Pharmacy Student Oppritunities (Pseudo PhamrD/PhD)

[tackett26]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

Hi Everyone!

I just wanted to share my thoughts (both good and bad) with fellow pharmacy students (and other health professional students), and I would appreciate your feedback.

This Fall I started my first year of pharmacy school at UNC. The people I've worked with so far have been amazing. The summer before school started I was able to do research with one of the labs at the pharmacy school. In addition to the normal laboratory research my PI allowed me to continue some of the independent research I did in undergrad. I decided at that point that I wanted to look into a PharmD/PhD.

The problem is my school doesn't offer a "formal" combined program. What we have is more of a "combined-curriculum" type program. With this the PharmD classes I take will count as PhD electives and the PhD classes I take will satisfy the PharmD electives. Because my school does not allow students to enroll in two programs at the same time, I have to complete my PharmD (with PhD classes embeded in my course load), and then I do "formally apply" for the PhD and I am mainly just required to do a discertation.

As they are letting me work on independent research (which is a releated tangent) on the side in addition to the primary lab projects I would feel better if I were able to bring funding into the lab.

I am not eligible for most of the NIH fellowships as I am a PharmD student and not technically a PhD student. Furthermore many research programs prohibit Med and Pharm students from applying. The rationale behind which is that PharmDs are clinicians first and foremost.

As I also I have a deep interest in clinical aspects of my degree as well, I examined programs like the "Howard Hughes Medical Scholars Program" to find that many of them are mainly wanting medical students rather than pharmacy students.

I went to the UNC School of Medicine website to compare resources. I found out that not only do they have I combined MD/ PhD program, but they have funding sources available for students who are going after the MD alone (http://www.med.unc.edu/rschofc/omsr/).

Last week, I volunteered with some of my classmates at a free clinic last week, and was a little disturbed when the attending physician refered to the pharmacy student group as a "candy store group."

I'm starting to think that pharmacy is literally the "red-headed stepchild" of both the clinical and research world.

Have any of you had similar experiences? Is research funding available for PharmD students? What about clinical expereinces?

 

[mustang sally]

Your interest in research and clinical experiences sounds quite similar to mine. However, I don't plan on getting a PhD, at least not at this point. I think if you do get a PhD, than you will be more likely to be taken seriously as a researcher someday. Alternatively, you could do a PGY-1 and then a fellowship or PGY-1, PGY-2 and a fellowship (a lot of work, but then so is a PhD).

I don't have a lot of suggestions for funding. I know my school offers small grants (<$1,000) that PharmD students are technically eligible for; however, I believe that they prefer to offer the grants to grad students before professional students. You might want to look into small grants programs like that at your school. (I know its not like an R01 or anything, but at least its something).

It is a dream of mine to promote pharmacist involvement in biomedical and other types of research. I believe that we changed the degree but we did not change the actual career trajectory that many of us choose. As long as the public (and even other clinicians) see us as an overworked clerk in a drugstore, pharmacists will not receive much respect.

 

[ffpickle]

Well ya, pharmacy is the red-headed stepchild.

We're paid 6 figs to count pills. Of course docs are gonna hate us.

There are no PharmD/PhD programs that are fully funded like MSTP for MD/PhD if that is what you're asking...but there is some money out there...few and far between, you just have to look hard for it.

 

[bigpharmD]

Hi Everyone!

I just wanted to share my thoughts (both good and bad) with fellow pharmacy students (and other health professional students), and I would appreciate your feedback.

This Fall I started my first year of pharmacy school at UNC. The people I've worked with so far have been amazing. The summer before school started I was able to do research with one of the labs at the pharmacy school. In addition to the normal laboratory research my PI allowed me to continue some of the independent research I did in undergrad. I decided at that point that I wanted to look into a PharmD/PhD.

The problem is my school doesn't offer a "formal" combined program. What we have is more of a "combined-curriculum" type program. With this the PharmD classes I take will count as PhD electives and the PhD classes I take will satisfy the PharmD electives. Because my school does not allow students to enroll in two programs at the same time, I have to complete my PharmD (with PhD classes embeded in my course load), and then I do "formally apply" for the PhD and I am mainly just required to do a discertation.

As they are letting me work on independent research (which is a releated tangent) on the side in addition to the primary lab projects I would feel better if I were able to bring funding into the lab.

I am not eligible for most of the NIH fellowships as I am a PharmD student and not technically a PhD student. Furthermore many research programs prohibit Med and Pharm students from applying. The rationale behind which is that PharmDs are clinicians first and foremost.

As I also I have a deep interest in clinical aspects of my degree as well, I examined programs like the "Howard Hughes Medical Scholars Program" to find that many of them are mainly wanting medical students rather than pharmacy students.

I went to the UNC School of Medicine website to compare resources. I found out that not only do they have I combined MD/ PhD program, but they have funding sources available for students who are going after the MD alone (http://www.med.unc.edu/rschofc/omsr/).

Last week, I volunteered with some of my classmates at a free clinic last week, and was a little disturbed when the attending physician refered to the pharmacy student group as a "candy store group."

I'm starting to think that pharmacy is literally the "red-headed stepchild" of both the clinical and research world.

Have any of you had similar experiences? Is research funding available for PharmD students? What about clinical expereinces?

Yeah tell that to this candy store group

http://bethesdatrials.cancer.gov/investigator-profiles/default.aspx?investigatorid=148

http://www.stjude.org/stjude/v/inde...nnel=7cc71436e3218010VgnVCM1000000e2015acRCRD

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...=PharmD,+PHD&ndsp=18&hl=en&sa=N&start=36&um=1

 

[p-rog]

I am not eligible for most of the NIH fellowships as I am a PharmD student and not technically a PhD student. Furthermore many research programs prohibit Med and Pharm students from applying. The rationale behind which is that PharmDs are clinicians first and foremost.

You might want to look into this:

http://www.afpenet.org/under_research_scholar.htm#aaps_afpe

It's specifically for pharmacy students who want to do research and students who are enrolled in combined pharmD/PhD programs are ineligible.


Also did you check all the NIH fellowships here (one or more of them may be applicable to you):

http://www.nigms.nih.gov/Training/PharmD/



Don't forget, there's always the loan repayment option:

http://www.lrp.nih.gov/about_the_programs/clinical.aspx

Have any of you had similar experiences? Is research funding available for PharmD students? What about clinical expereinces?

So since you say you're interested in both the research AND clinical aspects of pharmacy, you may want to think about pursuing a more clinical research oriented training rather than a PhD. There's lots of clinical research fellowships for pharmD's out there.

 

[tackett26]

Hey thank you guys for all the replies! You are all very amazing!!