Masters in Pharmacoeconomics after PharmD?

[Oink]

Hi everyone. I was wondering if anyone can give me some input about getting an MS in Pharmacoeconomics after getting my PharmD. I am not planning to apply for residency or fellowship, but I want to find ways to give myself more opportunities for other jobs other than retail. I liked the pharmacoeconomics class that I had during pharmacy school. I heard the field of pharmacoeconomics is very math driven, which is probably why I liked that class because I really like math.

Will it still be hard to find a job in this field after getting a masters degree? My pharmacy school offers a masters program in pharmacoeconomics and I want to see what other people's inputs are before I ask my school for more information about their masters program.

Thanks!

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[zelman]

I got one. It's a waste of time unless you already have an entry level position in a company you want to work for.


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[Oink]

I got one. It's a waste of time unless you already have an entry level position in a company you want to work for.


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Did you end up doing anything with your masters degree? Why would the masters degree be a waste of time.

 

[zelman]

Did you end up doing anything with your masters degree? Why would the masters degree be a waste of time.

Nope.

It will only help you get an entry level position, which you could probably get without it.

 

[Oink]

Is there anyone else who got this degree or have any advice about taking this route

 

[lord999]

The MS/MPH Pharmacoeconomics is as useful to a pharmacist as having an undergraduate marketing degree for most everyone else. The MS is not a terminal degree, and you would not have any major competitive advantage against a fairly large stable of PhDs (and even PharmD/PhDs) in the business unless you had personal advantages that it wouldn't have mattered if you had the degree (have specific company insider ties, physically attractive etc.). Having gone the full route, the MS is not a good use of time unless you were going for the PhD OR your company or residency basically sponsored you to get this as a credential and you didn't feel that the MBA or MPH were a better use of time (which either of those almost always are if gaining an entry job was the goal).

(On the other hand, I'm also almost always against a PharmD getting an MBA immediately within school unless entrepreneurship is their certain goal. If it's a corporate setting, you need a couple of years of work seasoning before a day MBA does any competitive good for you. And also, being an RxM for chain retail lets you take those lessons in ownership on someone else's company dime to work out the inexperience. Pharmacy is no exception to the BBA's that time in work is really needed to have context for the MBA lessons.)

Unless it's a for profit school or USC (which has extremely strong industry ties), it's unlikely the admissions process allows for only an MS. If you are at USC, you should check out their alumni pages and note that most get entry level but are stalled there as their training doesn't permit them higher work. For some, that's ok, for others, it's a frustration.

 

[Oink]

So what if I went for a PhD? Throughout pharmacy school, the only subjects that I was good at were pharmacokinetics, pharmacoeconomics, and (for some reason) oncology. I wanted to do a residency because I wanted to teach, but I doubt I'll be able to get a residency. Pharmacoeconomics and pharmacokinetics were the only two classes I liked, and I don't mind spending a few more years on a subject that I enjoy. I just don't really know much about the PhD route and what the future looks like for a PharmD/PhD.

 

[lord999]

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~azuma/hitch4.html

This was the same piece I read before I decided to apply. You absolutely NEED a positive reason for doing any sort of graduate study, mainly because the $ isn't worth it to go for graduate school unless it is for the sorts of jobs or pursuits that the PhD is the union card for: teaching (which I can say doesn't pay), industry work (which I can say does pay but is inherently unstable), government (Apt Quote: "The civil service pretends to pay about the amount we pretend to work"). Don't do it as a "I don't know what to do" kind of pursuit. I would easily say that pursuit costed me between $400k and $600k in lost earning potential. I actually made it back, but that is the exception and that was not my intention in the first place. There's a longer talk involved if you are interested, and it has to do with the classical graduate programs that are considered good at training (Wisc and UMN are well-known for faculty and "leadership" training in all the programs, Purdue, Rutgers, UNC, and Michigan are well-regarded industrial pharmacy programs; Texas, Kansas, Florida, and Pitt have excellent med chem, etc., etc....).

Also, the math backgrounds needed for graduate pharmacokinetics/pharmacometrics is almost certainly now at the Partial Differential level and preferably with a class in numerical methods (far higher than the Pharmacy school prerequisites). Preferable background with some class in Physical Chemistry. Recommend that you go to the library and pick up the Bonate or the Gabrielsson or the Ette book to see what you're dealing with.

The math background for pharmacoeconomics/HTA/outcomes can be less, but the statistics is a bit more exacting. Depending on matters, the Mickey major version only needs calculus and the ultra hardcore version needs Real Analysis and Measure Theory to take on Shao's Mathematical Statistics. Programs are migrating more to the hardcore version as the methods competition with FDA keeps getting more heated. The Piantadosi Clinical Trials and the Shao Mathematical Statistics is probably what you want to look at for a sense of where you ought to be at the end of the training for the advanced. There's not really a great Health Econ textbook at the moment, the Handbooks are generally used. The readings for this class are credible and are more likely in the majors class rather than a textbook:
https://canvas.uw.edu/courses/949881

Try lecture 2A's reading for a background on basically what you end up dealing with in the pharmacoecon/HTA program.

The reason why I talk about the math backgrounds is that it is usually that which would limit or preclude taking any of the really fun classes and puts a clear ceiling on what is possible to accomplish in 3-4 years.