<p>Hi. I’m just curious if anyone here is a chemical engineer , pharmacist or even a doctor or in some kind of pre-med field? Would any of you share your experiences as these careers? I’m trying to decide on a major which will most likely be one of the 3 choices listed above. I just want to get an idea of how the career is like (positive/negative)…</p>
<p>You may wish to ask if you can volunteer & shadow someone from these fields in your hometown and to an information interview about their field. That should give you more insight that us random strangers and the glorified images of media.</p>
<p>I am a hospital (clinical) pharmacist and I LOVE my job. I started out in retail and it’s horrible.
The schedule can suck. If you graduate and do a residency, you’re more likely to land a Mon-Fri regular hours job.
Like any job, there are days filled with hassles and days filled with glory and most days fall somewhere in the middle with some of both! I am happy to be in a career where I am helping people. I learn something new every day still and to me, it’s endlessly interesting.<br>
I “fell” into it as I worked as a pharmacy clerk in high school and whoa! the flame was lit.
One option you could pursue is becoming a Certified Pharmacy Tech and get a job doing that to see what it’s like. That said, it’s tough to break into hospital jobs without experience but depending on where you are, you might find a place willing to give you “on the job training” for hospital pharmacy, which is as different as night from day to retail pharmacy.
Good luck deciding.</p>
<p>There are also pharmacists who do in-home pharmacy care, like IV & inhalation treatments, in the patient’s own home setting.</p>
<p>Retail pharmacists seem to spend a lot of time on the phone with MDs, their staffs and insurers, but that’s just my view as a patient.</p>
<p>I am a pharmacist. I did retail in school but always knew I wanted hospital clinical. Too many schools are being built just to get students/tuition imho. I am happy with the work I do and satisfied with the good I do. Too many parents have been pushing their children into pharmacy because of the salary. Too many tech schools are pumping out students who will compete for almost no jobs. (I do not recommend wasting time or lots of money becoming a tech). Too many new pharmacist grads are having difficulty finding full time jobs. Competition is very tough for most schools. I cannot seeing going into debt for hundreds of thousands of dollars during these times.</p>
<p>I’ve been happy, but I never went in the field for the money. Do see if you can talk with professionals. Most people have no idea what we do, we have not done a good job of letting the public know what we do. Try volunteer work to see if you might be interested. One volunteer I know is now in his second year Pharmacy school at USC, the other was on wait list and is trying again this year.</p>
<p>I have been a pharmacist in CA for 23 years. Being a pharmacist is a lot being like a nurse or doctor, most work weekends, evenings and/or nights. But there are lots of different options, hospital, retail, home health, etc… Are you male or female? For a female it is a great career because there is a lot of flexibility and there are a lot of part-time options.</p>
<p>“Like any job, there are days filled with hassles and days filled with glory”</p>
<p>I ( a doctor) have few days filled with glory. I’ll have what S/He had! >>>>>></p>
<p>Perhaps I was a bit…overboard. LOL. Days will with positive outcomes. How is that?
As a physician, you must feel very gratified by those positive outcomes. Hugs to you. It’s a tough, tough job. I admire you. I could not do it.</p>
<p>Vabluebird. Enjoy your days of glory, you care, you work hard and you earned them. :)</p>
<p>My father was a pharmacist who had his own drugstore. He never earned the big salaries you hear about now, but he loved his job. His store was down the road from the local pharmacy school, and he enjoyed having the students work with him. One of his high school stock boys went on to pharmacy school and now runs his own drugstore, where I am a customer. He uses my dad’s slogan, even. Makes me so proud to see him carry on my dad’s legacy. But this man also does compounding, carries home health equipment, and I suspect he’s making a lot of money. He certainly employs a lot of clerks, pharmacy techs, pharmacists, and even one of my dad’s old friends works one day a week for him.</p>
<p>Many of my dad’s friends did sell their stores to the big chains when they moved into town, and earned high hourly wages to work in those stores, but the shifts would have been at night and weekends. My dad worked 8 to 6 every weekday, and Sat from 8 to 1. His protege does the same with his store.</p>
<p>Out of five children, only two of us really worked with dad. My older sister helped with the monthly charges. Dad let people buy on credit and they paid their bill when they could. I worked the front register, stocking candy and cigarettes, until I left my teaching job, when Dad called me to work behind the counter with him. It was the days before there were certified pharmacy techs. I typed the labels, counted the pills, waited on the customers, all with Daddy looking over me.</p>
<p>While my dad’s customers when he opened were mostly local politicians and lawyers and judges, as time went on, housing projects were built nearby, and his clientele were mostly the welfare class on Medicaid. But my father treated them all the same, and they took very good care of him. While my father was robbed at gunpoint a few times over the 30 years he had the store, he was never harmed. Being a pharmacist in the sixties was rough, and a few of our very good friends were killed in their stores by drug addicts looking for a fix.</p>
<p>My father left his drugstore as he always said he would, feet first. He had a fatal heart attack behind the prescription counter while he waited on customers. My biggest regret in life is that I didn’t become a pharmacist and work beside him, maybe he wouldn’t have worked so hard and died so young.</p>
<p>Some of my dad’s friends work as volunteer pharmacists at the St. Vincent de Paul pharmacy. It is a profession they love, and they still carry on that service of helping others.</p>
<p>Good luck in whatever you choose, and I hope you get as much reward from it as my father did.</p>
<p>Vabluebird. Enjoy your days of glory, you care, you work hard and you earned them. >>>>>></p>
<p>As do you, I’ve no doubt. : )</p>
<p>My father left his drugstore as he always said he would, feet first. He had a fatal heart attack behind the prescription counter while he waited on customers. My biggest regret in life is that I didn’t become a pharmacist and work beside him, maybe he wouldn’t have worked so hard and died so young.>>>>>>>>></p>
<p>I’m so sorry.</p>
<p>Several physicians in the family. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you go into the right type of specialty with controllable hours. Most doctors make decent $, but most of them go deep in debt for this opportunity. Many doctors work very long hours nights/weekends/holidays, and this is not family friendly. A high percentage of your time will be spent on electronic medical records, paperwork–not treating patients. It can be very stressful dealing with sick, hurting, dying people. Patients may threaten to sue you for any or no reason. You may have financial pressure from a hospital or corporation that employs you. If you run your own practice, that brings even more stress–another job that you probably weren’t trained for. Your colleagues will be other doctors (a high percentage of narcissists, egomaniacs, and god-complexes among them 
) If you don’t really love people, don’t have compassion and patience, don’t do it. Helping people and receiving their thanks can be quite satisfying. But worth it? Only you can answer that. I know a lot of doctors’ kids–not one wants to go into medicine.</p>
<p>Check into being an NP as well (nurse practitioner) or a PA (physician’s assistant). Less schooling, good pay, rewarding, less hassle, etc.</p>
<p>I’m not sure there is less schooling for NP or PA…we are looking into those programs now. NP must first become BSNs. Then they are required to work for two years…and then apply to APRN programs which take another two years. PAs…most programs are now 6 year programs (a few might still be five…but many are six). If you do this as a masters program following a Bachelors…PA programs range from 2-4 years.</p>
<p>We know a number of chemical engineers. All are very happy with their jobs. There is a good amount of flexibility in what they do, and most have changed the focus of their careers over time.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts/ ideas and eperiences. I’ve always wanted to help people. It’s just i’m not sure myself which of the 3 above would be good for me. Like most of you say that doctors and pharmacist work long hours and make decent amount of money but some of you aren’t happy about the job and that school loans can be a problem at times. I need to hear more about chemical engineers. Is it possible to go to the local CVS pharmacy and ask if i can volunteer there for sometime to get a sense of what’s going on behind the counters?</p>
<p>Are you in high school? Does your high school have a “medical careers” club??? Or sometimes even hospitals offer special camps/days for high school students interested in health careers. </p>
<p>Your best bet would be to go through a local hospital volunteer department. While they likely won’t have you shadowing a surgeon or observing a surgery (we get SO many kids who think they will offer to volunteer and get to do this), you could get a volunteer placement on a floor or area where you would get to observe the ins and outs of docs/nurses/pharm careers.</p>
<p>Yes i am in High School and no we don’t have this “medical careers” club. We’ll i’ve been in the hospital many times in my life but i still didn’t get a full picture of what they do and how they do it. I would love to find a place at a local pharmacy store and volunteer or even at a hospital.</p>
<p>My niece is in pharmacy school. However I’ve read that pharmacists employed by chain stores are pretty unhappy. Long hours, & high production expectations.</p>
<p>I think she is planning to work in research though.</p>
<p>Hospital pharmacy is 180 degrees different from retail pharmacy. Just keep that in mind. There are many paths a pharmacist can take ultimately.</p>
<p>Is there a difference in education for those who work at the retail and the ones who work at the hospital? Or pharmacist in general get the same education.</p>