Applied to pharmacy school but would like to go down PA route one day

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CMUchicka

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Hey everyone,

So I just submitted my app for pharm school, now just waiting for interviews.. Anyhoo, the point of making this post to know your (Working PA, current students) views on my situation.

When i was in high school, i thought myself in becoming dentist one day. But as i entered college, went though some health problems which made me curious about drug interaction. From then on i started shadowing pharmacist, volunteered in hospital and work as tech. I totally see myself becoming in pharmacist. But in past few months i came across people who kept insisting how i should look into PA school. Because how pharmacy job market is bad where PA has better outlook with less debt. I have always heard about PA but never cared to look into profession. But after hearing from other it made me start question my decision on going to pharm school.

Of course PA and pharmacy are very two different profession. I know i will have to do tone of research and shadow PA to get feel of profession. But i want go that route if i dont end up going to pharmacy. The thing is that i will only have one year if i chose to apply to PA school ( incase pharmacy falls though). How can i make myself strong applicant?? As you know my experience , volunteering are in pharmacy. What kind of volunteer or experience i can add in my resume??? Also, my GPA is not so great (3.1), had worst first 2 years of college but i have improved and now in 3.4 range (college).

So how can i prepare myself if i were to go in PA school, how can i make myself competitive? I am graduating with BS in biochem in a week. And i don't want to repeat classes. Mainly because i think it hardly helps. That would be my last resort if i had to do it.

Thanks everyone!

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Hi, I am a PA and I can tell you that PA is not a fallback career. That being said, if you really want to make yourself a strong applicant, you will have to better your gpa and if that means retaking classes than youll have to do it. It does help, because if you apply to pa school with a 3.1 gpa you wont get in its almost guaranteed. Sorry to be so blunt but its the way it is. Some people have to apply 3 years in a row to get in but if its what you truly want then you can make it happen.
 
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Also, you can volunteer in the ER at the local hospital, that's what I did prior to applying to get some patient care experience
 
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there are a few (maybe 8 or so) dual pa/pharmd programs. PA-2 counts as the pharmd clinical year so you save 1 yr vs doing them separately.
 
there are a few (maybe 8 or so) dual pa/pharmd programs. PA-2 counts as the pharmd clinical year so you save 1 yr vs doing them separately.
Do you have list of them? I tried looking them up way back, only found 2: UW and U of kentucky.
 
ask in the pharmd forum. it was discussed there a while ago.
 
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