Final year Pharmacology,options for next year......

fatal

To cut a long story short,I didn't get enough points in the LC to do Pharmacy and decided to do Pharmacology (UCD) instead.Im in final year and deadlines for the various options next year are fast approaching.The problem is that I can't decide which one option I want to pursue.Im hoping that you guys can offer me advise so that I can make the right decision.

My options are a Taught Masters,PhD/Research Masters or a Pharmacy degree.I'm only considering a taught masters as "something to do for a year" rather than something I really want to do.

Next,PhD/Research Masters,herein lies a problem.I dont think that I have the willingness to spend 4 full years in a lab to do a PhD, and therefore im considering just finishing up after however long it takes to get a research masters. However, with either of these qualifications (PhD and Research Masters) it seems like a job in research is inevitable,something im not very keen about at the moment(based on spending 10 weeks of my fourth year project in the lab and disliking the lab environment from the very begininng).

Third,to study Pharmacy.For this i'd ideally go to the UK considering (a) the fees over here and (b) the difficulty with entry into the likes of RCSI and Trinity.As you can tell,Pharmacy is what I wanted to do initially but I didn't get to.However,im wondering whether it would be wiser to progress further with my current degree, and obtain a further qualification, rather than essentially starting from scratch with a Pharmacy degree.

Just to reiterate what I said above,i'd appreciate any advice or suggestions about what you guys would consider to be the best choice.

amjon

Right if you want to study pharmacy then I strongly suggest spending a month or more working in a pharmacy full time. I must stress that this should be 40 hours a week plus as this is what you will be doing once you finish the degree and possibly for the rest of your life. Prehaps next year would be better served completeing a 6 month stint rather than spending 5k plus on a masters you're not really keen on. I'm not going to go into my own feelings on the profession but what I will say is that you might think twice about the degree once you have spent an extended amount of time in the community pharmacy environment. What’s more pharmacy is no longer the money spinner it once was, Ireland has been decimated by Harney and the UK is becoming flooded with both Irish graduates and graduates from new UK universities.

fatal

amjon wrote: »

Right if you want to study pharmacy then I strongly suggest spending a month or more working in a pharmacy full time. I must stress that this should be 40 hours a week plus as this is what you will be doing once you finish the degree and possibly for the rest of your life. Prehaps next year would be better served completeing a 6 month stint rather than spending 5k plus on a masters you're not really keen on. I'm not going to go into my own feelings on the profession but what I will say is that you might think twice about the degree once you have spent an extended amount of time in the community pharmacy environment. What’s more pharmacy is no longer the money spinner it once was, Ireland has been decimated by Harney and the UK is becoming flooded with both Irish graduates and graduates from new UK universities.

Thanks a bunch for the input.
Over the past few days I've been thinking about perhaps going down the PhD route,and if I dont like it,switching it to a Research Masters(MRes) after a year.Whats more is that,unlike a taught masters,you get paid for the MRes.Would an MRes be recognised as equally or greater than a taught Masters?

imported_guy

fatal wrote: »

Thanks a bunch for the input.
Over the past few days I've been thinking about perhaps going down the PhD route,and if I dont like it,switching it to a Research Masters(MRes) after a year.Whats more is that,unlike a taught masters,you get paid for the MRes.Would an MRes be recognised as equally or greater than a taught Masters?

one isnt really > the other, employers will always look at the quality of research done, relevance to the job your applying for, or the taught masters, where did you do it, subjects taught, minor thesis/dissertion etc, this goes for pretty much any field, (atleast for your first job, since you havent been employed before). if your doing a research masters, one of the advantages is the oppertunity to do part time lecturing at the college, most colleges will pay you to teach a subject (to maybe like first year students in some under grad course) for a few hours a week (4-5 hours probably not more), this should be a big consideration if your looking into becoming a lecturer etc in the future, and you should talk to the college about this when applying. (you might be able to do it with a taught masters as well depending on hours etc, but very unlikely)

SomeDose

amjon wrote: »

Right if you want to study pharmacy then I strongly suggest spending a month or more working in a pharmacy full time. I must stress that this should be 40 hours a week plus as this is what you will be doing once you finish the degree and possibly for the rest of your life. Prehaps next year would be better served completeing a 6 month stint rather than spending 5k plus on a masters you're not really keen on. I'm not going to go into my own feelings on the profession but what I will say is that you might think twice about the degree once you have spent an extended amount of time in the community pharmacy environment. What’s more pharmacy is no longer the money spinner it once was, Ireland has been decimated by Harney and the UK is becoming flooded with both Irish graduates and graduates from new UK universities.

To counter the points made above, bear in mind that community pharmacy is only one potential career path. The OP never specified that they wanted to work in a community pharmacy, merely that they wanted to pursue a pharmacy degree. The other common career choice is in hospital pharmacy which, from personal experience, enables you to use much more of the scientific stuff learned in Uni and also provides you with the opportunity to massively improve your medical knowledge and understanding of disease & therapeutics. I also suspect that working in a UK hospital would be significantly more satisfying than working in an Irish one (from a pharmacist point of view). Plus, there is still a shortage of hospital pharmacists within the NHS so there's plenty of job opportunities there.

angeldelight

SomeDose wrote: »

To counter the points made above, bear in mind that community pharmacy is only one potential career path. The OP never specified that they wanted to work in a community pharmacy, merely that they wanted to pursue a pharmacy degree. The other common career choice is in hospital pharmacy which, from personal experience, enables you to use much more of the scientific stuff learned in Uni and also provides you with the opportunity to massively improve your medical knowledge and understanding of disease & therapeutics. I also suspect that working in a UK hospital would be significantly more satisfying than working in an Irish one (from a pharmacist point of view). Plus, there is still a shortage of hospital pharmacists within the NHS so there's plenty of job opportunities there.

+1

I'm a newly qualified pharmacist (woohoo can officially use that title from today) and have taken up a job in the UK. There's a big shortage in hospitals, I applied for 11 jobs and got 10 interviews from it. The pay is low when you look at it first - £24831 for starting hospital pharmacists but as a band 6 pharmacist most hospitals will pay for you to do your clinical diploma which is needed to progress. You'd be at band 6 for 2/3 years depending on diploma program but once a year get a pay rise - usually one pay point but could be two if you've really proven yourself to be worth it so within 3 years you could be on 28-30k. The cost of living is a lot lot lower there too so that has to be taken into consideration and if you're in London you get an extra London high cost allowance