Career Advice MEGA - Courses and Careers related to Drugs

Careers in Pharmacology?

Hey everyone! This is my first post on Bluelight because I'd like the community's input.

I need to declare a major. I have thought keenly about what interests me and
one of my primary interests is drugs which means, I guess, pharmacology.

Basically, I am interested in the issues discussed on the Advanced Drug Discussion forum on this website. What major (or graduate school)/career do I need to pursue to actually understand what is being discussed on the forum clearly? I'd love to do something involving a mix of psychology and pharmaceutical chemistry in a growing field.

What path would you suggest? I have thought about obtaining a Pharm. D. and being a pharmacist; it's a growing field and all but I'm not sure about the mundane nature of the work. If there are any pharmacists in the community, how do you feel about the work? Do you find it intellectually fulfilling?

Also, Is anyone involved in research or has pursued a Ph. D. in a Pharmacology type field? If so, would you offer your input? There are so many fields...

What types of careers/positions would be applicable to my interests in psychology, chemistry, and drugs? Also, what should I study in school to place myself in these positions?

Thanks for any advise!!! :)
 
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Have anyone you wanna model yourself after? Look at what they did and see if you could model them. I imagine you would love to be the next Shulgin!
 
I'd recommend studying chemistry or biochemistry, unless you happen upon a school that offers an undergraduate neuroscience program, which, I imagine, would perhaps be more well-attenuated to your particular bent.

As for post-grad, that's a long way away, and honestly, by the time that it's time for you to make *that* choice, you will probably be more inclined toward one option or another than you are now, just via your accrued experience over your undergrad years.
 
I'm in a similar situation.

I start school in a couple months and have decided that pre-pharmacy should suit me. I'm hoping to get my Pharm. D and work as a pharmacist while I continue my education in biochem or something similar. That way I'll have something to fall back on just incase.

I'm really more interested in pharmacological research than filling up scripts as a pharmacist. But I feel safer just getting my Pharm D and getting to work before I attempt to get into the more indepth nature of biochem or neuroscience.

I dont really know what I'm doing :D
 
Like said earlier, you will need around 75 term credit hours (50 semester) of pre-requisites that usually include a year series of chemistry, physics, biology, organic chemistry, and anatomy and physiology, and other classes like sociology, psychology, stats, calculus, etc. You will need to get mostly A's and B's in all of the classes, but you can get a couple of C's. Usually you need a 3.2 or higher to get in depending on the school, and a bachelor's degree and previous experience is helpful especially if ur GPA is lacking.. PM me if you have any questions as I am in pharmacy school.

-cap
 
Any nurses on here?

I'm 19 and getting started at the local junior college next semester. Today has been a shit day, mostly because my family is poor as fuck and I've been meditating heavily on how not to repeat this cycle in the next generation. I've had many different interests academically but lately I've been leaning more towards pursuing a stable career than being a rogue alchemist supplying the street with magical molecules; as such I've got my eyes set on being a nurse.

So I got some questions for dem nurses on hyah; how long were you in school for? How much do you make an hour/yearly? How hectic is a nurse work schedule? Do you find the job to be rewarding (in ways other than monetary gain)? Would you have time to go to shool and work as a nurse? I ask that last one because I would someday like to learn organic chemistry but I also need a stable career. One of my good friends recently told me I should pursue chemistry as out of our loose circle of drug using friends I seem to be the one who has lost the least amount of cognitive ability (good ol' harm reduction;)

Thank you for any and all informative responses :)
 
I can't speak for the US, but in Canada there are multiple types of nurses.

Practical nursing is an associates-level program that puts you in an assistant type role, working alongside medical professionals. It's an assistant role, but there are ways to work your way up through the private system, as well as ways to bridge into professional programs if you so later choose.

Then there's professional nursing, which is your registered nurse (RN) or nurse practitioner (NP). Registered nurse is an undergraduate-equivalent program with a large practical component. Here, you will learn some organic chemistry as part of your module, as well as other scientific theory. Nurse practitioner is graduate level education, and you would specialize in a certain area of medicine, and learn a lot more scientific theory. NPs are often as highly respected, or more respected than medical doctors (MD).

Hopefully someone can give you some insight as to how it works in the US.
 
Im a Medical Assistant(MA) student atm and im going for Respiratory Therapy (RT) after my MA program.
I dont like nursing reason being because unless you become an LPN or RN youll be doing a lot of dirty work in a hospital setting.

you should try Pharmacy tech since you wanna deal with chemistry or a Lab Tech dealing with slides of blood and urine samples under a scope its pretty cool and pays well

but nursing imo is alot of hard hard work
 
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QuasiModo said:
I've had many different interests academically but lately I've been leaning more towards pursuing a stable career than being a rogue alchemist supplying the street with magical molecules; as such I've got my eyes set on being a nurse.
Click to expand...
If your passion is chemistry a nurse is not the job for you. Nurses clip old peoples toe nails, empty bedpans and urine bottles. Deal day in day out with needy people. Pressure is high, workload is high, pay and recognition is not that flash.

If you are interested in science and good enough at math, if you want stable high income and a fairly cruisy job - consider engineering.
 
Pharmacy tech sounds interesting. Thank you for the advice, I'm in the preliminary stage of beginning my higher education so I have plenty of time to choose, I'm thinking ill just register as an undeclared major and get my pre requisite classes out of the way for a while.. That actually might take me a minute anyways and I'm pretty sure Pharmacy tech would have the same pre req's.... Gonna go over all this with my counselor. Thanks.. Been a LONG time since I was in school.
 
My wife just got her ARN, after going to community college for nursing. We moved right after so she has part time work because she can't find a full job here (it would have been easier back where she got her degree because of the connections). Night shifts can be hectic, same with 12 hour shifts. Pay is pretty good though.

Yeah, start nailing pre-reqs that are for more than one possible career. Its good to get them out of the way earlier.
 
Here is some insight from my GF (Who is a Physician...cardiac surgeon not a nurse, but works with nurses)

START RANGRZ GF

To become what one normally thinks of as a 'nurse' it is a 4 year degree. That will qualify you to write the exam(s) to receive your license to practise as a Registered Nurse. From there, you will likely end up in a day clinic or hospital, under the supervision of a senior Nurse and a Physician. I am not 100% on how nursing specialties work. What I do know is that you can specialized with time and training to all sorts of niches. Psychiatry, Emergency, Perioperative, pediatric, intensivist, any other branch of medicine that exists, so will a nursing subset of it.
You can do another 4(?) years of school and become an N.P. This allows you have your own clinic and carry out the same scope of practise as a Family Physician. Else, it allows you to work in a more dynamic environment such as leading the anaesthesia team in the O.R., flying on-board the aeromedical helis along with the Critical Care Flight Medics. All the way to, in some rural area's, overseeing the entire E.R. during nights and weekends when Physicians are hard to come by.

Might say tho, that becoming an N.P. is more or less as difficult as becoming a physician, and it does not offer the pay or 'glamour' For example, as a Cardiac Surgeon in a large city hospital, I make >$500,000, I have my own nurses and my own N.P. who are more or less my bitches and I can not just told "Oh Dr.Liz, you are not in the O.R./I.C.U./E.R. tonight, your cleaning up slobber in peds oncology."

A nurse can. That said, I do work a lot of nights and work over 60 hours a week. But nurses are essential to my job, and if you want to be one, go for it! Its a lot of work, but like all medical fields, the fact you get to help people is rewarding and is a better payment then that coloured paper they give me.

End Dr.Liz

For whatever its worth, I figure I'd let her post.
 
Yes, another question about Pharmacology careers.

So I have UTFSE and have not been able to come to conclusion on this. So I am 18 and have been out of high school for about a year now. I messed up bad early in high school and i ended up getting my GED at 17. My addiction to drugs during my school years got in the way of my academic success. I never fully applied myself and reached my potential. I love all kinds of science fields mainly pharmacology and chemistry. Recently I've been going nuts with mycology. ;)

So anyways long story short, I have matured and I want to pursue college. I have a one year old daughter and umeployed looking for work. I lost my job about 6 months ago. In the meantime I am planning to go to my community college to attain my 2-year transfer degree. From there I want to enter a 4-year college and earn a degree. I have done some researching with the colleges in my area. Oregon State University has a good science program form what I hear. Since i was 13 years old I have been interested in pursuing pharmacology. I am thinking of taking some biochem classes at OSU. Please mind I don't know much about the names of the courses. I just would like some advice and insight into other people's path's and what courses you took. People who are in graduate programs or anything else I would love to hear from you.

I love to learn and I feel I will be more successful in college than high school. I also would like to mention that I ultimately would love to end up going to Oregon Health & Science university, they have a graduate program in Physiology & Pharmacology, I would like to know what would be the best path to lean towards this area? I would love other story's to help me decide and focus more on what I want to do exactly. I retain information like a sponge when it comes to science. I feel that I have a good potential in this area. thank you BL! <3
 
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Regardless of what bachelor's degree you want to end up with (assuming you want to stay in that general field), freshman courses in biology and chemistry would be the place to start. If things go well there, physiology would be a good next step. If you're looking at doing graduate work in pharmacology, then your main 3 bachelor's degree possibilities would be biology, chemistry, and biochemistry. I would recommend chemistry or biochemistry the most. Biochemistry is more specific to pharmacology, but I have heard the saying from professors before that "it is easier to teach a synthetic chemist some biochemistry than it is to teach a biochemist how to do synthesis." So, if you are interested in eventually doing pharmaceutical work, like drug design or drug studies (medicinal drugs, not the fun ones), then bachelor's in chemistry or biochemistry and then graduate work in either more biochemistry, chemistry, or pharmacology is the way to go.

Since you left high school early, it is probably a safe assumption that you will have a pretty serious deficiency (I did too, when I started) when it comes to college-level math. You may want to take a college algebra course before taking on a chemistry course. I TA freshman chemistry and I've seen a lack of algebra skills wreck FAR more students than the actual chemistry.
 
Thank you that helps a ton!

I have been anticipating the college math. Algebra would be the best. I did alight in math in school just never really applied myself. Thanks for the advice. Much appreciated.
 
Hey thadocta,

I was currently on the path to go to pharmacy school here in CA but now im in limbo in other career options, it doesn't matter if you have your GED I would first go to a JC so they can prepare your for a 4yr school, you NOT all schools require BS or BA for example Western University does not just requires you take the prereqs at a credited 4yr university here's a link. http://prospective.westernu.edu/pharmacy-pharmd/requirements. For me personally the Biology courses are more memorization but once you get into OChem you need to put in a little more effort there. Also I would get your Pharmacy Tech license as the schools you are going to apply would like to know you have some experience in the field. Theres aslo pCAT similar to MCAT so save your major Bio and Chem Books for future reference, best of luck.
 
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