What exactly is "taught" in the 4 years of pharmacy school?

[SummerZ]

Hello there,

I first want to state; this is in by no means meant to be condescending type of post, I'm just curious as to what is covered in the 4 long years of pharmacy school?

I mean, it just seems like such a long time to learn about pharmaceuticals and how to properly distribute them.

Thanks for any clarification,

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[steveysmith54]

Hello there,

I first want to state; this is in by no means meant to be condescending type of post, I'm just curious as to what is covered in the 4 long years of pharmacy school?

I mean, it just seems like such a long time to learn about pharmaceuticals and how to properly distribute them.

Thanks for any clarification,

I think they teach not to ask questions like this and look it up yourself first and then ask for a clarification PRN (if needed)

 

[Monsterdaddy]

LOL, wow this sounds like a question from someone who's only witnessed a pharmacist in action in a retail setting. Distributing meds is easy, we just learn to count by 5's. It's the making sure the med doesn't kill you part that takes 4 years.

 

[lord999]

(It's fair enough.)

I'm answering this also keeping in mind that almost all the classes either have historical inertia or aspirational (clinical pharmacy). Most of the classes in theory revolve around:

1. How to make drugs and gather reagents necessary to do so: Pharmaceutics, Medicinal Chemistry, Biotechnology, Analytical Chemistry (only in schools that have an industrial bent), Pharmacognosy (almost never taught in the modern curriculum but medical botany and natural products is pretty fun to work with), Cosmetics (only URI to my memory still teaches Cosmetic compounding which cosmetic pharmacy is something of a lost art today)
2. How they work (Pharmacology, Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacokinetics)
3. Why they work and why don't they work (Therapeutics, Toxicology)

In my era, 2 was emphasized (Goodman and Gilman, Ansel, and Wilson and Gisvold). In my parent's era, 1 was emphasized (Remington). Since pharmacists don't really have an immediate practical reason in normal practice to make most drugs or have to understand the science behind them, 3 is emphasized in the modern curriculum (Koda-Kimble and DiPiro, Casarett and Doull).

Is 4 years necessary? Probably not for usual practice, particularly with the way most pharmacists work in the present day with systems designed to prevent the pharmacists from screwing up in either hospital or classical drugstore situations. Is it necessary for graduate training, absolutely, pharmacy's still the prime major for pharmaceutics and medicinal chemistry (pharmacology usually gets physiology or biochemistry majors nowadays).

 

[Digsbe]

You can probably look at a pharmacy school's curriculum to see what the teach.

Generally you learn pharmaceutical sciences, life sciences, medicinal chem, biopharmaceutics, pharmacology, pharmacotherapy, other general stuff for practice, and then go on rotations to get experiential hours.

 

[PharmDBro2017]

Pharmacotherapy of treating each disease state and the pathophysiology behind it is enough to make you want to punch yourself in the face OP, before even getting into medicinal chemistry or the kinetics of drugs.

 

[RPh Who]

There's actually quite a large body of knowledge that separates a pharmacist from the general public. I interacted with the general public for 4 hours today promoting my company's services and some of the questions I received were absolutely astounding. Without being condescending, the typical individual's healthcare knowledge is a combination of high school health class and Dr. Oz. Without having an evidence-based knowledge of human physiology and drug action, it would be very hard for an individual to synthesize information to make informed healthcare decisions. Additionally, there is always new information coming out that shapes guidelines and practices. Without knowledge of statistics and the strengths and flaws of various study designs, it is very difficult to know if the take away from a study is relevant, and, if so, to whom. Simply put, a lot of the information that seems unnecessary is relevant when it comes to answering questions about healthcare in the real world setting for a public with an extremely limited scope of knowledge.

 

[Nguyen]

Curriculums will vary school to school but here's the general:
Year 1 - basic medical science classes (biochem, medchem, physiology, etc.)
Year 2 - therapy, kinetics, pharmacology, advanced pathophys etc...
Year 3 - more therapy
Year 4 - rotations


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[Rukn]

Stuff that will never really use if you work in retail

 

[SummerZ]

Thanks for all of the responses, I once again want to emphasize that this post was not meant to demean pharmacists or pharmacy students in any way.

It's a valid question that I presume all of you had when considering a career in pharmacy. I'm honestly just comparing the duration of pharmacy school to say medical school, and wondering what route I should choose before I'm "in too deep" to change the outcome of my life. I love chemistry and learning, however I'm also looking at the bigger picture in all of this and want to make sure pharmacy school will be intutive enough.

 

[bacillus1]

Thanks for all of the responses, I once again want to emphasize that this post was not meant to demean pharmacists or pharmacy students in any way.

It's a valid question that I presume all of you had when considering a career in pharmacy. I'm honestly just comparing the duration of pharmacy school to say medical school, and wondering what route I should choose before I'm "in too deep" to change the outcome of my life. I love chemistry and learning, however I'm also looking at the bigger picture in all of this and want to make sure pharmacy school will be intutive enough.

Pharmacy has very few jobs right now, as there are too many pharmacists. If you are at all interested in becoming a physician, go to med school.

 

[Twentytwelve2]

If you plan to do residency, then med school is a better choice.

 

[Leper Messiah]

A. Definitely choose med school if that's the case. When I started Rx school, I knew the pharmacy was not the golden goose it used to be, and that the market was tight, but I couldn't have imagined how far south it would go in just two years. CVS bought Target's pharmacy, Omnicare, and Coram all within a year, Walgreens bought Rite Aid, and Express Scripts went through a period of massive layoffs a couple years ago. Also, independents are fighting PBMs to just make a sustainable income. Meanwhile, new pharmacy schools are still opening, and existing ones are pushing PGY2 residencies, and even "community practice" residencies because it's now a buyer's market (and it keeps the schools' r job placement rate falsely inflated).

B. this was already addressed, but basically the years break down like this:
1st year - general science, healthcare systems, leadership, management, law, introductory kinetics/phamacology etc.
2nd - 3rd year: disease pathophys, pharmacology, therapeutics (dosages, clinical considerations, place in therapy, guidelines)
4th year - rotations

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

Ehh, honestly, we're taught literally everything about how the drugs work in the body, how the body works in the locations where the drugs work, why the drugs work, where they work, how the body affects the drugs, and when and how to use them effectively.

However, just like in any field, you either learn it or you don't.

Furthermore, you're going to have M.D. And pharm.d. that don't know anything during school or after.

However, pharmacists don't have centuries of social status/tradition/ego to back up ignorance or lack of knowledge like physicians do.

I've made countless, countless recommendations where I was objectively right and knew more than the M.D., but it didn't matter.
They simply shrugged, said "I think I know what I'm doing, I'm a PA/NP/doctor" or "I do it like this all the time" and proceeded to do the wrong thing.

 

[Amicable Angora]

Thanks for all of the responses, I once again want to emphasize that this post was not meant to demean pharmacists or pharmacy students in any way.

It's a valid question that I presume all of you had when considering a career in pharmacy. I'm honestly just comparing the duration of pharmacy school to say medical school, and wondering what route I should choose before I'm "in too deep" to change the outcome of my life. I love chemistry and learning, however I'm also looking at the bigger picture in all of this and want to make sure pharmacy school will be intutive enough.

Wrong major if you love Chemistry. I can promise you your skills wil only atrophy if you pursue pharmacy to boost your chemistry.

 

[lord999]

Wrong major if you love Chemistry. I can promise you your skills wil only atrophy if you pursue pharmacy to boost your chemistry.

The health professions for better or worse have an extremely different sort of work environment than basic science (unless you specifically go out of your way like to enter Lab Medicine/Pathology (MD/DO) or Nuclear Pharmacy (PharmD, BCNP) which are very much like a basic science lab). I'd recommend to get some idea of what this entails, work for the following environments:

1. Any fast-food/short-order restaurant (McJob) or retail at a mass merchandising store (Target, Wal-Mart). The sort of time management skills under severe pressure with angry and not particularly intelligent customers and indifferent/changing management is something that retail pharmacy at all levels has to deal with, and I think is still a fair characterization with the frustrations of retail pharmacy on this board.

2. Real basic "big science" lab (with postdocs and all). The fact that you're a human tool doing endless boring jobs and only the PI really has a sense of where the machine that is you is going gives you an unbeatable perspective of basic science. Because when you're the PI, you can't be doing that work as you're working on your professional beggar (grant writing) tactics to keep that lab machine going.

3. Call center (particularly some customer service one). The visits per hour and rapid churn give an analogous simulation of how primary care medicine (family practice, pediatrics, internal medicine, geriatrics) works today where those primary care providers are run ragged trying to squeeze just 0.5 more appointments per hour in that endless CPT chase and the deeply depersonalized aspects of clinical medicine where they are problems not people and 60% of those problems can be put on a one-page cheat sheet in the office (and the other 40% will come back when you fail, giving you another 60% chance to succeed).

These are all very cynical, negative environments to learn those skills, but if you can handle that, you can handle those professional work areas. What pisses me off is that we continue to admit people who haven't worked a day in their lives when they enter pharmacy school, and don't adjust to the realities of working a Walgreens or a basement hospital job (which are the standard jobs in the business) becoming mediocre (replaceable) workers.

 

[mentos]

School is a farce.

1st/2nd year: Mostly outdated BS that no one uses or remembers. However you learn enough to work as a retail pharmacist. The computer does all the work for you. They could teach you everything you need to know in 6 months to work in retail, to be honest.
3rd year: Stuff you need to know if you work in a hospital. But even if you don't remember it all (how could you?), you have all the resources on your side.
4th year: Paying massive amounts of tuition to work for free.

 

[steveysmith54]

=I love chemistry and learning, however I'm also looking at the bigger picture in all of this and want to make sure pharmacy school will be intutive enough.

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I am fairly sure that you're a troll.

Nonetheless, if you love chemistry and want to learn something that is intuitive you need to go for a PhD in chemistry and go into research/academia. Therapeutics and drug distributions has very little if anything to do with Chem. Neither does diagnostics. You're in the wrong place.

 

[PharmDBro2017]

Wrong major if you love Chemistry. I can promise you your skills wil only atrophy if you pursue pharmacy to boost your chemistry.

Depends on the school, I suppose. My school was heavy on organic chemistry and knowing structures... like differentiating every beta blocker with 6-8 structures on one exam question.

General chemistry? ya no one does much of that outside of undergrad.

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

School is a farce.

1st/2nd year: Mostly outdated BS that no one uses or remembers. However you learn enough to work as a retail pharmacist. The computer does all the work for you. They could teach you everything you need to know in 6 months to work in retail, to be honest.
3rd year: Stuff you need to know if you work in a hospital. But even if you don't remember it all (how could you?), you have all the resources on your side.
4th year: Paying massive amounts of tuition to work for free.

You don't remember Drug Action 1 or 2, or any of your ceutics?

(Pssst, OP, see my post above)