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Researcher as a career


D_pharm

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Hi everyone!

I'm currently thinking of pharmacy as a plan B in case medical scool doesn't work.

The thing is, I'm really intrested in the theory and the subject, but I don't see my self working in a store as pill dispenser or in a hospital answering question and supervising the preparation of the medication. 

So the other option I'm thinking about is working as reseacher for a pharmaceutical company. Has anyone went into this path? Do we have the possibility of doing a intership in that field? Is it really hard to find a position into those company?

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Good questions.

Firstly, I don't believe many Pharmacists do 'pill dispensing', usually it's tech/assistants which count. Pharmacists in those environments are more to double check and council. 

While I don't have any experience in that path, I can recommend that you talk to an Admissions Officer for a University which has BOTH a Pharmacy and Pharmacology stream. I recommend this since from my knowledge, pharmacologists are more involved with research. Pharmacists are more involved in patient-centered care (either industry, community, hospital, etc.).

Hope that helped!

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I think if you strictly want to be a researcher for a pharmaceutical company, a research background may be the better route to go.  That being said, I have no idea how competitive those jobs are, so it would be worthwhile looking into.

Pharmacists definitely do work for pharmaceutical companies, and there are even industry "residency" positions available to graduating pharmacists.  I imagine they have consultant/business type roles, and having a PharmD would probably open an entirely different set of opportunities than a MSc/PhD would.  

There are also academic pharmacists that do research in association with a university.  I had heard that there aren't enough pharmacists that go this route, so it may actually be more feasible to achieve versus MSc/PhD route.  

Sorry not the best informed answers, maybe try reaching out to faculty/program assistants at pharmacy schools to see if they can put you in touch with people who have gone that route.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Pharmacists do a lot more than "dispense pills" or "answer questions in the hospital". I suggest you do more research into what a pharmacist does, the different career options (community vs hospital vs industry), even if its your plan B for your own sake. There's a reason why it's a competitive professional program that's a doctorate degree in many Canadian schools. I finished pharmacy school and am entering medical school, and if you're interested in being a physician, I'm pretty sure being a pharmacist, especially in the hospital, is much more aligned with the scope of a physician than a researcher at a company like Pfizer. There's so much in pharmacy that should make you excited if you truly wanted to be a physician - patient care, patient assessment, medication management (clinically), collaboration with other health care professionals just to name a few. We learn, read, and use the same literature and guidelines in terms of prescribing as a physician, and many times you're the expert the physician turns to when it comes to medications. Genuinely curious - what gives you the impression that pharmacological research will fill the hole of your desire to be a physician more than being a practicing pharmacist? Absolutely nothing wrong with wanting research - just want to make sure you're choosing what will ultimately make you happy.

As for your other question about research in the industry, it really depends what you mean.  You want to develop drugs? Do graduate school in pharmacology and/or medicinal chemistry. You want to do drug delivery, genomics, and other clinical wet lab research? Do graduate school in pharmaceutical sciences.  You can definitely intern at companies like Pfizer or Eli Lilly during pharmacy school, but you do things like safety presentations, answering stakeholder questions (physicians, pharmacists), literature reviews etc. Like Epona mentioned, there's industry residencies available at UofT post-graduation, but again, it focuses on clinical and pharmacoeconic aspects of the drug company, and less to do with researching drugs. Both the internship and residencies are very competitive, but easily doable if you focus on this track early.

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