Non-traditional Applicant

[GBM]

It's been a while since I have posted here. 

 

I ended up never applying for medical school and actually ended up completing a BSC, MSc, a PharmD, and after several years of experience I now own my own pharmacy.  I am thinking of now applying for medical school after realizing specific things about medicine as a field. I am looking to apply to Ontario medical schools. 

I have a couple of questions: 

1) Will an application from a practicing pharmacist be looked down by a medical school?  

2) Will reference letters from the patients I have cared for as a pharmacist count? 

3) Can I apply as a graduate applicant? I have a Msc, but I earned my PharmD after my Msc. 

4)Being a graduate applicant, I do not think I can get a reference letter from my supervisor as it has been many years since I have last spoken with him. Is this an issue? 

 

Thank you all,

[JohnGrisham]

27 minutes ago, GBM said:

It's been a while since I have posted here. 

 

I ended up never applying for medical school and actually ended up completing a BSC, MSc, a PharmD, and after several years of experience I now own my own pharmacy.  I am thinking of now applying for medical school after realizing specific things about medicine as a field. I am looking to apply to Ontario medical schools. 

I have a couple of questions: 

1) Will an application from a practicing pharmacist be looked down by a medical school?  

2) Will reference letters from the patients I have cared for as a pharmacist count? 

3) Can I apply as a graduate applicant? I have a Msc, but I earned my PharmD after my Msc. 

4)Being a graduate applicant, I do not think I can get a reference letter from my supervisor as it has been many years since I have last spoken with him. Is this an issue? 

 

Thank you all,

1) No, thats irrelevant. You'll be evaluated the same for your non-academic experiences.
2) Doubtful, that would be odd to get reference letters from patients. You'll need to meet the typical requirements, that said many schools dont require reference letters but rather reference forms.
3) Probably, contact specific schools your interested in.
4) same as 3), check with schools.

[GBM]

1 hour ago, JohnGrisham said:

1) No, thats irrelevant. You'll be evaluated the same for your non-academic experiences.
2) Doubtful, that would be odd to get reference letters from patients. You'll need to meet the typical requirements, that said many schools dont require reference letters but rather reference forms.
3) Probably, contact specific schools your interested in.
4) same as 3), check with schools.

Thanks

I'll contact the schools to clarify things.  

[Beacon]

If you don't mind me asking, why are planning to leave pharmacy?

[GBM]

Pharmacy has been good to me , but it’s incredibly tough . I own a pharmacy and I was a manager of a very busy pharmacy . I am satisfied at the life it has given me, I don’t worry about bills I guess .

I want to leave pharmacy because I practiced to the limits of pharmacy as a profession, and I am not satisfied with the limits. 

I spent my entire pharmacy career working in a small rural town 3 hours from Toronto . This town has a severe shortage of physicians . As a pharmacist I would do everything I could to mitigate the fact that these individuals had no physicians including bringing in telemedicine clinics , occasional NP, I even created a online blog which I used to educate patients about various medical topics. After a while I began to loathe the fact that I had to always think of techniques to go around the fact that I was not a physician. 

To see your patients that you know personally suffer while you stand idly by is horrible . To know that you are standing literally in front of a wall of medications that could probably help with their problem is the worst feeling in the world. 

I am considering applying to become a physician because I am tired of the barrier that exists in front of caring for my patients. Becoming a physician I will finally be able to actually act on what I am thinking. 

If you are considering pharmacy , know that it’s not a bad profession, but it’s full of extremes. It’s nice in that you can disrespect your profession, and work for some big company, mindlessly filling prescriptions. You might be happy because you will go home each day, and forget about all the decisions you’ve made.  At the same time you can respect the profession, and put everything you can into it, and you’ll suffer, but you’ll make a difference. 

 

*Sorry for the bolded text, I tried posting this several times but the forum kept crashing, i had to copy and paste the reply from google docs.