Difference between Pharmacy & Medicinal Chemistry?

Steven_thebear

I'm just wondering if anyone in Trinity on these forums has done/is doing medicinal chemistry or pharmacy. I didn't realise there was actually two separate courses until I was scrolling through my CAO handbook (unfortunately, I am indeed in sixth year) and accidentally stumbled across medicinal chemistry as a course. For the last number of days I've been trying to find to find the concrete differences between the two courses, and seem unable to do so. My only *guess* is that pharmacy (without wanting to state the obvious) trains you to be a pharmacist and medicinal chemistry would train you to be more of a chemist, but I can't imagine that the two courses are wildly different.
I'm kind of curious because the points for medicinal chemistry are lower than that of pharmacy and the overall course size seems tiny which seems good. If anyone could enlighten me to the details of either course, I would greatly appreciate it. It might be nice to read something that isn't really typical college PR.
For further clarification, I do chemistry, physics and biology and enjoy all three immensely.
Cheers for your time

stealinhorses

Hey, I'm not in either of the courses, but can clarify some differences for you.

Main one is that MedChem is taught through Science whereas Pharmacy is a stand alone course in the School of Pharmacy. This means that if you are doing MedChem, for the first 2 years you take the same Biology, Chemistry and Maths modules as Science students. You complete the same amount of organic chemistry courses that a future Nanoscience/Chemistry with Molecular Modelling/Chemistry student would, or any student from Science that has chosen those electives in the first two years. You do chemistry labs which cover physical/inorganic/organic, and biology labs that also cover a lot of stuff that's not necessarily medical in nature (like structure of some animals etc). In 4th year MedChem you get to do a research project for 4 months, which can be pretty much anywhere in the world (I know a girl from MedChem who did hers in Calgary in Canada for example).

Meanwhile, if you are doing Pharmacy, you take all your chemistry, maths, etc. modules through the School of Pharmacy. These differ greatly, as you focus much more on organic chemistry from the get-go and you are introduced to lab methods likes IR spectroscopy and NMR much earlier on than Science students. You also take modules focused on the practice of pharmacy and professional development much earlier on. And of course, you will be licensed to work as a pharmacist if you get a Pharmacy degree, whereas this does not apply to MedChem. AFAIK you also do a research project in the final year, but don't know whether you can do it abroad.


Basically, in MedChem you study the fundamentals of drug design and synthesis from first principles. Why are these atoms incorporated into the molecular structure of this drug? How can we optimise the synthesis process so that the yield for our medicinal products is the greatest? Can we design novel methods which borrow from biology/nanotechnology to produce medicines that have a greater effect? Can we optimise the route for drug delivery of medicines we already have? These are some of the questions you are asking as a MedChem student.

As a Pharmacy student you go over the above in lesser detail, but then focus on what happens in the steps after. How do the drugs affect human biology, how do they fight the disease? How much of a given drug can I give to person x with condition y and what parameters z need to be considered so that the administration of medicines is safe? Why do drugs cost as much as they do? Who can I sell them to and why? How do drugs get made and delivered to hospitals/pharmacies? What are the ethical issues with selling and administering drugs? What about drug addiction? What processes need to be in place to minimise the dangers related to pharmaceuticals? What do I say to a person when they ask me to buy something in a pharmacy? These are the questions for a Pharmacy student.


Pharmacy requires much more study to do well in, whereas MedChem requires more imagination and problem solving to do well in.


Hope I helped.

Steven_thebear

stealinhorses wrote:

Main one is that MedChem is taught through Science whereas Pharmacy is a stand alone course in the School of Pharmacy. This means that if you are doing MedChem, for the first 2 years you take the same Biology, Chemistry and Maths modules as Science students. You complete the same amount of organic chemistry courses that a future Nanoscience/Chemistry with Molecular Modelling/Chemistry student would, or any student from Science that has chosen those electives in the first two years. You do chemistry labs which cover physical/inorganic/organic, and biology labs that also cover a lot of stuff that's not necessarily medical in nature (like structure of some animals etc). In 4th year MedChem you get to do a research project for 4 months, which can be pretty much anywhere in the world (I know a girl from MedChem who did hers in Calgary in Canada for example).

Thanks very much for that. I might continue to do some further digging if possible. Also, you wouldn't happen to know if there'll be a lecture on the open day at Trinity for medicinal chemistry? Cheers again for your post