You are absolutely right. We have our hands held and are told what to do and study. In true graduate programs (because Pharmacy school is not a true grad school) there are all these processes you must adhere to in order to obtain the PhD. it's not straight forward at all. Have you ever tried to write for a grant? Granted, graduate school is not the HARDEST thing to do, but in essence of education and direction pharmacy students, medical students, dental students etc have it easier because their lives are mapped out. There is no fighting to defend your thesis in professional schools or meeting with a committee every few months to be told that your project stinks and you should try it there way (and if you don't know how to kiss up you had better learn it). It just all depends!
And the funny part about it is that med students and pharmacy students look down on graduate students sometimes, simply because they think they are all "rejects" or "denial students" (there are more adjectives I have heard but I can't think of them right now) but every time a pharmacy student comes in our lab to check his or her grade I get a nice comical story from the grad students about how that pharmacy student has failed at life. In essence I get the "Pharmacy Students are stupid!" speech. It irks me to hear this, but then again it irks me to hear some of the stories. Pharmacy students are not stupid, most of them are just too uneducated in life, common courtesy and structure and are too busy making posts like this to prove whatever insignificant point they want to, instead of looking at the big picture sometimes... hint hint, nudge nudge, wink wink.... It's called humility and maturity and it seems to have been tossed out the window along with morality. If you don't want to refer to anyone but your physician as doctor then fine, do as you please, just know that your physics professor is probably more of a doctor than your "doctor"...
