How bad is it?

[PharmGirl214]

I'm seriously considering med school vs. pharm school and am trying to get to as many details as possible. I have a general idea of how the third year for med students go, and it sounds like a low point for most people. I was wondering.. When you are doing rotations, how long do you usually stay at the hospital/clinic each day? Is it a set time, or are you just stuck there for as long as they want? Sorry if this is a dumb questions, thanks.

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[mountainman123]

It depends on the rotation that you are doing. You can expect to spend around 80 hours/week during surgery and OB/Gyn rotations and around 40/week during FP or Psych. I don't think that it is a low point. I am looking forward to not sitting in a classroom all day or studying for boards 12 hours/day. I think that third and fourth year are the high point of med school. They may be tough and draining but you get to apply everything you have learned and learn so much more. You begin to take care of patients and help in their care.

 

[ESPNdeportes]

It's not a dumb question at all.

The time commitment does increase in your third year compared to the first two years, just because you do work longer hours. However, I think the bigger adjustment comes from the fact that for a lot of people its the first time where "your time is not your own." Lots of first and second years do not attend class, and their schedule is very flexible, even though they are spending lots of time studying. You can make your schedule what you want it to be. I found it very easy to find time to work out, see friends, watch the big game, go on weekend trips, etc.

In your third year, however, it depends on: 1. What rotation you are on and 2. Your team

For example, if you are on an outpatient rotation, you may be on a 9-5 M-F schedule with some classes intermixed. A pretty easy schedule. Some people I know had to work longer hours that that on outpatient rotations with weekends. Just depends on what their preceptor wanted.

For your inpatient rotations, there can be a large variability. My surgery rotation was thankfully only 6 weeks, but the hours typically were 5 AM-7PM with call every 4th night working a 36 hour shift (for example, 5 AM Tuesday until 5 pm Wednesday) and at work the next day at 5 AM. On my psych rotations, hours were typically 8 AM-12 then had class for a few hours and no overnight call. My OB/GYN rotation was 7-5 with overnight call every 4th night until around noon the next day. Medicine and Peds similar to OB/GYN in terms of hours. And again, a lot of your hours will depend on your team and how busy your service is. I had a friend who was on GYN oncology and for whatever reason their service had very few patients, and if there were no surgeries that day, he would be done by 10 AM.

But the bottom line is that if you go to med school you should expect to work very hard and have to work during times you don't want to (like say, the NCAA tournament!). I can't speak for pharmacy school hours.

As for 3rd year being a low point, that can happen at times to some people. You learn so much during your first two years, but its a difficult transition to learn how to actually apply your knowledge. 3rd year can be a time when lots of people feel humiliated and intimidated. But IMO, its just part of the learning process.

Hope that helps and good luck with your decision.

 

[avhart]

I also agree that I disagree with you that 3rd yr is a low point. I think it's fantastic...you get to actually take care of patients, which is the point of going to med school in the first place. I think that your specific questions aren't dumb, but they are somewhat inconsequential in the decision making process of med v. pharm school. You are at the mercy of your residents/attendings, you will work long hours (although probably consistently longer during residency), you will work hard, you will lose sleep, you will have some bad days. But the field of medicine is so varied that you shouldn't (can't) choose for or against the career of medicine because of how people tell you the hours are third year. I'm having the time of my life this year, even when I work crazy hours, but everyone around me talks about how this year has flown by for us--the amount of learning you do in third year is incredible. But more incredible is being actively involved in the care of patients, which is why I'm here in the first place. I guess my point is third year is such a small part of the process, not as bad as people say, and there are much larger factors that should go into the decision. Best of luck!

 

[PharmGirl214]

Wow, thanks so much!

 

[LurkNoMore]

First off, where are you in your educational process?? are you already in pharm school?? Secondly, I personally have not really enjoyed third year all that much, and I am having a hard time finding a field that I truly want to go in to (other than the front-runner, anesthesia), although many of my classmates have loved almost all of it and feel really good about their chosen fields.
The hours in pharmacy school are much better, allowing you time to work in community pharmacy and actually get paid for your work (my wife is in her 3rd year of pharmacy school currently, getting 14 an hour working as an intern). Fourth year will be a bit more hectic, doing rotations 9 months out of the year, most with similar hours to the inpatient rotations mentioned for us med students (although I'm unsure about call). Pharm is currently a good deal if you want to work in the community, making 110-130K working around 40 hours a week, or you can do a residency and train in a specialized clinical area and work with doctors in a hospital/clinical setting. Ultimately, it will really come down to what you like more, and what is more important to you. I think pharmacy is a good career to choose if one is interested in it and in having a family b/c it is very accepting to women having babies and the hours aren't as bad. This said, being a community pharmacist is not the same as being a doctor, so if in the end you really want to be an MD there is no way you could ever really sit down and decide to go to pharmacy school.
p.s. Residency, in almost every case, is far worse (especially with respect to hours) than the MS3 year, and it lasts much longer, another thing to consider if you are really concerned about that!

 

[PharmGirl214]

First off, where are you in your educational process?? are you already in pharm school?? Secondly, I personally have not really enjoyed third year all that much, and I am having a hard time finding a field that I truly want to go in to (other than the front-runner, anesthesia), although many of my classmates have loved almost all of it and feel really good about their chosen fields.
The hours in pharmacy school are much better, allowing you time to work in community pharmacy and actually get paid for your work (my wife is in her 3rd year of pharmacy school currently, getting 14 an hour working as an intern). Fourth year will be a bit more hectic, doing rotations 9 months out of the year, most with similar hours to the inpatient rotations mentioned for us med students (although I'm unsure about call). Pharm is currently a good deal if you want to work in the community, making 110-130K working around 40 hours a week, or you can do a residency and train in a specialized clinical area and work with doctors in a hospital/clinical setting. Ultimately, it will really come down to what you like more, and what is more important to you. I think pharmacy is a good career to choose if one is interested in it and in having a family b/c it is very accepting to women having babies and the hours aren't as bad. This said, being a community pharmacist is not the same as being a doctor, so if in the end you really want to be an MD there is no way you could ever really sit down and decide to go to pharmacy school.
p.s. Residency, in almost every case, is far worse (especially with respect to hours) than the MS3 year, and it lasts much longer, another thing to consider if you are really concerned about that!

I'm finishing up my undergraduate sophomore year. Next year is when I'll start applying, so I have a bit more time.

 

[LurkNoMore]

but use this summer to get some shadowing experience (clinical/communty pharm, medical fields you may be interested in) and see what the fields look like when you are actually there. These should give you direction and will also show that you have had an interest in the field when you discuss these experiences at an interview

 

[Brickhouse]

The annoying part about third year is, as someone else said, your time is no longer your own and all those days where I skipped class to go home and sleep are gone. Now it's like a regular job, with oboxiously early mornings. And 4 weeks of vacation, which is actually better than most jobs. But I have had the highest and lowest moments of med school this year, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

 

[NDESTRUKT]

Stay in pharmacy if:

1. you want to be able to have a nice easy job that makes good money when you get out - retail pharmacy.
2. you don't want to spend time analyzing difficult problems and just want to be a distributor or a middle person in health care - retail pharmacy.
3. or if you want to be somewhat involved in patient care but not totally responsible - clinical pharmacy.

Pharmacy is a great job. In fact, I think it's the best job there is as far as "a job" goes. But for most of us (at least me), medicine is not just my job, it's a passion of mine. For me, it's my life calling so I don't see it as a job. I would not be happy doing just pharmacy because:

1. The autonomy is low - you can make great recommendations and be a great consultant but ultimately if the physician doesn't want to do what you suggest, it won't get done.
2. You go to school learning detailed facts and analysis techniques, only to not even use them during your real job (how many retail pharmacists actually calculate loading doses and drug levels in a patient?)
3. When you are a consultant in a hospital, chances are, you'll be asked to do math calculations and not really interacting with a patient. The times that I as a med student consulted a pharmacist because of questions? none. Everytime I had a question, I just simply looked it up online or calculated the pharmacokinetics by myself using the equations learned in simple pharmacology. That being said, many physicians are too busy to look things up or calculate things themself so they ask for help, which pharmacists have been great and happy to do.

Bottom line: Pharmacy is a good job. It gives you the money you need to enjoy life and the time you need to enjoy life. It gives you flexibility and control over many important aspects. However, it's not enough for me. Regardless of how touchy feely Walgreens commercials are about pharmacists playing a "deep emotional role" in patient care, fact is, they're not as intimately involved in someone's life - which to many people isn't a big deal. To me it is, which is why rads and path was ruled out for me as well.

Hope that helps. Either choice you make will result in a great future.

 

[V05]

You should shadow physicians and pharmacists to see which career you will enjoy the most, with consideration to job satisfaction, reimbursement, and time committment (schooling).

Third year medical school should not factor into your decision. In most well-paid positions, there is a rite of passage. In medicine, it is probably your internship and residency (3rd year medical school is not really that bad). In the business world, to be a well-paid investment banker, for example, you need to pay your dues as a junior analyst first. You cannot expect to be rewarded without putting in some hard work.

I disagree that retail pharmacy is an easy job. Contrary to what most people believe, you do not merely put pills in the bottle once your get the prescription. You need to deal with insurance companies, difficult customers, poor hand writings, as well as some disrespectful physicians.

Lastly, just as there are many specialties in medicine, there are different fields for pharmacy as well. For example, you can be a compounding pharmacist (make up medicines that are not available commercially or are not stable long term). As a oncology pharamacist, you will be an expert on oncology medications and protocols and both doctors and patients will rely on your heavily for treatment decisions.

Ok, this answer is getting too long- find mentors to shadow and then make an informed decision.

 

[AmoryBlaine]

Assuming you are equally interested in pharmacy and medicine I think it's like the difference between type-A and type-B personalities...

Med (A) - higher highs (direct patient care, $$$). lower lows (call, humiliation)

Pharm (B) - more steady

As a slight aside, we had a pharmacist on one of my teams. It was awesome.

 

[Randseed957]

I'm seriously considering med school vs. pharm school and am trying to get to as many details as possible. I have a general idea of how the third year for med students go, and it sounds like a low point for most people. I was wondering.. When you are doing rotations, how long do you usually stay at the hospital/clinic each day? Is it a set time, or are you just stuck there for as long as they want? Sorry if this is a dumb questions, thanks.

As a 4th year med student getting ready to graduate, I personally think that the last two years of medical school are hell, and needlessly so. This is basically my experience during the clinical years:

This is basically third year:
Surgery: Come in at 4AM, do a bunch of paperwork, preround on patients (without the ability to do anything about any problems found), round on patients with the team, go to clinic or the OR for the rest of the day, get out at about 6PM or so, except for every third or fourth night (depending) when you have ER trauma call. Those nights, you leave at 6PM and go to the ER and hang out for trauma and random surgical things (e.g., abscess drainage) that comes in, again without the ability to really do anything. Then at 6AM, go back over to the first clinical rotation site, pre-round on your patients (uselessly again), round with the attending, and maybe if you're lucky go home at 12PM. Then you get to drive 20 miles in lunch-hour traffic when you've been up for 30-something hours (for no reason, and little educational value to show for that schedule) and try not to run a school bus off the road or end up in a ditch. Then you get home, sleep, and get to get up at 4AM and do it again. This goes on for three months.

Medicine: Better. I rotated at a military hospital, so there was (ironically) much less bull**** than in the civilian world. Write notes, etc., the residents cosign them, take admits, etc. Occasional call which has little purpose because, again, you can't do anything. (So again, little educational value to the schedule) but it isn't that painful.

Pediatrics: Similar to medicine.

OB/GYN: Get up in the morning at 4AM to be there at 5AM or 5:20AM. Realize that there are 20 medical students required to be there and only 11 patients. If you didn't get a patient, go back home 20 miles. If you did, write a note (which nobody reads), present to the OB resident (who doesn't care), and then go home or to clinic or whatever. Every fourth night you get call in OB/GYN, where you do absolutely nothing but have to at least look like you're learning something. If the patients even speak English so you can communicate with them, do an H&P, write it up, go over to the intern who doesn't care, follow the intern over to the patient and stand around while they do another H&P, and then the patient looks at you like you're a complete tool. On days when you're at the OB/GYN inpatient side, the "call experience" is what you deal with all day, plus when you have the call. Then every Tuesday, post call or not, you have to go to some lecture given by the course director. Then two days a week, post call or not, go to some afternoon lecture. As a result, many times you're getting up at 4AM to get there at 5AM, spend all day in the hospital, spend all night on call where you can't do anything, then go try to get home without crashing into something, only to have to get up four hours later to get to a lecture, then an hour later drive back through afternoon traffic without crashing into anything to get home to sleep, only to get up at 4AM the next morning.

Family Practice: Outpatient. Not bad.

Psych: Not bad.

Then you move on to fourth year. Fourth year consists mainly of elective rotations. Meanwhile, the university has decided that students can't write in charts, so you can't write orders (yes, even cosigned), can't write progress notes (yes, even cosigned), can't write transfer or discharge summaries (yes, even cosigned), and after morning rounds spend most of your time twiddling your thumbs doing absolutely nothing while trying to make it look like you're doing something. Then some attending from another service barrels into the ICU, screams at your residents, calls them idiots, says that the two military residents need to "be sent to Iraq," and barge out, still bitching to anyone who will listen on her way out. Meanwhile, you're blowing money to go to a mandatory (by State Boards) to go to residency interviews, and having to take time off your rotations to do so, only to catch hell from the course directors when you get back who threaten to fail you, even though the attendings AND FREAKING PROGRAM DIRECTOR knew about it.

Meanwhile through all this, you deal with nurses who treat you like you have the IQ of an aplesia. However, much like an aplesia, you soon learn to withdraw from noxious stimulus. That is when you're not so sleep-deprived that you have problems consolidating memories.

Then you graduate. Then July 1st, under cloak of darkness, some magic fairy comes by and sprinkles the Magic Fairy Dust of Enlightenment over your cranium, and suddenly you're supposed to do all this stuff that you've obviously been WAY to freaking stupid to do for the past year or so even with appropriate supervision, and work 80 hour weeks with q4 call for what amounts to about $10.20/hr., having moved across the country and realizing that for the last four years your social life has been nonexistant and it isn't going to get any better for at least the next three, at which point you'll be in your thirties.

Then magically, three or so years later, the magic fairy again pays you a visit, sprinkles the Magic Fairy Dust of Enlightenment Step 2 over your cranium again, and suddenly you're hired as an attending and are expected to be the All-Seeing, All-Knowing Maha-Attending, always reserving the right to call everyone else idiots when you **** up.

So that's medical school, in a nutshell. Pharmacy school is probably preferable. So no, I'm not sorry that I did it. I like having the education, and I will (eventually) be doing what I went into this profession to do without (as much) utter bull****. Can I in good conscience recommend medical school, such as to a kid I might someday have? Hell no. They can go get a Ph.D.

 

[ESPNdeportes]

As a 4th year med student getting ready to graduate, I personally think that the last two years of medical school are hell, and needlessly so. This is basically my experience during the clinical years:

This is basically third year:
Surgery: Come in at 4AM, do a bunch of paperwork, preround on patients (without the ability to do anything about any problems found), round on patients with the team, go to clinic or the OR for the rest of the day, get out at about 6PM or so, except for every third or fourth night (depending) when you have ER trauma call. Those nights, you leave at 6PM and go to the ER and hang out for trauma and random surgical things (e.g., abscess drainage) that comes in, again without the ability to really do anything. Then at 6AM, go back over to the first clinical rotation site, pre-round on your patients (uselessly again), round with the attending, and maybe if you're lucky go home at 12PM. Then you get to drive 20 miles in lunch-hour traffic when you've been up for 30-something hours (for no reason, and little educational value to show for that schedule) and try not to run a school bus off the road or end up in a ditch. Then you get home, sleep, and get to get up at 4AM and do it again. This goes on for three months.

Medicine: Better. I rotated at a military hospital, so there was (ironically) much less bull**** than in the civilian world. Write notes, etc., the residents cosign them, take admits, etc. Occasional call which has little purpose because, again, you can't do anything. (So again, little educational value to the schedule) but it isn't that painful.

Pediatrics: Similar to medicine.

OB/GYN: Get up in the morning at 4AM to be there at 5AM or 5:20AM. Realize that there are 20 medical students required to be there and only 11 patients. If you didn't get a patient, go back home 20 miles. If you did, write a note (which nobody reads), present to the OB resident (who doesn't care), and then go home or to clinic or whatever. Every fourth night you get call in OB/GYN, where you do absolutely nothing but have to at least look like you're learning something. If the patients even speak English so you can communicate with them, do an H&P, write it up, go over to the intern who doesn't care, follow the intern over to the patient and stand around while they do another H&P, and then the patient looks at you like you're a complete tool. On days when you're at the OB/GYN inpatient side, the "call experience" is what you deal with all day, plus when you have the call. Then every Tuesday, post call or not, you have to go to some lecture given by the course director. Then two days a week, post call or not, go to some afternoon lecture. As a result, many times you're getting up at 4AM to get there at 5AM, spend all day in the hospital, spend all night on call where you can't do anything, then go try to get home without crashing into something, only to have to get up four hours later to get to a lecture, then an hour later drive back through afternoon traffic without crashing into anything to get home to sleep, only to get up at 4AM the next morning.

Family Practice: Outpatient. Not bad.

Psych: Not bad.

Then you move on to fourth year. Fourth year consists mainly of elective rotations. Meanwhile, the university has decided that students can't write in charts, so you can't write orders (yes, even cosigned), can't write progress notes (yes, even cosigned), can't write transfer or discharge summaries (yes, even cosigned), and after morning rounds spend most of your time twiddling your thumbs doing absolutely nothing while trying to make it look like you're doing something. Then some attending from another service barrels into the ICU, screams at your residents, calls them idiots, says that the two military residents need to "be sent to Iraq," and barge out, still bitching to anyone who will listen on her way out. Meanwhile, you're blowing money to go to a mandatory (by State Boards) to go to residency interviews, and having to take time off your rotations to do so, only to catch hell from the course directors when you get back who threaten to fail you, even though the attendings AND FREAKING PROGRAM DIRECTOR knew about it.

Meanwhile through all this, you deal with nurses who treat you like you have the IQ of an aplesia. However, much like an aplesia, you soon learn to withdraw from noxious stimulus. That is when you're not so sleep-deprived that you have problems consolidating memories.

Then you graduate. Then July 1st, under cloak of darkness, some magic fairy comes by and sprinkles the Magic Fairy Dust of Enlightenment over your cranium, and suddenly you're supposed to do all this stuff that you've obviously been WAY to freaking stupid to do for the past year or so even with appropriate supervision, and work 80 hour weeks with q4 call for what amounts to about $10.20/hr., having moved across the country and realizing that for the last four years your social life has been nonexistant and it isn't going to get any better for at least the next three, at which point you'll be in your thirties.

Then magically, three or so years later, the magic fairy again pays you a visit, sprinkles the Magic Fairy Dust of Enlightenment Step 2 over your cranium again, and suddenly you're hired as an attending and are expected to be the All-Seeing, All-Knowing Maha-Attending, always reserving the right to call everyone else idiots when you **** up.

So that's medical school, in a nutshell. Pharmacy school is probably preferable. So no, I'm not sorry that I did it. I like having the education, and I will (eventually) be doing what I went into this profession to do without (as much) utter bull****. Can I in good conscience recommend medical school, such as to a kid I might someday have? Hell no. They can go get a Ph.D.

So what did you match into if you hated everything?