Pharmacists vs. Physician

[kwakster928]

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Hello,

Just wanted to chime in with my two cents based on 5 years as a hospital RN and 11 years of clinical experience total... pharmacists are an absolutely indispensable part of the collaborative health care team. My day is made or broken based on which pharmacist is working on my floor. They answer questions, offer advice, and help perform the lifesaving triple check on drug orders (MD-->RN-->PharmD) that catches SO many problems (if you think a MD has never written a dangerous drug order you are out of your mind). Everything from "Can I give this drug before dialysis" to "OK, my patient brought in this sack of mixed pills in no bottles as his home meds, can you tell me what they are," the pharmacist answers them all.

And as for those people (you know who you are) who seem to think that an MD would never dare to stoop so low as to get advice or help from a pharmacist, you are tragically mistaken and you can't realize this too soon. First off, more and more drug orders are being written, "Drug X, labs and dosing per pharmacy." Secondly, I cannot even tell you how often I'm taking telephone orders from a doc (not residents! I don't work at a teaching hospital! Attendings!) and they say "Give drug X... ummm... oh, what's the dose... ummm... can you transfer me to pharmacy?" Or, if the docs are in house, they come up to me and ask "Where's the PDR?" I show them, they sit down with it for a minute or two, then pick up the phone and call pharmacy anyway. The doctors I work with look on our pharmacists as a valuable resource, just as we nurses do.

As I recall, the original poster was wondering which field to go into. No one can really make that decision for you, but some things to consider are:

How much or how little patient contact do you desire? How much did you like organic chemistry? (I go to my pharmacists, not my docs, with my ochem questions) Does the prospect of taking a lot more chemistry classes excite you? What sort of schedule is important to you? How many years of schooling do you want?

I do work with a pharmacist who has decided to pursue medical school instead and will be taking the MCATs with me in April. He cited lack of diagnostic capability and the narrow specialized focus of the pharmacy field as his reasons.

Whatever you decide, good luck!

And thank you to all the pharmacists out there! I love you! 😍

as a future pharmacist i totally appreciate your input. 👍

 

[J Lucas]

Hello,

Just wanted to chime in with my two cents based on 5 years as a hospital RN and 11 years of clinical experience total... pharmacists are an absolutely indispensable part of the collaborative health care team. My day is made or broken based on which pharmacist is working on my floor. They answer questions, offer advice, and help perform the lifesaving triple check on drug orders (MD-->RN-->PharmD) that catches SO many problems (if you think a MD has never written a dangerous drug order you are out of your mind). Everything from "Can I give this drug before dialysis" to "OK, my patient brought in this sack of mixed pills in no bottles as his home meds, can you tell me what they are," the pharmacist answers them all.

And as for those people (you know who you are) who seem to think that an MD would never dare to stoop so low as to get advice or help from a pharmacist, you are tragically mistaken and you can't realize this too soon. First off, more and more drug orders are being written, "Drug X, labs and dosing per pharmacy." Secondly, I cannot even tell you how often I'm taking telephone orders from a doc (not residents! I don't work at a teaching hospital! Attendings!) and they say "Give drug X... ummm... oh, what's the dose... ummm... can you transfer me to pharmacy?" Or, if the docs are in house, they come up to me and ask "Where's the PDR?" I show them, they sit down with it for a minute or two, then pick up the phone and call pharmacy anyway. The doctors I work with look on our pharmacists as a valuable resource, just as we nurses do.

As I recall, the original poster was wondering which field to go into. No one can really make that decision for you, but some things to consider are:

How much or how little patient contact do you desire? How much did you like organic chemistry? (I go to my pharmacists, not my docs, with my ochem questions) Does the prospect of taking a lot more chemistry classes excite you? What sort of schedule is important to you? How many years of schooling do you want?

I do work with a pharmacist who has decided to pursue medical school instead and will be taking the MCATs with me in April. He cited lack of diagnostic capability and the narrow specialized focus of the pharmacy field as his reasons.

Whatever you decide, good luck!

And thank you to all the pharmacists out there! I love you! 😍

Great Post! 🙂
P.S. To the poster who stated Retail Pharmacist will be replaced by Midlevel practitioners.. Talk about malpractice...

 

[raekelly]

Pharmacy is a VERY different field than medicine. Pharmacy is more mathematically/physics based. According to several pharmacists (now med students) in my medical school, you have to have a better understanding of math and physics than a medical student. So, it is pure bunk to go around expressing that physicians can be pharmacists.

As for competition, in my state pharmacy is much harder to get into. The one year of physics that is required for matriculating students is CALCULUS based. Also, the students have higher BCPM and overall GPA's than the med students.

Pharmacists are very much respected by the general public. I've heard lay people speak highly of their pharmacists. During a rotation, I heard a receptionist at a doctor's office tell a patient this: "if you spoke with your pharmacist about wanting to take X amount of meds with tylenol, and she agreed to it, you don't need confirmation from the doctor. PHARMACISTS KNOW MORE ABOUT MEDS." Yes, a receptionist at a DOCTOR'S OFFICE SAID THAT. RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE FULLY AWARE PHYSICIAN. Also, a friend of mine who is not in any healthcare field does not trust doctors as far as meds go. She checks all of her prescriptions and her family members prescriptions with the pharmacist. This is because she has had bad experiences with two doctors. One, her mother's doctor prescribed something that interfered with a medical diagnosis. Two, her grandmother's doctor prescribed a medication that interefered with her other meds. These two mistakes would have been fatal if the pharmacist did not catch them.

By reading what some of you have to say about other healthcare providers, no wonder the public thinks that we med students and physicians have narcissistic personalities.

 

[roja]

To the OP-

Sadly, some of the input in this thread only illustrates why medical school screening is not 100% effective at keeping arrogant, obnoxious and stupid people out.

I think that your approach is very wise, to find out what each field is like and how the two interact (good and bad). I can't speak to what a pharm life is like, but I can say that as an MD, I am grateful that there are people out there who are DRUG EXPERT, because MD's are not.

MD's are knowledgable. We prescribe them, we learn side effects, major interactions, but we in NO WAY have the level of understanding that pharm does. Pharm students delve to a level of drug understanding that we don't in medicine.

As a med student, I loved having PharmD students. They were infinately more knowledgable about drugs than med students, residents, and depsite what some love to think here, attendings.

As a physician, your job is to diagnose and treat patients. You will never be an expert in ALL the drugs that are out there. You will also not be privy to alot of the research and a good pharmicist is.

I think the PharmD's here have given good insight into what thier job is.

The two are linked, by virtue of patients, but the careers are very different.

The MD who thinks that they dont' need a pharmicist for a consult is an MD that will end up harming thier patient.

 

[tupac_don]

Pharmacy is a VERY different field than medicine. Pharmacy is more mathematically/physics based. According to several pharmacists (now med students) in my medical school, you have to have a better understanding of math and physics than a medical student. So, it is pure bunk to go around expressing that physicians can be pharmacists.

As for competition, in my state pharmacy is much harder to get into. The one year of physics that is required for matriculating students is CALCULUS based. Also, the students have higher BCPM and overall GPA's than the med students.

Pharmacists are very much respected by the general public. I've heard lay people speak highly of their pharmacists. During a rotation, I heard a receptionist at a doctor's office tell a patient this: "if you spoke with your pharmacist about wanting to take X amount of meds with tylenol, and she agreed to it, you don't need confirmation from the doctor. PHARMACISTS KNOW MORE ABOUT MEDS." Yes, a receptionist at a DOCTOR'S OFFICE SAID THAT. RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE FULLY AWARE PHYSICIAN. Also, a friend of mine who is not in any healthcare field does not trust doctors as far as meds go. She checks all of her prescriptions and her family members prescriptions with the pharmacist. This is because she has had bad experiences with two doctors. One, her mother's doctor prescribed something that interfered with a medical diagnosis. Two, her grandmother's doctor prescribed a medication that interefered with her other meds. These two mistakes would have been fatal if the pharmacist did not catch them.

By reading what some of you have to say about other healthcare providers, no wonder the public thinks that we med students and physicians have narcissistic personalities.

You say pharmacists are better and math and chemistry? That is completely untrue. Being a pharmacist I will quickly dispell that myth. Doctors know more about physics than pharmacists do. Plus physics is a component of MCAT while it's not on the PCAT. I'll tell you what I find about pharmacists. They tend to be detail oriented, can be very picky. Don't particulalry like interacting with patients. I mean yea involved in pt care, but when you talk about touching pts or suturing or poking them with a needle, they don't want anything to do with that. Also I think pharmacists tend to like their time off and that is the reason why they went to pharmacy and not med school.

 

[DigitalFusion04]

For some of you people busting on pharmacists... most of them know the drugs and their interactions better than you ever will leaving medical school. I've worked in a pharmacy for three years and have seen a perscription every few minutes that needed to be called and checked because the doctor isn't writing the correct medicine... somtimes they even like to make up thier own dosages and strenghts and somtimes medicines that don't even exist. gotta love it when they start telling you to apply to pills to affected area instead of q4-6.

 

[amberleigh]

Who are you to say that? I hope that you will not be accepted in med school because you are very arrogant. Unprofessional, unrespectful. I would suggest you should go back to kindergarten and learn good manners and right conduct.

I would say that pharmacists definitely occupy the last rung when it comes to medical professionals. Don't try to tell me that its that hard to get into pharm school. I know people that I wouldn't trust to drive me home get into pharmacy school easily (even "good" pharm schools). I mean honestly I've seen some of that PCAT stuff and when compared to passages from the MCAT or even sections of the DAT or OAT it's really simple stuff. I'm sure that working out of a neighborhood CVS or Walgreens may seen like a prestigious occupation for many but not for me. Also, I don't buy the stress of being a pharmacist. How can anyone compare dealing with real patients to dealing with customers just like in any service occupation. If you want to fill bottles for the rest of your life and believe that you are doing something good for society than go ahead, but if you're looking to become a real professional then become a doctor.

 

[TexasSnow]

Aren't pharmacists in other countries allowed to prescribe certain drugs? So it's not impossible for pharmacists to prescribe.

 

[45408]

Who are you to say that? I hope that you will not be accepted in med school because you are very arrogant. Unprofessional, unrespectful. I would suggest you should go back to kindergarten and learn good manners and right conduct.

Psssst, we usually try to let threads like this die.

 

[drguy22]

Psssst, we usually try to let threads like this die.

lol

 

[DrMom]

closing. no bashing of other medical professions, please