differences between Postdoc and fellowship???

[Williamlh1982]

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I have a question: what are differences between postdoc and fellowship? They look very same!Both of them are academic research and set for potential faculty.

The only diffecence in my opinion is: Fellowship is supported by pharmacy school, whereas postdoc is supported by the professor, your boss. But if I can get the payment I do not care who give me the money. So what are the difference for us? I mean how these differences will affect our academic career?

Considering there are much more openings for postdoc, is it possible for pharmD graduate to apply postdoc job? I know MD can apply postdoc for sure.

Thanks in advance. This has confused me for a long time.

 

[cdpiano27]

Hua,

A fellowship in pharmacy is used to often go into industry and as NOT academic in pharmacy. The most FAMOUS and competitive fellowship is the Rutgers Industry Fellowship. http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~ifellows/app-faq.php

If you are fortunate to be awarded this, you are basically guaranteed a path into a pharmaceutical company. Your previous research experience and varied background in China will help you greatly here.

I recommend that industry is the best route. But that is my personal opinion.
With formulation experience, you will have a much better chance as pharmaceutics/pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics is often used in industry as much as biostatistics.

The RESIDENCIES on the other hand (are often sponsored by the pharmacy school) NOVA has them, and so does Mercer. Mercer has there own fellowship with a small pharmaceutical company in Atlanta. Residencies will help you get more clinical positions in a hospital. If you are interested in the clinical side of pharmacy then go for a residency rather than a fellowship.

Postdoc is used for going into academia. You might need a PharmD/PhD if you want to teach basic science courses. But if you are interested in being a professor for the clinical side, then a good residency followed by PharmD should be enough and a PhD then would not be necessary.

It depends upon what you want to do.

 

[Williamlh1982]

looks like you are everywhere!!!
Since I got accepted into PharmD program, and you know 2 years will be a very short time, I wonder "what is next???" I have thought this for a long time.

Yes, I can be a retail pharmacist. This is what I am going to do after graduate. I need money to pay the loan. But if a retail pharmacist is not my final career choice, what can I do? So I need some information for "Back up Plan"

For residency, I think clinical pharmacist requires highly fluent oral and written English. As an international student, this is hard for me. Also in my opinion clinic residency must have strong background in medicine, or at least some of , but my knowledge is only relevent to chemical compounds and their properties. You can take a look at our curriculum. Another reason is I maybe go back to my country-China some years later, and clinical pharmacist in Chinese hospital is not so necessary and respectful as in US. The pharmacist system is not maturate in China, so a residecy will not help me if I go back. However, it is my first time to know that a residency will lead to be a professor. Could you tell me some more about it?

Considering my background, I think research could be an option. I am not sure whether Industry or Academic, but I prefer Academic. Someone told me that the jobmarket for pharma company is not good nowadays. In the past year, thousands drug researchers and development centers of drug companies has been layed off and closed. looks like industry is not so secured. Academic is much better, especially when you get tenure. Also professor have a high social reputation. The experience as a professor in US(maybe in some teaching shcool) can help me to find a academic position in China in the future. pharmaceutics/pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics is fine for me. Remember I told you before I am interested in Statistics.

This is my plan. How do you think? Since there may be some person having the same situation, I think it is good to discuss this on the forum.

 

[cdpiano27]

Hua,

The residency will not necessarily lead to a professorship. But I was thinking that a more academic, clinical residency; for example, Julie Johnson has her own clinical pharmacy fellwship/residency at UF Shands. It is also can be used as a PhD program specific to clincial pharmacy. Check out: http://www.cop.ufl.edu/departments/PP/johnson/
The head of the department at the local Walgreens Pharmacy near my parents in south Florida who works with my aunt used to tell me about her program a lot, and what a great researcher she was.

I think that going here, would expose you to pharmacogenomics, and you would have a lot of opportunity to publish. This is an example of how a fellwship/residency could lead to academia, if you have a very strong advisor who you are working under, who has a great publication record and a particularly "hot" research area.

This might be a very good option for you later, and when I considered at one time doing a PharmD (after my undergraduate in statistics) I once considered getting the PharmD from UF and coming to this research centre.

I do not know about the closings. It seemed like in my statistics department all the people who concentrated their research area on biostatistics still all found a job. Some ended up in CRO's, but they still got a job nonetheless (and only one was postdoc at University of Rochester). I am interning this summer at CRO in the local area. Some are very good, some are terrible. So I do not think the pharm research industry has dried up for the statisticians. However, there may be more demand at the smaller companies than the larger companies. The people who concnetrated their research on financial mathematics are having a hard time finding job right now. Maybe the situation is different for chemists/pharmacokineticists? As you know, management is the best area to go into. Eventually go out of research and into management if you do go the industry route. Marketing (although very unstable) and management is where the big money is. I would eventually want to start my own pharmaceutical company / CRO when I have enough knowledge and money to do it.

The retail pharmacist, as you know, is not a high-paying job in China. Hence, if you do not want to do a PhD, and want to target yourself into a faculty position, it would be good to do a residency similar to the link that I gave you, to distinguish yourself through publications. In the PharmD program, YOU WILL NOT DO ANY RESEARCH AT ALL. Especially at Nova, which is just training people to get their licnese and for the NAPLEX/FPGEE. It will be all exams. Nonetheless, see if you can find a professor to do research with over the summer. There used to be a Chinese professor, Xudong Yuan, at NOVA, but he left to go to LIU. However, I think his postdoc (Hao Jinsong) may still be there. Anyway, you can talk to Dr. Lai and see if she can set you up to do some resaerch over the summer, when you are not taking classes. BUT Only when you are NOT taking classes.

Believe me, you will have NO time except to concentrate on classes. You do not want anything to go wrong, especially when you are paying so much money. Your first priority should be the classes. Even if you think they are easy, try for the highest possible score, and not just the minimum grade. That is when you run into trouble.

The PharmD will alone will basically give you the license to get a high-paying retail job here in the USA. But that is all it will do. WIthout anything else (publications or industry experience), basically retail will be your only likely option. However, it is a real safety blanket that you cannot have if you simply did a PhD from a school of pharmacy.

 

[StarLux]

Hua,

A fellowship in pharmacy is used to often go into industry and as NOT academic in pharmacy. The most FAMOUS and competitive fellowship is the Rutgers Industry Fellowship. http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~ifellows/app-faq.php

If you are fortunate to be awarded this, you are basically guaranteed a path into a pharmaceutical company. Your previous research experience and varied background in China will help you greatly here.

I recommend that industry is the best route. But that is my personal opinion.
With formulation experience, you will have a much better chance as pharmaceutics/pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics is often used in industry as much as biostatistics.

The RESIDENCIES on the other hand (are often sponsored by the pharmacy school) NOVA has them, and so does Mercer. Mercer has there own fellowship with a small pharmaceutical company in Atlanta. Residencies will help you get more clinical positions in a hospital. If you are interested in the clinical side of pharmacy then go for a residency rather than a fellowship.

Postdoc is used for going into academia. You might need a PharmD/PhD if you want to teach basic science courses. But if you are interested in being a professor for the clinical side, then a good residency followed by PharmD should be enough and a PhD then would not be necessary.

It depends upon what you want to do.

I would beg to differ on the above opinion re: fellowship vs post doc.
It is just semantics. One can get funding from ACCP for a fellowship that is research and based at a school/dept of pharmacy and it is really ideal for those wanting to go to a uni faculty. (And it is also very very prestigious). Fellowships are not just for those wishing to enter industry. There are loads of ways to fund a fellowship or post doc, whatever you want to call it. One can get funding out of the faculty mentor's (or Principle Investigator's) grants to pay the stipend. Or from internal sources. or NIH K grants. There are many ways to fund a post doc.
It seems like in clinical world (as in post PharmD or MD) people like the term fellowship and in research world (as in post PhD) the term post doc. But they are both post terminal doctorate research training positions.
One can be involved in a strictly research/teaching career with a pharmD---just is a little harder to secure funding. Nice thing with pharmacy is that nothing is too absolute.