PharmDs pursuing Medical Degrees

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Are there any PharmDs in the forum that are also pursuing their medical degree? I would love to hear about your experiences and reasoning behind your decision.

Thanks and I look forward to your responses!

I was in the wrong field for me. I am now in the right one.

(sorry for the terse response, but I get asked this a lot)

Originally Posted by DrPharm

Are there any PharmDs in the forum that are also pursuing their medical degree? I would love to hear about your experiences and reasoning behind your decision.

Thanks and I look forward to your responses!

For me it was more or less to have the ability to diagnose and really delve into medicine. I thought about specializing in pharmacy, but it just narrows your scope to particular drugs in a field like oncology, infectious diseases and so on. I also noticed during my pharmacy school years that I really enjoyed the clinical aspects and disease pathology we learned and medicine allows me to pursue that further. It's all about what you want. Hope that helps.

p.s. Are you in pharmacy school and thinking about medicine?

OK, longer version:

I was definitely steered toward pharmacy by my parents. They were of the mindset that anything was OK except medicine. The problem was, they had a kid (me) who would otherwise have decided to be a doctor at like, age 5. But it was such a foregone conclusion that being a doctor was bad that I never even questioned it. I knew all the bad stuff about it and nothing about how rewarding it is. Plus I had hated science in high school. But I read a lot about it on my own, and when I got to college, it just seemed so much more interesting than anything else. And liberal arts, which is where I started, seemed like an overwhelming babble of opinions, none of which could truly be proven right or wrong, and theories resting on so many simplifications and assumptions that they had no real predictive value whatsoever. I just wanted out of that.

A second factor was that I was having really severe health problems and was completely convinced at that time that I'd never have the stamina for medicine. So I wanted a career in which I could support myself reasonably well, that was in the sciences and was well-respected and not too strenuous. Voila, pharmacy. Plus, I really did like the chemistry part of it.

But it's definitely its own little culture, and I had no idea about that at all. And I am simply not that kind of person. So I tried to figure out a way to do something else with my BS degree. At that point, the all-PharmD thing started, and I jumped on board, thinking it was a way into something different. Then we had to do rotations the last year, and that was when I discovered what it is that physicians do. After that, the question was really whether or not medicine was something I simply had to do, or whether I could find a career within pharmacy that would be a decent substitute. And after trying all the major areas of practice, I still felt med school was the way to go. So here I am.

Originally Posted by tupac_don

p.s. Are you in pharmacy school and thinking about medicine?

Yes, I am currently in pharmacy school and thinking about applying to medical after obtaining my PharmD.

I've thought about obtaining a residency and specializing but even after that I don't think that I'll have the same amount of impact on a patient I yearn to have.

Originally Posted by DrPharm

Yes, I am currently in pharmacy school and thinking about applying to medical after obtaining my PharmD.

I've thought about obtaining a residency and specializing but even after that I don't think that I'll have the same amount of impact on a patient I yearn to have.

My advice is to jump on studying for MCAT bc the exam is involved. After a decent MCAT score 30 plus, you will be shoe in for pretty much any place, provided you have solid pharmacy grades at least 3.5 plus. Also if your pharmacy grades trended down from a good undergrad performance that could create a problem. Good luck and I hope you joint the MD team.