unconfident 1st year pharm... to med??

[threegrntrees]

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hello. i am a first year pharm student...repeating my first semester. i came from a community college, did very well, got into pharm school by the skin of my teeth. I made 3C's and 2 D's. it wasn't just the academics i struggled with, but the social aspect, jumping into a highly competitive grad level program... anyways, i am doing better. i have always thought about med school, never thought i could pull it off; have no college graduates in my family; a confidence issue. i am here now and would really like to have more hands on interaction with helping people then i feel like i can get with pharm.. i traveled to s.e. asia solo, went to a small isolated village and saw a little child with a huge deeply infected splinter in his leg....nobody there to do anything. i couldn't help. so my thoughts... p.a. (physician assistant school~2 1/2 year program, more competitive than pharm school) school after my four years of pharm school is over? contemplate med school? med school after pharm? i am 27 1/2years old. should i just stick to where i am in my life, knock out pharm school and utilize my knowledge? I know i am determined enough to not live an unhappy life; my question is about timing...risks and benefits.... taking a chance and know when it is the right time to do it or not...i was extremely intimidated just getting into pharm school. any thoughts would be very helpful. thanks

 

[thelonius]

I'm a P1, too. I would say that if you are having a hard time in Pharm school that you wouldn't last a day in med school. I have several friends in their first year at med school who are as smart or smarter than myself and they ALL spend at least twice as much time studying as I do. Also, I think it is very rare for med schools to accept community college students. Good luck in whatever you decide to do.

 

[rxlynn]

hello. i am a first year pharm student...repeating my first semester. i came from a community college, did very well, got into pharm school by the skin of my teeth. I made 3C's and 2 D's. it wasn't just the academics i struggled with, but the social aspect, jumping into a highly competitive grad level program... anyways, i am doing better. i have always thought about med school, never thought i could pull it off; have no college graduates in my family; a confidence issue. i am here now and would really like to have more hands on interaction with helping people then i feel like i can get with pharm.. i traveled to s.e. asia solo, went to a small isolated village and saw a little child with a huge deeply infected splinter in his leg....nobody there to do anything. i couldn't help. so my thoughts... p.a. (physician assistant school~2 1/2 year program, more competitive than pharm school) school after my four years of pharm school is over? contemplate med school? med school after pharm? i am 27 1/2years old. should i just stick to where i am in my life, knock out pharm school and utilize my knowledge? I know i am determined enough to not live an unhappy life; my question is about timing...risks and benefits.... taking a chance and know when it is the right time to do it or not...i was extremely intimidated just getting into pharm school. any thoughts would be very helpful. thanks

there are pharmacy practice settings where you would get much more of the hands-on patient activity. I just shadowed a pharmacist who worked at a hospital with transplant patients. His whole job was working with drug regimens of patients, both in-patient (just after transplant and patients who came back in with complications) as well as follow up in clinic with post-transplant patients. He rounded with the doctors, and the morning I shadowed him he had done a meeting regarding one patient who had some type of antibiotic-resistant culture. The world isn't just all retail and hospital dispensing - there are opportunities out there. Does your school have any opportunities for shadowing, or do they have some sort of mentoring program with alumni where you could talk to some folks in different practice settings??

 

[Frankkrunch]

If you invest the Cost of your Education conservatively (over 5 years), and go to work for McDonalds, you will make enough money to survive. Your intelligence and patience will be challenged every day of your life and by the time your are 50 years old, all the money that you invested will probably be upwards of $700,000. If you do all the school, you may make $150,000 annually at best and your student loan payment will be like having a top of the line brand new BMW (which you are not allowed to drive). This is not to mention electricity, heat(if applicable), mortgage (or rent), gasoline, food and entertainment. I know I sound like a Wise-A$$, but the reality of the situation is you will have some very real bills to pay. If your education is not for free, then you should be making and saving as much money as you possibly can. Healthcare is for rich kids whose parents can afford to cover the cost of school. Some rocket scientist got the bright idea that everybody with reasonable intelligence should go to college. This was most likely the president of a University somewhere in NY or CA. Look at how much money the high ups at public universities get paid. It is ffffing gross. Pharmacy School is not like Medical School. They will fail you out with glee. If you really want to help people, become fantastically rich and pay for the MD's to fly around the world and save some 3rd world butt.

 

[sdn1977]

hello. i am a first year pharm student...repeating my first semester. i came from a community college, did very well, got into pharm school by the skin of my teeth. I made 3C's and 2 D's. it wasn't just the academics i struggled with, but the social aspect, jumping into a highly competitive grad level program... anyways, i am doing better. i have always thought about med school, never thought i could pull it off; have no college graduates in my family; a confidence issue. i am here now and would really like to have more hands on interaction with helping people then i feel like i can get with pharm.. i traveled to s.e. asia solo, went to a small isolated village and saw a little child with a huge deeply infected splinter in his leg....nobody there to do anything. i couldn't help. so my thoughts... p.a. (physician assistant school~2 1/2 year program, more competitive than pharm school) school after my four years of pharm school is over? contemplate med school? med school after pharm? i am 27 1/2years old. should i just stick to where i am in my life, knock out pharm school and utilize my knowledge? I know i am determined enough to not live an unhappy life; my question is about timing...risks and benefits.... taking a chance and know when it is the right time to do it or not...i was extremely intimidated just getting into pharm school. any thoughts would be very helpful. thanks

I'm not clear....you are a P1, but are repeating......now or will you have to repeat?

Do you want to change because you don't like pharmacy or because you want something else?

If you really wanted something else...think hard what you really want because you'll have some explaining to do. Doing poorly in the first semester is something you'll have to explain no matter where you want to go. Medicine???? well....C's & D's will pretty well blow you out of that market unless you have a tremendously good explanation! PA??? well...do you know anymore about that than you did about pharmacy?

How do you know what kind of involvement you can get with pharmacy? You've only done one semester & that semester, I'm assuming was mostly basic science with perhaps an introductory clinical class - which if you only got a C in, you didn't do very well.

You seem to be wanting to walk away from the challenge presented to you. Is that the case? If you really think you made a poor decision in the first place...you can ask for a year off to reevaluate your position.