State vs. Private?????

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hotpocket

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I am currently attending a private school and from what I have been hearing, there is a vast difference between state and private schools. I am just curious about what everyone thinks about this. If you are currently a student at a state school, please I want to hear from you. I want to know what your school schedule is like, when you do rotations, and what your assessments are like.
 
hotpocket said:
I am currently attending a private school and from what I have been hearing, there is a vast difference between state and private schools. I am just curious about what everyone thinks about this. If you are currently a student at a state school, please I want to hear from you. I want to know what your school schedule is like, when you do rotations, and what your assessments are like.
Click to expand...

The difference is cost - and an occasional quota or two... that is it. Once you remove those two - the differences between private and public is no more than that of any two programs (regardless of public/private standings).

~above~
 
Around these parts, the public schools are cheaper and typically produce better pharmacists.

I know this is just a single school versus single school thing, but when comparing my rotation schedule to the Duquesne (private school) students, the relative ease at which they go through rotations made me chuckle. I had four legit acute care rotations where I was drilled every day by a Nazi faculty member...they had one...with a non-faculty member. I was so much more prepared than them coming out of school, I felt embarrassed for them.

And the local hospital pharmacists agree, too. Pitt and WVU (public schools) are a cut above the private schools. I've had *3* DoPs say the same thing to me...like it was the gospel.
 
So, WVUPharm2007, what exactly do you mean by "better" pharmacist? What is it that the private school pharmacists lack that state school pharmacists possess?
 
hotpocket said:
So, WVUPharm2007, what exactly do you mean by "better" pharmacist? What is it that the private school pharmacists lack that state school pharmacists possess?
Click to expand...

They leave with better clinical skills, essentially. It seems that the quality of students they get are better to start off with..and then the rotation schedules are more intense, too. But, again, that's around here. Wherever you are may be completely different.
 
So, in your opinion, what do you think the private school students should do to shore up the differences in education? I am asking because I do not want to be looked down upon because I went to a private school and I want to be considered a "good" pharmacist (whatever that means!). Also, what were your rotations like, just give me one example of what you considered to be the toughest rotation.
 
It really depends on what your institution in and of itself does. There are probably some great private schools...I just know what up in my neck of the woods.


Hardest rotation?

Typical day is 10-11 hours, monday-friday.

Get there at 6:45AM...print off patient profiles on your acute care service. (15 or so patients)

Catch up on all of them, read what happened overnight. Think about recommendation you need to make, etc.

7:20, go to check-in/prerounds. Catch up on the stories about the new patients from medical team. Review their home meds, make recommendations on the spot.

7:45-9AM - do chart reviews, check out the AM labs/vitals from that morning.

9AM - Preround discussions, talk about every patient in depth, be prepared to answer any question the attending physicians/residents throw your way.

10-12AM - Rounds, visit each patient, observe stuff, answer more questions on the fly.

12-1 - Lunch

1-3 - Research on your own about the things the pharmacy preceptor/attending/residents made you look up. It's never enough time to do it all, sadly. You do the medicine teams stuff first, then take your preceptor's stuff home for tomorrow. And it;s the type of stuff that takes a few hours on pubmed to get correctly.

3-430 - Meet with pharmacy preceptor, discuss what you've found that day about the patient, give them updates on labs/findings/whatever

430-515/30 - post rounds, discuss patients with medical team, etc, etc.

Then you also had to do two 15 presentations during the weekly internal medicine grand rounds about the subject of the attending physicians choice. Those attending include 5 attending physicians, 5 pharmacy preceptors, a slew of residents, and several medical students.

Also, once every 4 days, you had to come in at 545 to do the "night float" admissions with the medical team. That sucked balls. On those days you were there dang near 12 hours.

And I had four of those...while the above was the hardest, all four were in the same league as each other. It really, really sucked, but it DID prepare me for the real world rather well.
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
Around these parts, the public schools are cheaper and typically produce better pharmacists.

I know this is just a single school versus single school thing, but when comparing my rotation schedule to the Duquesne (private school) students, the relative ease at which they go through rotations made me chuckle. I had four legit acute care rotations where I was drilled every day by a Nazi faculty member...they had one...with a non-faculty member. I was so much more prepared than them coming out of school, I felt embarrassed for them.

And the local hospital pharmacists agree, too. Pitt and WVU (public schools) are a cut above the private schools. I've had *3* DoPs say the same thing to me...like it was the gospel.
Click to expand...

I agree with WVU that my rotation schedule was probably easier...I went to Duquesne and compared to Pitt and Lecom...we had more projects and presentations to do. The Pitt students who were with me on my rotations did not have any required portfolio work to do...only if the preceptor gave them something to do. I thought it was very unfair...that I had to do so many journal clubs, drug info requests, case presentations, silly projects like check if a drug is on two separate lists, if so, highlight it on both lists, etc. while the other students were getting all the good clinical stuff. Some rotations required 15 projects to complete. Most of my rotations was spent working in the med library completing projects. If I didn't have so many projects for my portfolio...I could have learned so much more clinical stuff from my preceptors! Yeah, ok, I can journal club very well...but right now, journal club doesn't help me prepare for the naplex. At least if I go for a residency...I'll be prepared for it. I hear Pitt has an excellent program for clinical. I'm not familiar with WVU's program. I am so glad to be done with rotations!

Other than that...I thought Duquesne had a good educational program. Maybe not very clinically-oriented...but that will change in the future. So far, everyone who sat for Naplex in my class, has passed first try. Just my two cents...

Megas...comment, if you'd like...
 
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WVUPharm2007 said:
It really depends on what your institution in and of itself does. There are probably some great private schools...I just know what up in my neck of the woods.


Hardest rotation?

Typical day is 10-11 hours, monday-friday.

Get there at 6:45AM...print off patient profiles on your acute care service. (15 or so patients)

Catch up on all of them, read what happened overnight. Think about recommendation you need to make, etc.

7:20, go to check-in/prerounds. Catch up on the stories about the new patients from medical team. Review their home meds, make recommendations on the spot.

7:45-9AM - do chart reviews, check out the AM labs/vitals from that morning.

9AM - Preround discussions, talk about every patient in depth, be prepared to answer any question the attending physicians/residents throw your way.

10-12AM - Rounds, visit each patient, observe stuff, answer more questions on the fly.

12-1 - Lunch

1-3 - Research on your own about the things the pharmacy preceptor/attending/residents made you look up. It's never enough time to do it all, sadly. You do the medicine teams stuff first, then take your preceptor's stuff home for tomorrow. And it;s the type of stuff that takes a few hours on pubmed to get correctly.

3-430 - Meet with pharmacy preceptor, discuss what you've found that day about the patient, give them updates on labs/findings/whatever

430-515/30 - post rounds, discuss patients with medical team, etc, etc.

Then you also had to do two 15 presentations during the weekly internal medicine grand rounds about the subject of the attending physicians choice. Those attending include 5 attending physicians, 5 pharmacy preceptors, a slew of residents, and several medical students.

Also, once every 4 days, you had to come in at 545 to do the "night float" admissions with the medical team. That sucked balls. On those days you were there dang near 12 hours.

And I had four of those...while the above was the hardest, all four were in the same league as each other. It really, really sucked, but it DID prepare me for the real world rather well.
Click to expand...


I really would have loved a rotation like this one! Yeah, hard...but I'm sure I would have learned so much!
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
It really depends on what your institution in and of itself does. There are probably some great private schools...I just know what up in my neck of the woods.


Hardest rotation?

Typical day is 10-11 hours, monday-friday.

Get there at 6:45AM...print off patient profiles on your acute care service. (15 or so patients)

Catch up on all of them, read what happened overnight. Think about recommendation you need to make, etc.

7:20, go to check-in/prerounds. Catch up on the stories about the new patients from medical team. Review their home meds, make recommendations on the spot.

7:45-9AM - do chart reviews, check out the AM labs/vitals from that morning.

9AM - Preround discussions, talk about every patient in depth, be prepared to answer any question the attending physicians/residents throw your way.

10-12AM - Rounds, visit each patient, observe stuff, answer more questions on the fly.

12-1 - Lunch

1-3 - Research on your own about the things the pharmacy preceptor/attending/residents made you look up. It's never enough time to do it all, sadly. You do the medicine teams stuff first, then take your preceptor's stuff home for tomorrow. And it;s the type of stuff that takes a few hours on pubmed to get correctly.

3-430 - Meet with pharmacy preceptor, discuss what you've found that day about the patient, give them updates on labs/findings/whatever

430-515/30 - post rounds, discuss patients with medical team, etc, etc.

Then you also had to do two 15 presentations during the weekly internal medicine grand rounds about the subject of the attending physicians choice. Those attending include 5 attending physicians, 5 pharmacy preceptors, a slew of residents, and several medical students.

Also, once every 4 days, you had to come in at 545 to do the "night float" admissions with the medical team. That sucked balls. On those days you were there dang near 12 hours.

And I had four of those...while the above was the hardest, all four were in the same league as each other. It really, really sucked, but it DID prepare me for the real world rather well.
Click to expand...

WVU is a pretty sharp from what I have read over the years... but to be fair - I am not sure you have a good representation of public vs private.

Not all students from WVU have rediculous rotations, back to back to back. I would also take that conversation from the DOP about how much "better" pharm grads are from public institutions with a grain of salt - I have both seen, and had that same conversation before (only from the opposite perspective).

Bottom line - he is giving you his personal opinion (much the same way I am right now) - which in the grand scheme of things - isn't worth a whole lot on an anonymous forum.

The only facts: Private on the average costs more than public schools. Private schools have no quotas of any kind (aside from those set from within).

~above~
 
aboveliquidice said:
Bottom line - he is giving you his personal opinion (much the same way I am right now) - which in the grand scheme of things - isn't worth a whole lot on an anonymous forum.
Click to expand...

Exactly. In fact, that's what I've been kinda trying to get at, too. I'm just telling you my piece from the local situation. In CA or TX or wherever, it could be the exact opposite. Maybe the conclusion that should be drawn is that NONE of us can give you such a blanket statement because nobody in the country knows much about grads and schools outside of their region. But if you want to know the Western PA/Northern WV/Western MD situation, I'm on it.

What you should do is talk to some clinical directors in your region about it. Also, if you are on a rotation and impress a preceptor, your grades, school, whatever....it doesn't matter one iota. That's how I got the job I have now. They lost a pharmacist in May...needed someone...found out I still didn't have a job....called me....hired me without even giving me an interview. Results always trump pedigree. My CV is about as impressive as driving a Hyundai, but it didn't stop them from wanting me after being around me for a month. (This is also why you should treat every rotation like a job interview....because you never know)
 
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aboveliquidice said:
The difference is cost - and an occasional quota or two... that is it. Once you remove those two - the differences between private and public is no more than that of any two programs (regardless of public/private standings).
Click to expand...
Exactly. Where I went to school, we had two pharmacy schools - one public, and one private. And the people who went to the private one were either out of state, or those who didn't make it into the public school, or (very few) those who had ties to the private school (as in, all their family graduated from there, etc.) While both schools offered a lot of unique rotations in and out of state, the difference was that our (state) out-of-town ones, as a rule, offered free housing, while theirs did not. Also, they HAD to buy all kinds of ridiculous books and materials (and kept complaining, that their school thinks that since they pay triple tuition, they can afford all the other stuff too), while we paid for the professors' notes packages and that's all... no mandatory textbooks.

As far as being prepared... We had average NAPLEX scores 10 points higher than the private school, but I worked with interns from both schools, and there were great ones and bad ones from both. It's all up to the person, what they want to learn, not up to school. I would say that our focus was also a little different, as far as how classes were organized, but that didn't have much effect on the outcome.

I would be choosing school based on the "fit", but I also don't see a reason to pay triple tuition. Ours was 8K when I started and 10K when I graduated. 😀
 
The quality of 4th year rotation does not depend on State vs Private school. Instead, it really depends more on the history of Pharm.D. program for each school.

Can you expect a new private school that just opened 3 years ago to have a nice long list of quality rotation? Yeah..you can expect it, but you are not going to get it.

Now, is it more competitive to get into a state institution vs a private and does this affect the quality of students? Quite possibly.

Again, it's not state vs private. It's how long has the school been around and when was the Pharm.D. program implemented.
 
Yeas, I gradooated from Dookayne this year, we are all stoopid. I think we only had sixxx stoodents apppplyed and gott exceptid into residencies, and onlee two got into fellowships, that's like, only 5 persent I think but I forgot how to turn on this kalkulator dam* dam* dam*. At our rotatashuns, we all ate cupcakes and took naps on soft mats with fuzzy blankets.

Actually, sadly, I got the same number of job offers based on where I went to school (with the offers by fellow grads) as based upon merit-and the jobs were the gamut from hospital to clinical consulting to retail. I 'm not sure if that's the same type of "who you know as well as what you know" phenomena that happens at state schools-didn't go to one.
Brutal rotations were also available if you were into that, but I had to be in ICU at 4:50 am, 5:45 am is for sissies.
 
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ItsOverZyvox said:
The quality of 4th year rotation does not depend on State vs Private school. Instead, it really depends more on the history of Pharm.D. program for each school.

Can you expect a new private school that just opened 3 years ago to have a nice long list of quality rotation? Yeah..you can expect it, but you are not going to get it.

Now, is it more competitive to get into a state institution vs a private and does this affect the quality of students? Quite possibly.

Again, it's not state vs private. It's how long has the school been around and when was the Pharm.D. program implemented.
Click to expand...

Being as though the vast majority of the new schools are private schools, what do you expect?
 
ItsOverZyvox said:
The quality of 4th year rotation does not depend on State vs Private school. Instead, it really depends more on the history of Pharm.D. program for each school.
Click to expand...
I agree. It didn't occur to me how lucky I have been to go to school which has been PharmD-only since the 70s until I talked with some grads from schools which just switched when it became mandatory. These programs are still working out the bugs in their rotation programs...
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
Being as though the vast majority of the new schools are private schools, what do you expect?
Click to expand...

What do I expect? Well, I would certainly not judge a student based on stereotypical State vs. Private qalification if I was the DOP hiring a pharmacist. I would look at the rotations closely on the CV. Yet, I would hire the pharmacist with a better attitude.

There are state schools with new pharmacy program. I would think they're not much better than the newly formed private schools.

So perhaps State pharmacy school in the East Coast churn out pharmacist with a better 4th year rotation experience. But perhaps my opinion clarifies why that is so.
 
ItsOverZyvox said:
What do I expect? Well, I would certainly not judge a student based on stereotypical State vs. Private qalification if I was the DOP hiring a pharmacist. I would look at the rotations closely on the CV. Yet, I would hire the pharmacist with a better attitude.

There are state schools with new pharmacy program. I would think they're not much better than the newly formed private schools.

So perhaps State pharmacy school in the East Coast churn out pharmacist with a better 4th year rotation experience. But perhaps my opinion clarifies why that is so.
Click to expand...

Great attitude to have. I've never been a fan of stereotyping a graduate based on their school. You're going to find quality grads from both private and public schools. The pharmacists who are going to excel in their career typically will do so regardless, and will find a way to make up for a program's shortcomings...either through pursuing outside work experience, collaborating with good faculty at the school, etc.

For those of you who are unsatisfied with the program you're in...take it as a good sign that you recognize it; avoid being complacent/lazy about it and go out and find a way to challenge yourself in the field. Pick challenging rotations and avoid taking the "easy road". Actually, you should do this regardless...
 
You people can't read.

Who the hell in this thread said that all private schools are bad, all public schools are good? The only thing anyone claimed to have known is their local situation. And in some cases, kids want to go to the public school because it's cheaper, then the leftovers go to the private school. That's how it is in WV. Just compare the GPA between the WVU kids and the U Charleston kids. It's like 0.3. However, everyone in this thread who said such a thing prefaced it by saying that really it's just the situation locally and that in other regions it may very well be the exact opposite. Stop putting words in peoples mouth, you silly people you.
 
Caverject said:
thought he was talking about pharmacy schools with football teams...
Click to expand...

Everytime you state a general truth - there is always one kid screaming out the exception to the rule.

Yes USC has a fine time - On the whole however, they are the exception to the rule.

Shouldn't you be out runnin soldier?!?

~above~
 
If number of applicants versus seats available is an accurate reflection of a "good program", LECOM, the new, private pharmacy school, with 17 applicants vying for every one seat, is the best school in the rust belt.
 
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