Pharmaceutical sales Ok for my year off before med school?

[asumidesu]

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Can anyone shed a little light on this? I am a post bacc and will be applying this spring for Fall 2002. However, after I take the MCAT in April, I will be done with my required coursework and I was considering getting a pharmaceutical sales job for the 14 months before school starts. I already have research experience and lots of volunteer experiences and will continue some of my volunteer stuff even if I get a job. My plan is to live really cheap that year and save as much as I can for school(I plan on attending a state school and the potential savings could really make a dent in future tuition. Will Adcoms look at this as self-serving? Do they want me to just use all of my time to volunteer during that year off. The bills are stacking up and I simply see it as a good opportunity and the way I see it, it will give me another perspective on the health care field. What do you guys think?

 

[kimberlicox]

Despite the wide-spread belief to the contrary, Ad Coms are human and DO realize that you have to buy milk and bread for the baby. As long as you are doing SOMETHING, AD Coms aren't gonna care one bit that you are actually being paid (gasp! Does the depth of your selfishness know no bounds?!

) rather than selflessly voluteering.

Obviously doing something medically related is best, but hey...you gotta eat and keep a roof over your head and it won't make a *bit* of difference to the AdComs how you do that.

[This message has been edited by kimberlicox (edited 01-17-2001).]

 

[fiatslug]

Good God, no! Earn some money while you can. You might want to consider taking some extra classes in your "off" year (biochem, Spanish, etc) that will make your application "look different" in the unfortunate event that you do not get in on your first attempt. I highly recommend biochem anyway, as it's both hard and boring in medical school (it was much more interestingly taught in undergrad, for whatever reason). Keep up with the volunteer experience!

 

[Djanaba]

One of my classmates is a former drug rep, so they do get in.

To me the bigger issue is with the ethics surrounding the 30% of total net dollars coming into the pharm industry each year that is spent buying off physicians*. You'll get a lot more flak from your future classmates than your adcoms, actually. But the money will be good, and you'll know a few drugs like the back of your hand.

(* this month's Minnesota Medicine issue is devoted to an examination of the interactions between the medical community and the pharmaceutical industry. Highly recommended.)

 

[Cobragirl]

I offer two sides to my answer...

1. Considering the heap of debt that I (and most others) am in due to this whole process, I have to agree with the above posters who say TAKE THE JOB!!!! If you can get all your present bills paid off and actually have tuition money left over, you'll be doing bit better than the rest of us!!

2. THINK about what that (pharmacutical) job will entail and whether you will have enough time to full-fill you job related duties AND deal with the admissions process (the MCAT is just the BEGINNING!!) The reason I say this is because my good friend, study-mate, and fellow applicant recently accepted a position with a well-known pharmacutical company. She went through a month of intense on-sight and off-sight (had to travel) training and is finally "learning" her routes. She spends 50-60 hours a week doing her routes and then several hours a night doing follow-up paperwork. Of course, she's being paid well, but ended-up failing to return two different secondaries because she just didn't have time to finish them before deadlines. Naturally, this has severely limited her chances of getting in this year (she only applied to 4 schools) and even if she does get an interview, she doesn't know HOW she's going to be able to get time off to go to them. In addition, if she doesn't make it in, she won't have time to study for the April MCAT and probably have a hard time preparing to apply next year. There's also the issue with the pharm company hiring you in the first place...you don't want to tell them that you're planning to go to med-school in the fall, because those companies don't want to waste their money training you if you're just going to be gone in a year...and that is where the problem begins. You take the job, you're too busy to concentrate on applications, and even if you get an interview, you're going to have a hard time finding an "excuse" to go (without losing your job).

Unfortunately, this is the reason I'm working for a "temp" agency right now. I haven't obligated myself to any one employer and I have the freedom to take off from work when I need to. The pay's not great but it's the only thing I could find that would allow me the time off without the threat of unemployment.

Good luck!

 

[wooo]

I am assuming that you probably should not tell the pharm. company what your future plans are when you interview. They probably would not like training you for a few months and let you get comfortable with the sales region, and then leave when everything gets to going smoothly.

If this is your plan, (as you stated above), I would act like I was going to be around a while, lest you might be flipping burgers for 14 months.

Only my opinion