I've only somewhat recently been looking into SDN and researching the poor job perspective for the field of pharmacy. I've already had all my pharmacy school interviews and am currently waiting to hear back, though one has accepted me already. I have a goal currently in mind to complete pharmacy school, try and obtain a residency, and work in a clinical setting. After seeing all the struggles on here, however, I'm beginning to reconsider pharmacy school and perhaps take a year off to try med school. My logic is that if I want a clinical setting, why not just do med school? I'm going to have to (most likely) do residency anyways if I want a clinical job. Does anyone have any advice on the matter? I know with some experience I should be able to land a med school acceptance with my current GPA. I can't see any other downfall except delaying a year. The pricing is about the same, right? I just don't see the positive of sticking with pharmacy if I'm going to be putting in as much effort as I would as a med student (or so I think). Help please!
Now anyone who knows about this, please feel free to correct me, but when comparing medical school and pharmacy curriculas and reading some forums on comparing the two, medical school appears to be harder during the 4 years of training. In medical school, you have to learn more in the basic sciences like anatomy, physiology, pathology, histology, biochemistry, microbiology, genetics, embryology, immunology, and even pharmacology. There is a block program a friend of mine is going to where they delve into every one of these subjects from the very first block. Just reading forums on the internet, people who know people in both programs tend to say medical school is harder than pharmacy school.
I'm not convinced that you can just go through medical school+residency in 7+years and its just smooth sailing from there as though that was the end of the story. First of all, with all the stories of prescription drug abuse and depression that I hear about in medical school, I think there is probably usually some lasting if often only subtle, damage done to many if not most people that go through the rigor of medical school. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is, unfortunately, not scientifically correct. Pharmacy school may make you sacrifice a bit of yourself the same way, but probably less based on what I've said earlier about it likely being easier. Also, once you graduate, medical jobs have a lot of issues with insurance companies and malpractice insurance, which only add stress to the job. While the pharmacy job market is saturated in many areas (NOT everywhere), medical school reimbursements are also an issue and for many fields there is talk on the medical forums about them going down (primarily government insurance).
Also, you don't have to do residency and if you do - which appears to the case here - its only 1-2 years.
And if you're from California, pharmacy school is especially easier to get into than medical school at the moment due to the new schools opening up (while the two new UC medical schools have opened up, they've only been taking in low "charter" numbers of students), which basically means you're less likely to be forced out of the state to pursue your career.
I actually still am deciding between medical school and pharmacy school, too. But with medical school, I will be forced out of state when I want to be near to family and then there's longer and apparently harder education. Too much sacrifice for me in this stage of my life and in the state I am in.
