Career Advice MEGA - Courses and Careers related to Drugs

Im in pharmacy school right now, and i dont think that they look at medical records for drug use.

And about the grades, just write a really good entrance letter, and be like.. i slacked off, balh blah, but i realized what i had to do, and back it up with the grades. If you are getting straight As in college, than u should be fine; just write a good letter.
 
CB: You are very misguided regarding BME, biomedical engineering is a Massive field spanning bio-electric-, neural-, tissue-, macromolecular- engineering with all the variations of the above.. What you speak of is Biomechanics, which is a part of BME, but by no means its extent.


skjalff
 
^^

I never said that biomedical wasn't those things as well :)

I did say that it had nothing to do with manufacturing pharmaceuticals though :)

I am by no means an expert on biomedical engineering :)

CB :)
 
Want to work at Pharmacy

Im about to finish an associates degree in general studies in a junior college to transfer to a university, im wondering what kind of stuff im looking at to work at a pharmacy. %)
 
^^^
You're on SDN!? I just joined, mostly for the pre-allopathic forum although the whole site is great.


If you want to work in a pharmacy, you'll want to go to pharmacy school.

As soon as you transfer to the 4-year school, figure out exactly what science classes and non-science classes you need to take.

Start working on your general requirements for getting a B.S. I'm not sure if it matters what you major in (for medicine it doesn't matter). I think a lot of pre-pharmacy people major in biochemistry.
 
i want to become a pharmacist

i was just wondering how does one become this, its really my dream. i was wondering how many years of college you have too take, what courses, what you have too do after college, and all that shit. any help i am given will be greatly appreciated.
thanks, much love too all my bluelight buddies.
 
In Canada it's about 5 years plus clerkship if you're accpeted after your first year. Pharmacy is extremely competitive, more so than Medicine at my school.

Basically you do a year of science courses and required courses for application, then you apply which entails a solid GPA and an essay, no entrance exam.
 
I think it is safe to say that all people on BL want to become pharmacists ;)

If you want to work with any feild dealing with pharmacology, you will definitely need a general science first year (around here that would typically be Chem, Bio, physics and Calculus). Second year you probably would take more math courses and biochem courses, plus organic chem. Only in the 3rd year do you start working with actual pharmacology courses.

There are also different types of careers. I have outlined them in another thread before but here is another outline:

- A Pharmacist is basically a legal drug dealer. They have almost unrestricted access to the drugs in the pharmacy. Pharmacists do not do research or invent new drugs.

- A Pharmacy Technician is a Pharmacist's biatch. They do not have much to do other than count pills and stock shelves behind the counter.

A Pharmacologist does research with available drugs, but cannot run a pharmacy or invent new drugs in a lab.

- A "Medical Chemist" is generally the term used to refer to those who make drugs. Many of these are pharmacologists at the same time, but there are many still who simply invent new chemicals as requested by their employer.

(I know the designations might be different in different countries, but this seems to be a norm).

Which type of thing where you looking at, specifically?
 
Pharmacy is now a 4 year post graduate doctorate degree, so 8 years of college past highschool to earn a PharmD degree, this is for the US only. In Australia (where I am) it's a 4 year undergraduate degree, Bachelor of Pharmacy plus 1 year as an intern.

Also think deeply about why you want to become a pharmacist, I think most Bluelighters don't really understand fully the knowledge required and what the job entails.
 
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godamn you guys were so helpful, told me excactly what i wanted too know.
well i have alot of drug knowledge as it is (mostly from BL) and its one thing i actually enjoy. even playing with drugs would be enjoyable for me, and my career goal is do something i enjoy. this is definatly a good idea for me. thanks a bunch guys, much love. you helped me a shitload.
 
^^^
Don't get into pharmacy just because you like drugs. Do it if you think you have the motivation to get through the hard science classes.
 
^^

I agree. Pharmacy isn't an easy course.

Do it because you are interested in it, not because you'll have access to drugs. If you start "borrowing" these drugs from the pharmacy you work at, you will be caught and fired, and probably end up with a criminal record.

I know it is difficult to find something that you are interested in when you are starting out at college, but make sure that whatever you choose, you choose for the right reasons :)

CB :)
 
Jamshyd said:
- A Pharmacist is basically a legal drug dealer. They have almost unrestricted access to the drugs in the pharmacy. Pharmacists do not do research or invent new drugs.

- A Pharmacy Technician is a Pharmacist's biatch. They do not have much to do other than count pills and stock shelves behind the counter.

A Pharmacologist does research with available drugs, but cannot run a pharmacy or invent new drugs in a lab.

- A "Medical Chemist" is generally the term used to refer to those who make drugs. Many of these are pharmacologists at the same time, but there are many still who simply invent new chemicals as requested by their employer.
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Well worth keeping in mind. I know a couple of people who idiotically signed up to Pharmacy thinking it was Pharmacology..It's relatively straight forward to change courses in the UK though. Pharmacy totally baffles me. You have to learn all the theory and work your nuts off in 4 years where in practice all you do is stand in the dispensary in boots measuring out numbers of pills into bottles. Always struck me as a strange career path -if you wanted drug access better to be a doctor and have a prescription book :D
 
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Yea, that is the strange part about pharmacy. But the reason we have pharmacists is that doctors don't always prescribe the right medication or the right amount. Thus a pharmacist can catch errors made by doctors. To do that, they have to have a very large knowledge base of all the different drugs and their interactions. Doctors do know drugs, but they often are unaware of many of the interactions.
 
If you're really interested in drugs, then I would reccomend pharmacology instead. Studying drugs sounds like more fun then dispensing them.
 
So would a biochem degree be good for making new drugs and researching existing drugs?
 
Kilgore said:
So would a biochem degree be good for making new drugs and researching existing drugs?
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A biochem degree would make it very easy to get into pharmacology or Medicinal Chem., but in and of itself it is not enough.

In other words, biochem is a good intro to pharmacology but still a long way from there. Biochem, at least in the universities I am familiar with (in Ontario, Canada), revolves mostly around genetics, so while it is wide, it does not cover much of pharmacology.
 
I'm a casual biochemist, we studied practically no pharmacology in our degree.

Not sure if your content is different over there, but our biochemistry degree offered nothing in terms of pharmacy related subjects... rather it prepared us to perform histopathology straight out of university.
 
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