Pharmacy-Medicine

[mlo]

I was wondering what steps I should take. I've just completed my 2nd year of Pharmacy School with a cumulative GPA of 3.65. I have held executive leadership positions(Student Political Information Network Coordinator, Vice President, Medical Education co-chair) in my school's chapter of the American Pharmacist Association for the past 2 years (we happen to have the largest chapter in the nation approx 700 members). I personally organized many patient care related events, legislative events and promoted Medication Therapy Management. Aside from working with APhA, I've also worked with Pennsylvania Pharmacist Association on my chapter's Medication Adherence Project. I have close working relationship with the faculty members in the Pharmacy Practice Department. I requested reference letters from 2 faculty members, an adviser for APhA whom I've worked with for the past 2 years and the Dean Emeritus of the College of Pharmacy. I've also have 1 summer research experience at Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and was a Pharmacy Student Intern at AstraZeneca for 2 summers (1st summer- Pharmacy Marketing and 2nd summer- Medical Information). I also am in the top 20% of my pharmacy class (Rho Chi) and won the US Public health services Excellence in Pharmacy Practice Award for 2009 for my work with Medication Awareness/MTM. I will be continuing to work on providing Medication Therapy management certificate course for next year and other patient care related events. Im writing my MCATs this June and have been preparing throughout the year. Im going to be studying hard for the next month and a half to prepare for the MCATs. I'm hoping to apply this year and defer a year. My rationale is that I want to focus on getting the most out of my rotations in my last year (plus, rotations preceptors aren't that pleased if their students take 2-3 days off to interview. Rotations are a couple weeks long and I believe attendance is mandatory.)
Complicating factor: I'm currently in a relationship with a medical student going into his 4th year. We are thinking about long-term (ie. hopefully...marriage). He will be applying for residencies when I'll be applying.
*My top choice is Jefferson Medical College
Questions:
1. What are my chances?
2. Providing I have decent MCAT scores, how do I enter my grades. I'm in a 6-year Pharm.D program and came right out from high school.
3. Would they frown on me applying before I get my Pharm.D? My rationale is that I want to get the most out of my rotation experience (and I don't know if the rotation would pass me if I missed a couple of days). Im planning to defer inorder to finish my degree.
4. What else should I do?
I'm really lost. I've talked to many medical students and they said that I would be a very competitive applicant with my background in pharmacy and my extra-curricular.

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[Mobius1985]

1) Are you Canadian? This will decrease your odds of an acceptance as internationals are generally held to a higher standard by US schools. Last year Jefferson interviewed 802 people (22 international) out of 9323 applying (incl 512 internationals). Of these, 14 internationals were accepted. Total class size=255.

2) See page 52 of the AMCAS instruction manual: http://www.aamc.org/students/amcas/amcas2009instructionmanual072808.pdf

3) Since you don't have a bachelors degree, it's best you finish the PharmD. 98% of acceptees had a bachelors degree.

4) You have leadership and research. You need community service and clinical experience working directly with sick people, which can be combined with hospital or clinic volunteering. If you get a lot of patient interaction though your coursework, you still need to demonstrate your altruism via some type of humanitarian activity. Physician shadowing is another generally-expected activity to get involved in.

 

[mlo]

1. I'm Canadian and know the odds of international students getting into American Medical Schools
2. I'm planning to finish my Pharm.D but with the last year of rotations, it would be nearly impossible to apply as I would have to be on rotations (mandatory attendance). Rotations for for 48 weeks straight.
3. Working with APhA, I've participated in diabetes screening (measuring blood glucose and patient counseling), hypertension screening (taking bp and counseling) and medication counseling. I've done 7 screening in the last 2 years. These events are all extra curricular and done on the weekend or after classes. My father is also a family physician and for a couple of summers worked as a medical assistant and secretary so I know what it is like. My curriculum is heavily clinically based and we have patient experiential classes.

 

[bigpharmD]

why make this switch with all of the stuff you have already done for the profession?

 

[dezokitty]

I wouldn't actually worry that much about applying while on rotations... Then again, it might depend on which pharmacy school you are going to and where you end up for your rotations. I'm guessing you're going to school closer to Philadelphia, so the rotations might be a little different from the ones I had at my school. However, judging from my experience, I think most preceptors are willing to work out agreements with their students if the students need certain days off. They can usually find a way for you to 40 hours per week, even if you take a day off. For instance, you can offer to work a couple extra 10 hours days if you need a day off one week. Most of the preceptors that I met were quite reasonable and fairly flexible with their schedule. Remember, pharmacy students still have to take days off to interview if they want residencies. I had seen plenty of P4's take days off for various reasons over my last year of pharmacy school, and it all worked out just fine. Just some food for thought.

 

[dezokitty]

I was wondering what steps I should take. I've just completed my 2nd year of Pharmacy School with a cumulative GPA of 3.65. I have held executive leadership positions(Student Political Information Network Coordinn Adherence Project. I have close working relationship with the faculty mator, Vice President, Medical Education co-chair) in my school's chapter of the American Pharmacist Association for the past 2 years (we happen to have the largest chapter in the nation approx 700 members). I personally organized many patient care related events, legislative events and promoted Medication Therapy Management. Aside from working with APhA, I've also worked with Pennsylvania Pharmacist Association on my chapter's Medicatioembers in the Pharmacy Practice Department. I requested reference letters from 2 faculty members, an adviser for APhA whom I've worked with for the past 2 years and the Dean Emeritus of the College of Pharmacy. I've also have 1 summer research experience at Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and was a Pharmacy Student Intern at AstraZeneca for 2 summers (1st summer- Pharmacy Marketing and 2nd summer- Medical Information). I also am in the top 20% of my pharmacy class (Rho Chi) and won the US Public health services Excellence in Pharmacy Practice Award for 2009 for my work with Medication Awareness/MTM. I will be continuing to work on providing Medication Therapy management certificate course for next year and other patient care related events. Im writing my MCATs this June and have been preparing throughout the year. Im going to be studying hard for the next month and a half to prepare for the MCATs. I'm hoping to apply this year and defer a year. My rationale is that I want to focus on getting the most out of my rotations in my last year (plus, rotations preceptors aren't that pleased if their students take 2-3 days off to interview. Rotations are a couple weeks long and I believe attendance is mandatory.)
Complicating factor: I'm currently in a relationship with a medical student going into his 4th year. We are thinking about long-term (ie. hopefully...marriage). He will be applying for residencies when I'll be applying.
*My top choice is Jefferson Medical College
Questions:
1. What are my chances?
2. Providing I have decent MCAT scores, how do I enter my grades. I'm in a 6-year Pharm.D program and came right out from high school.
3. Would they frown on me applying before I get my Pharm.D? My rationale is that I want to get the most out of my rotation experience (and I don't know if the rotation would pass me if I missed a couple of days). Im planning to defer inorder to finish my degree.
4. What else should I do?
I'm really lost. I've talked to many medical students and they said that I would be a very competitive applicant with my background in pharmacy and my extra-curricular.

Ah, I also might be able to help with answering some of these questions...

1. What you have so far looks great, especially all the extra curricular activities. Just ace the MCAT and try and keep your GPA as high as possible... and keep doing... what you're doing.
2. I would ask your school's registrar as well as the people at AMCAS
3. As mentioned above, most schools want to see you get a degree first... If you really want to apply first and defer, I would suggest getting in contact with the admissions offices of the specific schools that you want to apply to and asking them about it. I'm not sure if the idea of applying with the intent of deferring a year is going to cut it, but again, that's really something you need to discuss with the admissions office of the med school.
4. Keep up the good work, do well on your MCATs, keep your GPA as high as possible... A couple other things:
- Have you shadowed any MD's besides working with your dad? I know you get a lot of clinical experience in pharm school, but since you have the time, shadowing a doctor might help show your commitment to medicine.
- I just want to point out that it'll be really important to be able to translate what MTM means to the admissions committee and your interviewers. Because they won't know.
- I second bigpharmD's question... Why the switch?
- Does your school have a pre-health committee?