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MEGA - Courses and Careers related to Drugs

A moderator like yourself should know better than to link to a search page.
 
I almost looked into pharmacology. You have to take a test similar to the MCAT although I don't know the difficulty of it in comparison. Most people say the MCAT is fucking hell.

It's the same as a doctor except (if i remember correctly) there is no residency but I'm not sure about that.

My sister worked in the field that recruited pharmacists and the ones who worked in retail usually hated it but made more money (like your pharmacists for cvs and whatnot). You can also work in a hospital, but you don't make as much money.

I'm not sure if it's still true, but pharmacy was in high demand a few years ago. It's all chemistry and some of the labs are hellll like biochem lab. Your undergrad is 2 semesters of gen chem, 2 semesters of organic chem, inorganic chem, 2 semesters of biochem with the lab and some other courses that I don't remember. The biochem labs are difficult because they are 3 credit labs which is unusual (most labs are only 1 credit).

Good luck!
 
Pharmacy is getting a Pharm D, this is so you can work at a pharmacy. Then you take the GRE to get into the grad school program in Pharmacologyy. This is Pharmacology, usually a PH.D. ALso Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacokinetics among others. To get into Pharmacy school you have to take the PCATS. Pharacology is doing research on drugs, and how drugs work in the metabolism.
 
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A degree in pharmacology and a Pharm. D are not the same thing. Pharmacology is the study of the interaction of drugs in living systems. (http://www.pharmcas.org/advisors/pharmacypharmacology.htm) and a Pharm. D (Doctor of Pharmacy) is the degree required to be a pharmacist. A pharmacology degree is more geared towards doing research for drug companies towards researching new drugs or investigating and mitigating side effects from existing drugs - things of that nature.

There are 2 different groups of people that work in pharmacies, one group is the pharmacy technicians. In some states, you can do this job with nothing more than on-the-job training, others require you to take a test called the PTCE (pharmacy technician certification exam). This is an okay entry job, but the pay starts relatively low, $8-12 an hour, a bit more if you have the certification and a bit more for seniority. Pharmacy techs are responsible for all of the "grunt"-work of the pharmacy. (I can say this without being condescending because I used to do this job :P) They take the prescriptions, transcribe the info from them into a computer, put a label on the bottle and (in many pharmacies) put the pills in the bottle. By law, every single thing that they do must be checked off by a pharmacist before the drugs can be sold to the patients (which the techs also do).

The other people are the pharmacists, they are the ones with the Pharm. D degrees and a year of internship under a registered pharmacist to get the title of "Registered Pharmacist, RPh". They are the ones ultimately responsible for ensuring that people get the right medicine in the right strength with the right dosage instructions. Their job is also to make sure that each patient understands their medicine and how to take it and the potential side effects, etc. Unfortunately, with a lot of big chain pharmacies, their role is often relegated to "pill-slinger". These big chains simply take on so many customers that there isn't time for the pharmacist to offer good counseling to patients and they struggle just to keep up with the prescriptions and ridiculous problems with insurance plans and other things of that nature.

Pharmacy school is 4 years long, and most pharmacy schools you can get in with 2-3 years of pre-requisite coursework. A bachelor's degree is usually not required, but it makes your application a lot more competitive. You would have to check individual schools to see how competitive they are and what pre-requisites they require. Usually it is something like : 6 hours gen chem, 6 hours O chem, 6 hours A&P, and probably 6 hours biochemistry. Many schools have more in addition to this.
 
I'm doing my pre - req coursework right now (sophomore)and i have to do 3 years of it to get to grad school. Then i spend a lovely 4 years there, i cant wait.
 
I looked into this, and the one thing I can tell you is that you have to be a natural at math.

That might not sound like such a big deal to some, but while I'm a whiz at English and good at the nomenclature associated with Biology, the math that comes with chemistry, physics and the required calculus completely ruined this option for me.

Keep in mind, this is in Canada. Perhaps schools in your area aren't as strict about math requirements. Even still, advanced Chem. is going to be mandatory.

A degree in Science isn't the same as a degree in Arts or Social Sciences. You can't BS your way through, and you can't stay up all night studying before a test and expect to ace it. Keep in mind, this is based on my rather limited personal experience.

Bottom line: If you're not prepared to sink your teeth into Science, form study groups, and become a total nerd.. think twice.
 
http://cop.utmem.edu/PrePharm.htm

Those are the pre-reqs for the pharmacy school that I was working on before I changed lanes over to working towards Physician Assistant school. Their pre-requisite course is a little more stringent than other schools in the area but not a whole lore more.
 
Im in australia and im in my second last year of pharmacy school. I also have a friend in science who's majoring in pharmacology and apparently my pharmacology is more advanced (wtfness)

so if it's knowledge you want, go for pharmacy
 
I'm almost certain the if you interested in knowledge, then pharmacy would not even touch pharmacology in the US. If I'm not mistaken, a pharmacist essentially just dishes out medication, while occasionally advising customers on said medications. On the other hand, pharmacologist research the effects of drugs. A pharmacist requires a Pharm.D (which is a professional degree), while a pharmacologist usually requires a Ph.D (which is an academic research based degree). There's a big difference between the two.
 
Pharmacy most definately entails pharmacology.

My great great grandpa was a pharmacist, my great grandpa, my grandpa, my uncle, my dad, my sister, and my fiance is currently in pharmacy school all at UF.

My fiance is taking Medicinal chemistry, Biochem, dosage forms, and next semester is taking Pharmacology.

Now if you want to actively use Pharmacology, I think you would be better chanced going to pharm school, then aplpying to grad school for pharmacology. You could also get a degree in Biochem, then go into Pharmacology. Pharmacology programs are in the College of Pharmacy, but you dont necessarily have to go to pharmacy school to get into pharmacology.
 
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I wasn't saying that to become a pharmacist that you don't take any classes dealing with those subject, but it's usually not as advance as pharmacology student's classes. As for pharmacology usually being in the pharmacy department, that's not true. You also don't need a Pharm.D to get into a pharmacology graduate program. Being a pharmacist and pharmacologist are two totally different things.
 
I never said you had to have a PharmD. It just looks a lot better than a B.S in CHemistry. One reason is since you spent time in the College of Pharmacy, you probably know a lot of the professors so you have more of a chance to network your way into the program. Another is Pharm D is a much more time extensive degree than a BS and it just looks better I also never said they were the same thing.

If there is a College of pharmacy, the Department of Pharmacology is there. Pharmacology is a subdiscipline of the Pharmaceutical Sciences. Like Pharmacy Research. Just like Proteomics is a Sub discipline of Biochemsitry
 
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I just decided that I'm going to start on my path towards a PharmD. I have only looked into the pharmacy school at UCSD, but there they highly suggest that you have a bachelors degree from a 4 year university if you want to be seriously considered for admission. The other requirements are 1 year of biology, 1 year of general chem, 1 year organic chem, 6 units of physics, and 6 units of calculus with analytical geometry, along with other GE nonsense. I've still got a long road ahead of me...
 
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