[Continuing the conversation from the 2nd Year UCSF Student, at the event hosted by the Pre-Pharmacy Association... We left off with comments and questions about the interview process...]
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Q: Do they ask questions about current events?
A: Oh yes. Yes they do. If they make it through all the questions they needed to go through, they'll ask something like, "What do you think about the future of pharmacy?" If you think pharmacy is all community pharmacies, you need to be prepared to know it's moving away from that.
If you really want to be out there, you might want to say you're interested in MTM pharmacy. Medical Therapy Management. They can get paid hundreds of dollars for just a ten minute consult. These days, a lot of the elderly are taking tens of pills in a day, and the schedule of what to take and when so it's effective and won't be dangerous is complicated.
Q: How is that different from community pharmacy?
A: There, they just give you a prescription, and you advise them about that specific drug. With MTM pharmacy, you'll sit them down and go over their whole history. That's something important in HIV clinics where there are just so many drugs out there.
Drugs are becoming very individualized and not just one blanket drug for one condition anymore. There was this woman who was taking morphene for pain. And because of her genetics, it got into her breast milk, and it ended up killing her baby. [This is extremely paraphrased.] Pharmacogenetics is the big thing now. Hypertension, liver function... they affect different people in different ways.
Touro did a study... [This part... I'm not quite sure that I can even get the essence of it down. Something about a study to help show that it's important for schools to teach pharmacogentics I believe.] UCSF is one of the few schools to have that class. People with different backgrounds need different drugs. It's kind of like sterotyping, but not. It's used to help them.
[Somehow what she did to become a pharm tech came up.]
A: Honestly, I bought a book at Borders, studied for a week, and passed.
Everyone should get their license. It's a good back up. Well, not back up exactly. But some people became a tech to lead to pharmacy, but found out they were happy just being a tech. A lot of the pharm techs that I work with know more than a lot of students. They really know drugs. It's like being a pharmacist without the responsibility. (An aside: Insurance companies need a lot of pharmacists.)
Being a tech is easier to move between the different divisions. When you're a pharmacist, you need to know everything about the particular place you're working in. As a pharm tech, you only need to focus on the drugs, and so it's easier to make the switch if you want to get experience in the different areas.
And it's good to start learning the drugs early. You learn a lot as a tech. It helps a lot in school. They want you to know over two hundred drugs right away, but if you've learned about a lot of them already, it gives you a lot of free time.
Pharmacists can work in so many areas. Psych wards need to have a pharmacist on site. There are classes to teach you about the different fields. We have an elective for prison pharmacists. You get taken to San Quentin and everything.
HIV is a disease with no cure. You can specialize in that. Genentech needs to hire pharmacists to look over projects. You can oversee everything and not get your hands dirty if that's what you're looking for. That's what I did at Bayer.
You can get into law and work for the government. Healthcare is the big thing right now and they want the input from doctors and pharmacists. [Something about laws that I can't read in my notes.] Right now something being considered is making birth control and over the counter drug. So many people are buying it, and there has been a study to show that the risk of death in using birthcontrol is lower than the risk of getting a lethal infection while a woman is pregnant.
Pharmacists are even the ones that administer euthanasia drugs. It's in Nevada or some other state where it's legal. Not in California of course. But there, while the doctor may decide, it's the pharmacist that actually administers the drugs to stop the heart.
[Some how it got back to applications.]
A: You can check out PharmCAS right now if you want. Just know that it gets wiped out every year. As for letters of recommendation, most people get one academic letter, one extracurricular, and one from a pharmacist.
USC, UCSD, they had 500 word essays. I pretty much just copy/pasted parts (from my UCSF application). Essays are definitely the hardest part.
Q: Do you know any international students, and is the process any different?
A: It's pretty much the same thing.
[Somehow it back to why UCSF again.]
A: UCSF was the cheapest school. Not now. Tuition has gone up 30%. $1000 every quarter. It would be nice if somehow when you got accepted into a school, you could sign a contract telling you "This is exactly how much you're going to pay each quarter."
Q: How are you paying for school?
A: It's different for me. I live with my parents, so housing is free. Books can cost a lot. I work at State (as an intern). If you want to get involved, techs get paid the most in hospitals. You learn the most about drugs there [I believe that's what she said, my notes were too hard to read right there.]
[She then mentions that she's working at a couple places.] Twenty hours a week pretty much pays for each quarter. I tried getting loans for the first year, but having to pay 7% on top of that was too much for me.
There are also a lot of scholarships out there.
[Somehow changed to study/student habits.]
Some people are still completely focused on grades once they're in. But once you graduate (from pharmacy school) grades don't matter. If you're working as an intern while studying, you're more likely to get hired than if you got all A's.
[Back to money.]
Taking that year off, and working as a tech helped to offset the loans.
Q: What's your daily schedule like?
A: I'm a special case. [Because she's working... then the answer transitioned into what classes are like.] You really learn the drugs. I can draw you lipitor. Or the structure of cholesterol. Then you'll be asked to make an imaginary drug that fits in there. Some [other stuff] I learned through work.
[Change of topic again.]
In [some?] HIV clinics, the pharmacist will write the whole prescription now, and just hand it to a doctor to sign off on it. They'll just take a look to double check. Pharmacists have that dispensing power now.
[Back to the interview process.]
A: You might be asked to talk about a difficult problem you had to face, or a co-worker that was hard to work with. Use names, and make it personal. Make it so your answer isn't something that can be faked.
You need to prove you're not just a bookworm.
You'll all find a school. There are so many schools out there. Just the fact that you guys are all here says something. I applied late, and I still got in. You guys are doing so much more than me already.
[Transition to types of work.]
There are pharmacists that are temps. They get sent around to different pharmacies that need work, and they get paid for food, gas, and travel time on top of the actual hours working.
Q: What were the most useful prerequisite classes?
A: OChem. That leads to advanced OChem. PCHem too. Biology and all that.
There are some people who are 21 and they're pharmacists now. They took all their prerequisites in one year out of high school and applied.
USC and UoP have the most prereqs.
If you get together and sets goals for each day, you can get through PharmCAS in a week.
Q: How long did it take you to write your personal statement?
A: It took me a week. I got down and just started writing every single step that led me to pharmacy, and it ended up being 6,000 words long. The essay can't be more than 1,600 words. So I asked one of my English professors to help me trim it down. That was the teacher I also asked for a letter of recommendation.
One school requires a resume... UoP?
Make sure to do research one all the schools you're applying to. Know what the goals of the school are and focus on that. It's worth it to just apply everywhere. It's just $40 more dollars for a chance to get into a pharmacy school.
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There were some other random bits that I didn't write down, but I think I got pretty much all the main points. There was a lot of interesting stuff in there, and new stuff that I hadn't heard before.
Prison pharmacist class? That's cool. I don't think I'd want to take that class specifically, but it makes me wonder what kind of other classes are offered.
Paying for school without loans? That's impressive.
I'm definitely glad I went to the event. And I hope you enjoyed reading about it.
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