What I Wish I Knew Before Starting Pharmacy School
1) How Hard Is Pharmacy School?
The main challenge that I faced in pharmacy school is just how much information I had to process all at once. Not only is there a lot of information but there is always an exam around the corner. I quickly had to come to terms with the reality of having an exam every week. These were good weeks. The real fun is when you 2-3 exams per week and you basically spend every hour of the day studying pathology, medicinal chemistry, pharmacology, or therapeutics. I preach in almost video about learning how to study effectively and efficiently because taking exams will start to become a routine so you cannot hide from them.
2) The Different Career Paths After Pharmacy
What can I say? There are so many different paths that a person can go after completing a doctorate of pharmacy degree. Now, I am not going to act like I know all the different career pathways because I don’t. Since there is so many, I highly suggest that you do research on your own and find ones that sound interesting to you. But I have listed a couple here.
A) Community Pharmacist
B) Hospital Pharmacist
C) Residency: (Ambulatory Care, Senior care/Geriartrics, neurology, transplant, hematology/oncology, specialty)
D) Fellowship (Medical Affairs, Medical Information, Medical Science Liaison, Market Access, Marketing, Regulatory Affairs, Business Development)
E) Academia
3) Explore Opportunities As A Student
This point relates to point 2 but if you are aware of all the different carer paths then you will be better positioned to find opportunities. As a student you have so many opportunities and time to figure out what you want to do. Even if you do not know what to do. I encourage you to secure an internship or job outside of school to really work closely with professionals in their respective fields. This will also allow you to get real world experiences of how you can make a valuable contribution to a team.
During the last year of school is when most people are actually getting tangible experiences of working in different areas of healthcare. So always try to do rotations/experiences that may be outside of your comfort zone because this is where you will have the most growth in the long term.
Lastly a lot of people say pharmacy is very saturated and a lot of the great opportunities are too competitive. But I feel if you are aware of these aspects that I discussed then you will be able to tailor your student experience toward your interests. At the end of the day it is very important to make yourself standout from everyone else and the best way to do that is to just be different from the rest of the crowd.
