UCSF Student Panel at SFSU - Part 2

[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.

UCSF Student Panel at SFSU - Part 1

The SFSU Pre-Pharmacy Association set up a UCSF student panel Wednesday night.  Well... set up a UCSF student for us to talk to.  One of the two could not show up for one reason or another.  Was that a problem?  Absolutely not.

The event was very relaxed.  We all sat in a circle, and just let questions fire away.  The student was a second year student, and she kept on firing out information left and right.  One question would just ignite all sorts of side tangents from her and there was a lot of information presented to us in the two and a half hours that she was there for.

I could try grouping all the information into relevant info clusters... but I'm probably going to be doing that a lot in future posts.  This time you guys'll get to enjoy the randomness that I got to enjoy.

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UCSF Student - Hi, my name is [keeping this out for privacy].  I'm a second year student.  Why don't we all sit in a circle.  If you like this kind of setting, the school in Sacramento is group oriented.  What's it called?  I think it's Northstate.  [Note: This whole thing is going to be paraphrased from my notes.  I'm going to try to be as accurate as possible of course, but this is not word for word.]

Why did I choose pharmacy?  I was originally a pre-med student, but I don't like bood, phlebotomy, the whole "do no harm" thing,... and gross mucus.

When you get into pharmacy, I thought you would get eased into it, but in the first month, you're already doing immunizations.  Flu, hepatitis.

Taking a year off was a big change, but it was a good change.  I was working in research/industry.

Pharmacy is a dynamic field.  You get to interact with other fields.  In clinics it's half research, half ___ [Me: Why can't I remember the word!  It should be so obvious].  There's management where you can run your own formulary.

What was the most difficult part?  Getting started on California applications.  It took a month to finish my applications.  (Her aside:  I used to work for Bayer, then had a job as a technician, and now intern at a clinic.)  UCSF has a good workshop for the supplemental application.  You get ask what it is they're looking for.  On the apps, a lot of it is monotonous work.  You could get your mom to do it.  Name, address, grades.  I also got last minute letters of recommendations.

For the interview, you get paired up with one professor and one student.  Make sure you know what you wrote on your application.  They choose who you interview with based on your application.  This isn't a fact, but from talking with other students, it seems like a lot of them were paired up that way.

Q: How do you answer the question "Why pharmacy?" without having it sound like a generic answer?

A: [I forget her full answer.]... look for some kind of personal story.  What got you to decide to pursue pharmacy, and not just "I like helping people."

[Continuing from before the question was asked.]  You get paired up that way so there is some common ground there for a flowing conversation.  There is a set number of questions they want to hit, but the order is different based off how the conversation is going.  [I thought that was interesting.]

Q: How did you prepare for you interview?

A: I got hired just a couple weeks before my interview as a pharm tech.  My boss did a mock interview with me.  Everyone should do a practice interview, even if it's just with family or a friend.  He really grilled me on what I know about pharmacy.  And when I went home he got me panicked enough that I did a lot of research on the website about what kinds of clubs and organizations they have, what conventions they're known for, etc.

Q: Why UCSF?

A: Basically I grew up here, and I wanted to stay close to home.  Then after already choosing that, I kept on hearing that it was basically the best school in the universe.  It's academically driven hospital so you'll get lots of clinical experience.  Lots of orgs on campus, and they got me really excited to join one.  Lots of social events.

Since SF has a lot of very distinct districts, there is a lot of opportunities for translational work if you know another language.  There is an HIV clinic on campus and you can shadow people.  If you want to get more into law and politics, Sacramento isn't that far away.  In the city there is some kind of heath fair almost every Saturday.

The P2/P3 students get to basically run the school.  There is a proctor that signs off on the liability forms, but we basically get to set up what we want.

Q: What other schools did you apply to?

A: Pretty much every school in California.  Do apply early.  UCSD has a fairly lenient application process.  They just have one essay.  Definitely have someone read over your essay and help you with grammatical stuff, etc.

To prep for your interview, know your own essay.  You don't want to write something on there that you don't really know much about and then get asked about it.

Q: How many questions are on the application?

A: It's a template.  Maybe nine questions, with a tiny box that you have to fit your answer into.  PharmCAS is the easy part.  Touro doesn't ask for your supplemental applications unless you pass the 1st tier of screenings.  You just have to do your research.  Some applications are electronic, and some have to be post marked by a certain date.  Those are scary.  That's why I just walked mine in.

Q: On questions about extracurricular activities, is it ok to write down random things?  Or should it all be pharmacy related?

A: It's better to be well rounded.

Some people say that if you're into research, you have a 50% better chance of getting accepted because there is just so much funding for research out there, and if you're into research they're hoping you'll stay on with UCSF after graduation and bring that money to the school, but that's not necessarily true.  Some people say you have to become a pharm tech before apply, but that's not necessary either.

UCSF has the least amount of prerequisites.  When I decided to go into pharmacy, I had 25 units to go, and I finished those in a year.  English classes, etc.  There's a link on the website which shows you all the equivalent courses.

I was interviewed late in the process.  I thought there wouldn't be much chance for me, but I got in.  It happens.  You hear stories about people getting the news.  One student was already in a school in Arizona, and was done with his first year.  He applied again to UCSF, got accepted and left the school.

Q: What's the on site essay like?

A: The on site essay is easy.  They questions are generally like "Rank these four things and [explain] why."  Just use common sense.  Choose the ethical reason over money.  They pretty much just want to see that you speak English.  You can't write on the back of the paper, or outside of the box.  Just one period outside of the line and you fail.  Don't write too much.  You can read more about what questions other people got on studentdoctor.net.  Communication, following directions, and having a moral conscience.  It seems like that's what they want to see.

If you have bad grades, don't bring it up.  They don't have access to transcripts.  Emphasize stuff like involvement in other things and community service.

Q: What about the question that's asking something about the "human condition?"

A [A lot of people chimed in on this, and came to a consensus that the question is purposefully vague.]

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And I think I'll cut it off right there.  I'm not even close to halfway through my notes.  There was essentially no silence for the two and half hours that the UCSF student was there.  Come back for Part 2!

Becoming a Pharmacy Technician - Part 9 - Rescheduled Again

I rescheduled my exam one more time. I received an email letting me know that the Pre-Pharmacy Association was meeting tonight at 7pm, which would have overlapped with my PTCE taking time, so I pushed it back a day. (I did the actual rescheduling yesterday morning of course, since the rescheduling has to take place at least 24 hours prior the the scheduled time.)

A UCSF student came to answer any and every question, and there was a lot of info given out for the 2+ hours she was there. I'll go through that in more detail when I have more time to go through all the notes I took.

One thing that's relevant for the exam that I'll be taking tomorrow is that the way she became a pharm tech, is the same way I'll be doing it. But she wasn't as paranoid as me when it came to studying. She said she bought a book at Borders, studied for just a week, then took the test and passed.

I'm going to be spending some time looking over the material again, and I'll be ready to take the exam. I think I'm not going to stress over trying to learn the 200+ drugs. I'll look through it some, but it doesn't look like it's necessary to pass if you know everything else.

I'll learn about the drugs on the job, and have an easier time learning about them since they'll have some context for me. I just need the license to get to that point. So that's it. Good luck to me. I'll be back to report tomorrow on how I do.

Community Service - SF Dept of Public Heatlh H1N1 Vaccinations

[Edit: I spoke too soon:

If you previously submitted a volunteer registration form for the now-canceled mass H1N1 swine flu clinics, we may still need your help. You will be contacted directly when we begin receiving vaccine.You do not need to submit a new registration form.

The registration form has changed, and specific shifts with date/time/location no longer appear on the form.  It seems they changed it between the time I sent in an application and before I made this post.  I copied the description without noticing the change, until I double checked if my links were working.

The event is still on, just the precise date and time is now more up in the air.  Volunteering is still possible.] 

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I have no idea how many people read/will read this blog in time to sign up, but information on this event (from Monday, October 26th to Saturday, October 31st.) has come my way. From their website:

The San Francisco Department of Public Health needs your help. Within 48 hours of vaccine arrival, we will conduct several overflow clinics throughout the city for people at high risk for disease or transmission. To make these clinics a success, we will need a large number of volunteers.

You can be sure that I have already signed up to volunteer.  While I don't have any kind of health license at the moment, nor do I speak a second language, being part of the event should be interesting regardless of what task I get assigned to.  And since I'm available for every day that week, perhaps that'll get me assigned to a somewhat substantial role.

What do I plan to take from this experience?

First of all, the experience itself should be enjoyable.  Second, if there are any pharmacists working there, perhaps I can talk with him or her.  And third, I'll have a recent volunteering experience that is relevant when it comes time to apply for jobs as a pharmacy technician.  My resume is pretty empty, and filling it out will be very beneficial.

Pre-Pharmacy Association

I should probably mention how I learned about this.  Well, it was pretty simple.  A couple years ago I help to found the Pre-Pharmacy Association at San Francisco State University.  I was the founding vice president.  As my hope for making it to pharmacy waned, I stopped participating as an active member, but I never asked them to take myself off the mailing list.

I wanted to once again join as a full member this semester, had I gotten the classes I needed, but school for the Fall wasn't to be.  However, after complimenting the current officers about how well the organization seems to be doing, I was given an open invitation to still participate in their events.  I may just take them up on their offer.