MS & PhD, now PharmD or MD?

[sergiuz]

Hi to all

I write to know the opinion of some of you. As the title says, in the next few months I will finish my doctoral dissertation after finishing a master's degree a few years ago. I took the MCAT/PCAT and I was lucky to do well in both.

In these moments I do not know what career to follow. Both have positive aspects; In Medicine, I like the environment of hospitals, interaction with patients etc, but it is a very long, risky -considering step’s- and expensive career. In contrast, pharmacy is a relatively easy career, wherein four years I could have a degree and increase my chances of finding a job.

Is there someone who is or was in a similar situation where they do not know which one to choose? Any positives or negative stories? Thanks

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[SpartanWolverine]

While I applaud your interest in collecting more letters after your name, why don't you want to do something related to the Ph.D.? I would certainly not think of medicine as being "risky" because of the board exams (they're not hard to pass). In contrast, the pharmacy market does not sound to be particularly flourishing at this time with high competition, stagnating wages, too many graduates, etc.

I guess I'm biased towards medicine but if you want to spend your immediate future years in more school I would prefer it to pharmacy. I just don't click with the core job of pharmacy. But that's up to you and you may hear different opinions based on this being posted in the pharmacy forum. Two different career paths that you may need to spend more time researching.

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

Hi to all

I write to know the opinion of some of you. As the title says, in the next few months I will finish my doctoral dissertation after finishing a master's degree a few years ago. I took the MCAT/PCAT and I was lucky to do well in both.

In these moments I do not know what career to follow. Both have positive aspects; In Medicine, I like the environment of hospitals, interaction with patients etc, but it is a very long, risky -considering step’s- and expensive career. In contrast, pharmacy is a relatively easy career, wherein four years I could have a degree and increase my chances of finding a job.

Is there someone who is or was in a similar situation where they do not know which one to choose? Any positives or negative stories? Thanks

Lol.

You have a better chance of winning the lottery than being happy with Pharmacy as a career

 

[steveysmith54]

Sounds like you should get a job and figure out what you want to do, or after you finish another degree you will come back to ask podiatry or optometry...

If you have these qualifications, I have no clue why you want to go into a field with known saturation and other problems... based on your post, doesn’t seem like you know either

 

[Seriously Serious]

If you're gonna go big, go big.... MD/DO

 

[sergiuz]

While I applaud your interest in collecting more letters after your name, why don't you want to do something related to the Ph.D.

I just do not like to investigate with animals, worked several years with rodents. I would like to continue human researching without having to depend on a doctor. I can do that too with a PharmD..

 

[sergiuz]

Lol.

You have a better chance of winning the lottery than being happy with Pharmacy as a career

thank you for your honesty, but your arguments are based on?

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

thank you for your honesty, but your arguments are based on?

Based on the fact the it's neither a rewarding nor easy career.

You think you're going to use a Pharm.D. to do serious research?

 

[sergiuz]

Based on the fact the it's neither a rewarding nor easy career.

You think you're going to use a Pharm.D. to do serious research?

serious research? what the hell does that mean? I just want to do clinical research, that's all..

 

[steveysmith54]

serious research? what the hell does that mean? I just want to do clinical research, that's all..

Maybe your should explore pharmacology PhD. Only research I've done with my pharm.D. is determine if counting by 5 or by 6 is more effective. Results are pretty inconclusive unfortunately.

 

[Rouelle]

I am a PhD chemist and a PharmD. Honestly, there’s not a lot to do with the combination. I have 2 jobs (1 retail, 1 hospital) and I just dispense. Sure, I could probably get an academic job that pays less and requires me to pull out my hair trying for tenure. I could get a pharma job with my PhD and publication record, but the PharmD would be little more than a curiousity. Do it if you want to, but realize what your likely options are. I did the PhD first, worked a while, then did the PharmD. I don’t regret either, but I currently only use one of my qualifications while the other withers away.

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

serious research? what the hell does that mean? I just want to do clinical research, that's all..

I think I see why you're a PhD. Lol.

As others have stated, Pharm.D. isn't the type of doctorate you need for doing any kind of research.

You'd be much better off with an MD

 

[lord999]

You'll lose touch of your research skills either way due to the way training works. The PharmD is a bad choice considering the order (if you did PharmD then PhD, it works, but not the opposite). I'm hesitant to even recommend MD as you would be somewhere around 34-38 conservatively if you did everything right and be at least 6 years behind your research peers besides the catch-up. It's why the usual order is concurrent or sequential from the PharmD or MD rather than the opposite.

If you're wanting to do research, just do it. Human subjects research has liberalized quite a bit in terms of oversight. Unless you're doing in vivo trials specifically (in which case you'll be part of a team anyway), you can find some placebo MD or PharmD to sign the requisite forms for anything. The research world is hard and is getting harder, you need to build your lab immediately now if you want to be in place for the right career timings for the R01, the tenureship, etc...

Also, if you came from a halfway decent school in your particular subject specialty, your PhD qualifiers are definitely harder than any ABMS specialty with the possible exception of Pathology (which more or less puts the MD on solid footing for a PhD if they just so happen to go for it).