Phamarcy or Medicine?

[Pomkankai]

Hey guys,

I was given offers for MPharm program at Universities in Ireland and I have a huge decision to make in a week when I must response to the offers and pay the deposits. I am a non-EU student (Vietnam)

I'm in my last year of high school (IB) and I decided that I want to become a doctor. So I decided that the fastest route would be for me to apply to Ireland for the 5 years program through a agency. Initially, I believed that I wouldn't be getting any offers so I've also applied for pharmacy. However, last week I've gotten offers for medicine at 2 of the Irish universities where I must pay a deposit for the course (6000 euro and 26000 euro) to confirm my offer. At the same time I was also given an offer for pharmacy where I must pay a 2000 euro deposit.

Now, my family financial situation wouldn't allow me to do medicine, but they say they can try getting a bank loan. I was recommended to accept the pharmacy offer and reject the medicine one. Their reasoning for this was the fees for medicine is too high and since I have never live abroad before, they didn't know if I could cope with it. They also say that if I do pharmacy first I can still do medicine later in life as a graduate. Since I'm not an Irish citizen I don't know if after graduating from pharmacy I could find a job in Ireland or not.

My question is, is it better to get a loan and become a doctor? or study debt free and become a pharmacist, work for a period of time they apply for medicine?

Tuition is 39,000 and 52,000 euro for medicine and 18,000 for pharmacy

At this point my goal is to work for MSF sometime in my life.

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[Lucky.]

I think doing pharm now would be more responsible. You have the option to work for a few years and gain medical experience while earning a respectable wage. You can always go to med school when youre in a more stable financial situation. A lot of med students from my country are in their late 20s or even 30s and just starting out, most of them also have PhDs or Masters of Science/Engineering/Business/Pharmacy, all with research publications. So dont think it's a race to become a physician as soon as possible.