PharmD or MD or PA

Beaudreau
Thu, 21 Dec 2017 22:49:39 +0000

@jgandhi - One other career path (my wife is a pharmacist). You could work for one of the large prescription benefit companies that handle mail order/internet prescriptions such as Walgreens, CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, etc. For example, my wife does prescription verifications. She actually works for home at a computer with two screens. She has to review the Doctor’s prescription, the patient’s drug profile, and verify that the pharmacy technician has filled the correct drug… It sounds dull as can be to me, but she loves it. Other pharmacists handle doctor calls where there are questions about dosages or generic substitutions.

Also, you may be able to start a PharmD program after three years of school. Be forewarned; Pharmacy school is not easy.

For a PA program, most students have a bachelor’s degree with 2-3 years of healthcare experience. The PA program takes two years. I was talking to a guy a couple of years ago about a PA. He was originally on track to apply to medical school and decided on the PA track instead. He reasoned that it would take less time and have regular hours, but still with a good salary. Starting salaries range in the $90s.

You could also consider heading for a Nurse Practitioner degree. The NP degree is generally equivalent to a PA degree, except that an NP can practice without direct supervision by an MD. You could major in nursing and then head on to a three year masters of science in nursing degree. And if you are male, job prospects for male nurses are excellent, perhaps even better than for female nurses. Starting salaries are comparable to those for PAs.

And then there’s always Veterinary Medicine. A DVM takes four years. There are only 20 Vet schools in the US and admissions are very competitive.