A day in the life of a pharmacist

[ConfusedBeing23]

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Hi everybody. I'm not sure whether this is a viable thread or not but i really need advice. I'm kind of pushing it with undergraduate admissions. The deadlines for NYU Arts and Sciences Undergrad and St. John's Pharmacy, both which I am considering, are approaching.

If I go to NYU, I will most likely be aiming for med school unless I have a drastic change of heart. And for St. John's Pharmacy 0-6 program, I'm going to obviously do pharmacy with no smart option to switch majors or anything (since these credits don't really apply to any other degree). But I CANNOT CHOOSE between the two fields.

I think a great way to better understand the life and role of pharmacists would be to actually watch them work for a typical day behind the counters and all, but that's really not an option i have available to me.

If you are a pharmacist, or have had experience working with one, OR have even gone to pharmacy school (especially if it was St. John's, but please do share no matter where u attended), please walk me through what goes on on a daily basis - what kind of things u have to encoutner and learn from, what difficulties you might have, what is easy for you, and any non-obvious details that someone looking in probably would not know.

I'm also asking the med forum about MD life.

THANKS TO ALL YOU YOU.

 

[rxlynn]

If I go to NYU, I will most likely be aiming for med school unless I have a drastic change of heart. And for St. John's Pharmacy 0-6 program, I'm going to obviously do pharmacy with no smart option to switch majors or anything (since these credits don't really apply to any other degree). But I CANNOT CHOOSE between the two fields.

I think a great way to better understand the life and role of pharmacists would be to actually watch them work for a typical day behind the counters and all, but that's really not an option i have available to me.

If you are a pharmacist, or have had experience working with one, OR have even gone to pharmacy school (especially if it was St. John's, but please do share no matter where u attended), please walk me through what goes on on a daily basis - what kind of things u have to encoutner and learn from, what difficulties you might have, what is easy for you, and any non-obvious details that someone looking in probably would not know.

I'm also asking the med forum about MD life.

THANKS TO ALL YOU YOU.

Well, I'm not a pharmacist yet, but I've spent almost 6 years in a retail setting, so I feel pretty qualified to comment on that.

I think it might be useful to ask yourself what attracted you about the two professions (not the two schools). To my mind, there is a huge difference between wanting to do medicine and wanting to do pharmacy (I'm one of those people who have ZERO interest in the medicine side). Do you want the responsibility of diagnosing that an MD has? Make a list of all the things that attract you about each.

As far as pharmacy goes, it has lots of good and bad points. Unlike medicine, you would not have to do a residency after pharmacy school (unless you chose to in order to further your career choices), so you would be done in 6. There is a great demand for pharmacists thoughout the US, so you should have a lot of flexibility in location, hours, type of job, etc. when you get through. At least in terms of retail, some of the down side is the lack of professional atmosphere in the typical retail pharmacy, the hours (lots of evenings and weekends), and not having the opportunities to really do much clinical type work with patients. Of course, remember that there are a lot of other types of practice settings for a pharmacist - it's just that the majority of jobs are in retail, and it will probably stay that way as long as Walgreens and CVS are building a store on every corner.

 

[sdn1977]

Hi everybody. I'm not sure whether this is a viable thread or not but i really need advice. I'm kind of pushing it with undergraduate admissions. The deadlines for NYU Arts and Sciences Undergrad and St. John's Pharmacy, both which I am considering, are approaching.

If I go to NYU, I will most likely be aiming for med school unless I have a drastic change of heart. And for St. John's Pharmacy 0-6 program, I'm going to obviously do pharmacy with no smart option to switch majors or anything (since these credits don't really apply to any other degree). But I CANNOT CHOOSE between the two fields.

I think a great way to better understand the life and role of pharmacists would be to actually watch them work for a typical day behind the counters and all, but that's really not an option i have available to me.

If you are a pharmacist, or have had experience working with one, OR have even gone to pharmacy school (especially if it was St. John's, but please do share no matter where u attended), please walk me through what goes on on a daily basis - what kind of things u have to encoutner and learn from, what difficulties you might have, what is easy for you, and any non-obvious details that someone looking in probably would not know.

I'm also asking the med forum about MD life.

THANKS TO ALL YOU YOU.

Confused....I'm a little confused by your post. Are you out of high school or just finishing & trying to determine where to go for your undergrad degree, or in the case of St John - a freshman - PharmD degree? And do you have a time crunch? You don't really say, so I may be completely off the mark.

I'm a pharmacist and I could go on and on about my job. My husband is a dentist and I could go on and on about his choice. My daughter is in medical school and I could go on and on about her choice. However, none of that is really going to help you because you'd be making a life decision based on the evaluations, experiences and expectations of others.

If you really are young and just starting out - time is your very best friend! Give yourself time to explore & decide what you want. I could tell you about the tasks in my day or the mental decision making which goes into professional choices I make, but I'm not sure that would be helpful because so much of what makes us happy & successful professionally is the journey we went through to get to the choice we made.

Can you take an option where you pursue an educational experience at a university which gives you a broad experience in both science & liberal arts? Who knows...perhaps you'd like to do research in molecular biology or pursue a liberal arts degree and explore how language influences & affects medical education of the public.

If you want to know the excruciating detail of my day (altho no one day is typical..), PM me. Otherwise...think about taking time to learn more about who you are & the kind of interests that will engage you for a lifetime. Just my thoughts.