1. What is the difference between an "Internship" and "Residency"?
2. How easy might it be for a former pharmacy tech to secure an internship position in a retail store for 1st year student.
3. How many hours a week does a 1st year, 2nd year, 3rd year, 4th year student work as an intern on average?
4. I am very confident I will get into pharm school for 07. Should I start applying for an internship position now?
5. Can you give me a rough estimate of the % of 1st year, 2nd year and 3rd year students that are interns?
1.) Already answered but i'll contribute...internship is basically so you learn how a pharmacy operates and so you get to learn how to be a pharmacist in a practice setting (i.e. counseling, confirming RXs, checking dosages, etc, depending on what your state laws are). Residency is for post-grads who want additional practice-based learning in pharmacy, usually in a hospital or specialty setting.
2.) Depends on whether you want to get paid. Some pharmacy schools make you complete your IPPE (introductory pharmacy practice experience...those 1500 hours you need in most states to take the boards) by going to a retail pharmacy for a couple hours a week and you "shadow" a pharmacist. This might be considered being an intern, but you don't get paid and from what I understand, you basically work as a tech for free to get credit thru school. Since you're working for free, who wouldn't want you? Of course, everyone wants money, bringing me to my next point...
Now, if you go to a coop school like mine, or if you work during the summer, and you want to get a 4 month paid full time internship, or perhaps just work part time while in school, this is somewhat harder, since the place actually has to pay you. For the full time internships, it really depends on the budgets. Most retail places don't mind hiring interns...if they need techs, they can use interns. Same difference. Hospitals are slightly harder to get a job at, since they usually want experience. If a hospital is non-profit, I think it's easier to get hired, since budgets aren't as big of a concern. I applied to a for-profit community hospital in my hometown, and they weren't interested because "they have an intern and they dont want to go over budget". Sends me into fits of laughter every time.
3.) My theory is that the more school you have, the less you work. My P1 year, I did roughly 20 hours a week. It usually depends on whether you have tests and whatnot...and the higher up in year you go, the harder the tests, and the more you have to study...
By the time you're at P4 and on rotations, you're basically doing 40 hours a week of learning. Doesn't really give you that much time to work.
4.) Nope.
5.) Everyone at my school is an intern. 100%. Save for the people who did internships without actually getting a license (and then getting into a deep pile of scat). Every single classmate of mine has had at least 1 pharmacy job, if not more...Whether or not you work during a school semester is another question altogheter. As far as that's concerned, the only people I know of who don't work (or work rarely, like once a month) during school are people who are really dedicated to maintaining their 4.0 or people who were born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
