Pre med versus Pharmacy

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
#1

<p>My daughter is interested in becoming an anesthesiologist. What is the best undergrad tract to pursue, pre-med, biology? Is pharmacy and acceptable track? The bonus of pharmacy is that you have a profession coming out of undergrad school. There also seems to be a key link functionally between anesthesiology and pharmacy</p>

<p>Ivy schools don't offer Pharmacy, and since we are in Pennsylvania. It would most likely be Pitt or Penn State. Both have med-schools, and good hospitals associated with the universities.</p>

<p>Otherwise we were thinking Penn, Cornell of Columbia. Please share your comments.
Thanks
Joe</p>

#2

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1103629-can-pharmacy-degree-used-pre-med-degree.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1103629-can-pharmacy-degree-used-pre-med-degree.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

#3

<p>Not sure if this completely answers your question, but it may shed some light on the issue.</p>

#4

<p>IMHO,
Doctors = Astronauts
Pharmacist, Nurses, PAs, Technicians = the people that help put on the astronaut's space suits</p>

#5

<p>Pharmacy is a 5 or 6 year program requiring entrance exams and is very competitive.</p>

#6

<p>Pharmacists do get paid a good chunk of money, and they do have a great lifestyle.</p>

#7

<p>OP,
In order to become anesthesiologist (one of the hardest specialties to get in) your D. needs:
1. to go to UG and choose any major within her interests.<br>
2. to complete all Med. School requirements while pusuing any combo of major(s)/minor(s). She needs to get high college GPA (including all minors), preferably 3.6+
3. to take MCAT and get a decent score, better 32+
4. All while in UG, she has to participate in various medically related EC's (Research lab, shadowing MD's, volunteering) and better yet have few outside of meidicine.
5. to apply to Med. Schools that match her stats
6. go to Med. School
7. take boards and get very high scores
8. go thru residency matching. If she has high boards, she will have a chance at anesthesiology. Sorry it took 8 steps to even mention this specialty. I am sure I missed something. </p>

<p>These are the steps that I am aware, my D. is starting at Med. School in few weeks, so I only know first 5 steps, the rest is my understanding, not much of any kind of knowledge. D. did not go to any Ivy or Elite UG. She went to state on full tuition Merit scholarships. She will be surrounded with people from Ivy's at her Med. School though. As you can conclude, result is the same, the same Med. School.</p>

#8

<p>You are completely incorrect. If she wants to be an MD, DO, or DPM she should major in pre-med if available. If not she can major in Neuroscience, Bio, or Chem. Its not so much what you major in, it is more important that she takes the classes required by the Med school for matriculation. I am becoming a Pharmacist, if you major in Pharmacy that will most likely be a 2 year major not a full 4 year BS degree. You only have to take the classes required by the Pharmacy School which are a little different than Med school prerequisites. If she is serious about becoming a doctor, look into conditional acceptance (BS/MD) programs. </p>

<p>In response to a previous post, Pharmacy as well as NP and PA's are well regarded professions in the medical field. If you have ever stepped foot in a hospital you would see that. Not everybody is willing to make the immense sacrifice it takes to become a physician. This could include not having a social life at times, and having a family later in life.</p>

#9

<p>Plus, to become a PharmD (Doctor of Pharmacy) you need 6 years of education and possibly 1-2 years of Residency if you like.</p>

#10

<p>ilovetexas11111:</p>

<p>You are not quite right there. At the risk of sounding rude, your post is pretty ignorant. Doctors cannot function without pharmacists, nurses, technicians, etc. Period. Even though doctors have to have a broader base of knowledge that covers all of these fields, they cannot possibly know it all or do it all themselves. Nor can they specialize or have the specific skills for all of these fields. All of these people must work together to give the best possible care to a patient. Doctors rely on nurses to do the hands on work (and to catch their mistakes. Yes, it happens a lot), consult pharmacists for medication advice (and pharmacists catch their mistakes. Yes, pharmacists save patients tons of health issues and expenses that a doctor would not have saved them), etc. None of these professionals would have the time to do their jobs if it weren't for skilled technicians, whose roles in health care are often underplayed if not completely looked over. Doctors are only one piece of it all, albeit a very important one. Your car cannot run with only one piece of the engine, just like you cannot get proper healthcare with only a doctor.</p>

#11

<p>I typed up a good reply to your post and then -- since I am technologically inept -- it got deleted. Here's the short version:</p>

<p>Your kid would pursue four years of undergraduate pre-med (lots of biology, chemistry, physics, etc. Basically, look up the prerequisite classes for medical school.), four years of medical school, and then four years of an anesthesiology residency. My understanding of it is that they'd be a M.D. who specializes in anesthesiology.</p>

<p>Pharmacy has nothing to do with it, besides that all medical fields are connected and that anesthesiology uses, for lack of a better term, "drugs." Pharmacists used to only need bachelors degrees to practice, but for quite some time now it has been a doctorate program. Pharmacists pursue two to four years of an undergraduate "pre-pharmacy" program (I got my B.A. in biochemistry) and then go on to pharmacy school, which is four more years of a doctorate program (just like M.D.s). The only main schooling difference that I see between PharmDs and MDs besides the coursework and knowledge is that MDs are required to do a residency and for pharmacists it is optional, although they need it to be accredited in a specialty. In my opinion, the undergraduate coursework for pharmacy was actually more rigorous than that required for medical school, but that is all relative to individual schools' requirements.</p>

<p>When all else fails, contact college admissions counselors. Undergraduate schools may have some information, but medical schools will have more accurate information regarding anesthesiology.</p>

<p>Before pursuing this career path, make sure she does some shadowing with anesthesiologists. You would not want her to have her mind and efforts set on being an anesthesiologist and then find out that it not what she expected and that she doesn't want to do it. Always shadow!</p>

<p>I hope this helps! Good luck to your daughter!</p>