Academic Pharmacist?

[alswl]

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Hi,
This question might be inappropriate for pre-pharmacy forum but as a pre-pharmacy student searching through different practice areas of the pharmacists, I found academic pharmacist to be quite interesting and have couple of questions regarding it.

How does academic pharmacist get to teach just with Pharm.D., not possessing a Ph.D. or anything else?
What is a typical pathway that an academic pharmacist takes?
How does the role of academic pharmacist in patient care, teaching and research connect to each other.. I guess I'm asking how does patient care and teaching relate to each other?

Please give me help if you know at least a little bit about those questions.
Thank you so much for your help,

 

[omnione]

During your rotations year, you can take an academic rotation to explore teaching in a pharmacy school environment. I don't know how the research component works as I wonder if a PhD is necessary for the hardcore research.

There are many PharmD-only professors at my school, so I would suspect that a PharmD is sufficient to teach.

 

[JerryPharmD]

PharmD's in academia usually need to do a residency, can only teach pharmacy practice without a PhD, and make about 20%-30% less than retail (starting out).

 

[sdn1977]

You can easily see the faculty at UCSF, for example. There are only three departments in the school of pharmacy: biopharmaceutical science, clinical pharmacy and pharmaceutical chemistry. There are Pharm D's teaching in each dept, altho more in Clinical Pharmacy than in the other two.

Now....your question of how does patient care and teaching relate to each other? First, someone has to teach you how to do patient care. Altho a PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry can & does do lots of teaching and research - they don't know so much about what a pharmacist does in any particular role (see the comment someone made in another thread about the negative comments he received when accepted to pharmacy school). So...someone has to teach you this - these are PharmDs (or can actually be BS pharmacists as well, depending on their age!).

Being a pharmacist has a huge teaching component, even if you decide not to become an academic. You must instruct patients, prescribers & nurses all the time. The manner in which you do this reflects your confidence, your knowledge & your ability to interact with people.

If you want to become a professor in a school of pharmacy, you'll need to do a residency in SOMETHING. It can be whatever you like - after all - teaching oncology is different than teaching ambulatory care. My experience teaching is I was paid commensurate with what pharmacists make "outside" of academics - otherwise...they'd never get anyone to move to my area.

Good luck!

 

[cdpiano27]

If you want academia, then you should go to a school where the curriculum is more geared toward basic science.

Immediately to mind is UCSD and UCSF. I still think that gross anatomy and more advanced biochemistry should be required for all PharmD. I think that there should be more "theoretical" courses in all programs. And people should know the science behind what they are studying not just the practical application.

I still think that the PHarmD curriculums in most schools should beef up more on the basic sciences a lot more than they do.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

I think that there should be more "theoretical" courses in all programs. And people should know the science behind what they are studying not just the practical application.

There are schools that just teach what you actually need to know? That would be handy.

None of the local school around me are like this, sadly. But then again, I'm over here on the superior side of the country. 😉 What, do some of the Cali schools not have biochem and pharmacology courses all of a sudden?

 

[bananaface]

I know a BS Pharm in academia. He never did a residency, but had 20+ years practice expereince and a few years of teaching pharm courses at a CC before he began teaching full time at a university. He is stuck as an associate professor, though, due to lack of pedigree.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

We have a BS pharm teaching at WVU. He teaches compounding runs the experiential lab. One of the best teachers in the school, IMO. Great lecturer.