rxprincess said:
Okay so I know this question has been mentioned in a few other threads and I did read over what was said in the faq's section, but I wanted some more clarification. Is a residency basically to specialize in an area of pharmacy? Are most residencies a year long or is it longer? From what I've read, a fellowship is all about research, right? And these are typically no less than 2 years long.
I'll be starting pharmacy school this upcoming year and I wanted to get a head start on exploring what I might want to do when I graduate. After working in retail for over a year, I know for a fact that is one area of pharmacy I will not be doing. I was interested in doing drug development research. I know a fellowship is must for doing that sort of work. I was just wondering what kinds of jobs do PharmD's get after finishing a fellowship? If they happen to work for a pharmaceutical company, what is the average salary? Also, how competitive is it to get a fellowship after graduating from pharmacy school? How do you go about evaluating what fellowship programs are good or better over another program?
Any feedback or insight would be great! I know the retail side of pharmacy but am very unfamiliar with the research side.
Thanks in advance!
The purpose of the residency (general or specialized) is to further develop you expertise as a clinician. The PGY1 is a more broader focus and the PGY2 has evolved into specialty practice now w/ the ultimate goal of having all pharmacists w/ a composite skills from a PGY1 (i.e. kinetics, anticoag,formulary management, etc) in addition to others who have also further developed their skills to specialize in a particular field (i.e. psych, neuro, critical care, cardiovascular, etc).
A fellowship is meant to develop the skills of the individual as a researcher. Typcally they market the capacity of developing you into a skill set necessary to be a principal investigator. Slightly overembelished, but it is possible (in particularly for those interested in kinetics/drug development). If this is your goal (i.e. to become a PI w/ competitive funding/granstmanship w/ little clinical involvement) then you would be best suited pursuing a PharmD/PhD program (in particular one of the clinical science PhD tracks so more of your credits as a pharmacist count towards the PhD). Basically I always use the example of how many hours a week you want to spend completing a particular task. If you want to go w/ >/=70% of your time doing research than I'd go w/ the PhD. Academia typically doesn't offer 50/50 or even 60/40 splits b/w research/clinical or vice versa so you will have to choose a focus and sacrifice some of the other (industry will expect the same type of time committment). Keep in mind that if you go the fellowship route and your hope is to primarily do research than you may likely need the same amount of time in fellowship training to gain a necessary skill set (i.e. >/= 4yrs) which is why many fellowships consider 2yrs as a minimum. There are some fellowships that you can get straight out of pharmacy school, but these are mostly outcomes relates fellowships (see
www.ispor.org) as they typically build upon a skill set already familiar to pharmacists in a clinical setting (i.e. drug regimen reviews and applying statistical methods for analysis).
Most other type of fellowships that may focus more on bench work capabilities will want to see some previous lab experience and/or skill set (i.e. lab techniquies) applicable to you area. Otherwise the PhD route gives you time to develop that skill set over the 1st 2 yrs and you have the remaing 2-3yrs to continue development and apply your work.
Most PharmDs in industry are doing post marketing surveillance/ADR monitoring and/or med science liaisons educating drug reps and other clinicians (these PharmDs often have residency + fellowship training or just residency training w/ yrs of clinical practice) . There are nonetheless many who do kinetics bench research or also assist w/ clinical trial development, but for both typically they have to validate such experience previously in an academic medical center over several yrs. For all of the above the typical salary is >100k (Range 100k-~150k) w/ good room for growth. Keep in mind that those who are doing bench work typically took several yrs to perfect their craft prior to coming to industry so the theory remains if that is what you primarily want to do then the PharmD/PhD may be the ideal route.
Typically the fellowship is reserved for the "late-bloomer" population who discovers their research interests during residency training as opposed to before pharmacy school so going back for the PhD has some obvious barriers. TYpically those w/ advance clinical training w/ research interests either transform themselves into primarily researchers w/ little clinical practice (typically takes 2-4 yrs of fellowship training and mentorship afterwards) or just get enough fellowship training to do smaller scale projects/funding w/ clinical duties as their primary focus (this group would just do the fellowship for 2yrs and be done or may take the option of finding an academic facility willing to mentor their interests as a fulltime pd employee).
Competitiveness for fellowship varies but most are competitive. The best way to get your foot in the door is by working w/ faculty who have similar research interests, shooting for research based internships in the summer time, and a lot of networking.
Please see
www.accp.com for list of fellowships and definitions for residencies and fellowships. The best way to evaluate the programs of anything is to check w/ graduates (what they did and where are they now). As far as the director for the program, look up publications (how many times are they first author or last author; look up grant funding if possible if CV is online).
Ideally whichever decision you make you want to go someplace that you are comfortable and also has lots of resources and other people w/ similar interests to further nurture your development.
I hope this helps and good luck.
