Pharmacist. As a clinical pharmacist I was utterly bored. I would do projects and go to committees all day. I kept saying "how do you justify these positions???".
Job Market: TERRIBLE. Despite what they tell you in pharmacy school, ALL my old students contacted me for help to find jobs. They could not find anything....retail or hospital. The job market is only getting worse. Pharmacist salaries were high because of the lack of pharmacists coupled with the RAPID expansion of retail driving the salaries up and demand. When CVS and Walgreens stopped expansion, you saw this big surplus hit. Now your retail chains are ABUSING pharmacists. they cut back the tech help, they add Drive-thru. Your wait times are micromanaged and your job is on the line.
Make sure you talk to A LOT OF PEOPLE. Pharmacy is not that great for me. All my students wanted to start earning money. I know if salary was cut in half, majority would leave pharmacy. Just make sure you want to be a pharmacist. Also keep in mind retail pharmacy is changing and going to a more centralized filling process which will cut pharmacist jobs in the future. it is a BIG BUBBLE about to burst like Law school. i think pharmacy bubble will be worse because CVS and Walgreens have made it a point to undercut all independents and make pharmacists reliant on being hired as an EMPLOYEE.
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09-26-2011, 09:25 PM #15
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09-26-2011, 09:26 PM #16
I got a 36S MCAT this past summer, and I can honestly tell you that the test is pure luck and BS. I scored a 30 earlier in the summer, studied 2 weeks after getting my scores and jumped to a 36 without knowing anything extra. Just make sure to do timed practice test under test-like settings when you feel you've got a good hold on the material. do as many as you can and make sure to spend loads of time reviewing every answer.
rep back 1k+
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09-26-2011, 09:27 PM #17
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09-26-2011, 09:31 PM #18
USA.
I took time to work as a pharmacist for 3 years before medical school. So I have not been in class in a long time. I spoke to A LOT of pharmacists that made this switch.
They thought med school was EASIER than pharmacy school. However, that was back in the 2000s when they went. Medical schools have changed a lot in 10 years as has the competition. Current medical students are hardcore GUNNERS.
I will say I think medical school is harder in that the VOLUME is insane! You need to know the details of everything on top of large volume of information hitting you at one time. It is a struggle to stay on top of it.
Keep in mind, I am not your general student that lives and breaths medicine. I have a relationship and life I try to maintain. You cannot stop living life to get an Honors on an exam when a High Pass is just as good.
Volume is very high though. Contrary to what all pharmacists say, pharmacy school is not like medical school. A friend of mine (MD/PharmD) that is a current resident also said he thought medical school was VERY HARD. He is in one of the hardest medical specialties to get in the country right now and will earn around ~$500,000/yr when done in 3 1/2 years. However, he said he wonders if it is worth it. Medicine is hard.
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09-26-2011, 09:33 PM #19
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09-26-2011, 09:40 PM #20
volunteer: I work with special olympics. i always found that to be very fun and rewarding. been working in homeless shelter/soup kitchens serving food since high school, work within my church and the church community.
yes i was competitive. i graduated pharmacy school summa cum laude. i have publications, did residency, amazing letters of recommendation. i only applied to 2 schools (geographic limitations).
getting in was hard. applications are up, they seem to be very very numbers based. schools use a formula to determine who gets interviews, rank the interview, get a "total score" that determines who gets in and who doesnt. this is why admissions favors early applicant.
my pharmacy gpa was very high. my curriculum vitae is 8 pages in length and has more accomplishments on it than most people applying for residency. couple that with my clinical experience from work and residency, it made me competitive.
i was just not happy doing what i was doing. just try a bunch of pharmacist positions to see if you could do any for the rest of your life. i couldnt handle being an employee that was treated the way pharmacists are treated. i watched the movie Up and Away with George Clooney when I was working a pharmacy job I HATED. I couldnt find any other pharmacy jobs over the course of a full year of applying. I said "what did you want to be growing up? why didnt you do that? what is stopping you? "
i re-examined my entire life. i went and saw a psychiatrist to make sure i didnt have a personality disorder and was making a bad decision. try to findout why you dont want to be a pharmacist. for me, it was my job would VARY so greatly from one place to the next depending on what they "let me do". I personally wanted more and expected more of myself. I worked my life so hard not to end up in CVS being a slave for a paycheck. I cut all my expenses down so I wasnt a slave to that check coming every week and thought about what I wanted out of life.
I felt I could have a legitimate skill as a physician to help people (who wanted to be helped) and do good things for people in a broader scope of practice.
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09-26-2011, 09:40 PM #21
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09-26-2011, 09:41 PM #22
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09-26-2011, 09:47 PM #23
i have no idea. i really cannot remember any of those board exam scores and would have to look them up. when it comes to school, those standardized exams do not mean anything. they favor a wealthy upbringing bc you get exposure to so much culture and things outside the classroom. this is why people from low socioeconomic backgrounds do bad on them.
if you dont do well on them, i wouldnt let some exam dictate your future. i know my SAT wasnt a perfect 1600 (when it was on that scale).
go out and CREATE your future. Do not let someone or some exam dictate who you will be.
no problem. glad i could help out. i see so many threads like this as a lurker. i see everyone on here talking about money all day long. money isnt everything. making good money is GREAT as long as you like what you do. if you go to work totally not into what you do and it is a big drag, it doesnt matter.
in my situation, i was going to pay my pharmacy school loans off, and leave pharmacy. pharmacy was not my dream, it was more of a way to pay the bills. i felt a lot of guilt leaving pharmacy because of so many people out of work. however, at one time i lost my pharmacist job and it took me MONTHS to find another.
i know a number of pharmacists that have 5+ years experience and have been unemployed for over a year. the pharmacist job market is terrible.
they always say "do somehting you love and you wont work a day in your life". realistically if you are interested in something, you will be able to think outside the box and enjoy your job to improve it. if you just go to it as a job, you will not be the best because there is no motive or incentive to do so. people only tolerate bull**** because they get stuck into it (house payments, car payments etc). if you had no debt, you wouldnt take **** from people. in pharmacy, a lot of pharmacists are being treated like garbage but their lavish lifestyles before this bubble burst keep them hungry for that check.
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09-26-2011, 09:51 PM #24
salaries vary GREATLY as an MD. It depends on specialty, drive, location, procedures, hours, patient volume, employee or part of group, etc
you can make 70k and over $1,000,000 a year. it depends. i.e. you invent vaginal rejuvenation procedure and everyone comes to spending money...
the variation in income is offset by the HIGH TAXES in the USA. expect to lose 1/2 of your earnings to taxes (currently and even more in the future THANKS OBAMA AND CONGRESS).
who knows what salaries will be in the future. medicare cuts and junk happen and DRASTICALLY affect salaries. I know some doctors making less than pharmacists. It depends where you are. Some make up the cost cutting by seeing WAY MORE patients a day (around 50 a day). I think this is bad for patient care but you got to do what you got to do.
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09-26-2011, 09:52 PM #25
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09-26-2011, 09:53 PM #26
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09-26-2011, 09:56 PM #27
I can. I'm a med student too, so I understand. Didn't want to know specific school, was just wondering what region you were in..
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09-26-2011, 10:00 PM #28
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09-26-2011, 10:04 PM #29
ya the point i was making is it varies GREATLY. it is like asking how much does a dentist make? well one needs to take into account of people being in the right place at the right time A LONG TIME AGO when things were booming and took advantage of it to the max.
for some reasons, physicians are targetted heavily for salary cuts. they work hard. if they continue to cut salaries, people will not do medicine considering all the extra bull**** involved.
the chief of an internal medicine specialty told me his salary (~135,000). considering all the work he does, i was shocked. it depends greatly where you are located.
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09-26-2011, 10:05 PM #30
I understand how you think it's not a big deal. But Pharmacists and doctors worked they're ass off in school for that money, and half of it goes away to weed smoking+baby popping welfare *******s. We're also forced to "help" our patients all the time when they don't even wanna listen to our advices. And when something goes wrong, they instantly blame us, hello, we're not at the point of medicine where we know 100% of everything that goes on in the human body. You get some punk that nerd rages, and wants to sue you, putting your license in jepordy. Hell I know countless doctors who just plays everything safe, instead of picking what they think is possible, in fear of losing their license.
@OP, idk if you're serious about this, but do you think you have an advantage over other students in med school since you went pharmacy? I currently work as a pharmacy tech for experience. I'll be going to med school next year, hopefully all the knowledge I have about rednecks asking for oxycodones will help off (lol).
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