Anybody know which one is harder? Medical school or Pharmacy school

[JavariPharmD23]

Anybody know which one is harder? Medical school or Pharmacy school

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[BC_89]

Anybody know which one is harder? Medical school or Pharmacy school

Short answer (outliers ignored): Med School

 

[BigBoss]

Use your common sense or do a quick search in this forum to find the answer.

 

[JavariPharmD23]

The fact that OP is asking this question already means they have no common sense. This question is on the same level as asking “Do I need to drink water to survive?”

Is this a troll? Of course, med school is harder w/8+ years of study. Why are we have dumb people in healthcare field

What about my question is dumb???

 

[BC_89]

What about my question is dumb???

They’re referring to your due diligent research. Just look at what it takes to get into MD/DO vs pharmacy (ie bachelors vs prereqs, GPA, shadowing, research, secondary supps etc etc).

Posted everywhere is also min. GPA to enter each profession as well as job security (Pharmacy saturated vs any specialty in med school).

Common knowledge however is longetivity of studying: pharmacy ( 2 yrs pre-reqs + 4 year pharmD + option pgy1 / pgy2) vs MD (4 years undergrad + 4 years Med School + 3 - 7 years residency + fellowship).

 

[princeafrica]

I work at Walgreens pharmacy as a pharmacy technician (I used to be pre-pharm before I switched to dentistry). This past summer we had an intern from those new pharmacy schools that do not require PCAT. A patient came in with red spots on their arm and the pharmacist asked the intern if he wanted to do the consultation. He looked at the patient arm and said "Looks like you have malaria, would you like to get a malaria vaccine today"......

Medical School is obviously harder than pharmacy school. You can reason that just by their respective entrance exam. But the standards to get into pharmacy school have gone down because too many schools are opening and many schools are desperate to fill their class (More students = more money), so they lower their gpa and PCAT standards.

No disrespect to any current pharmacy student, pharmacist, or faculty but this is what I have been seeing and saw during my time as a pharmacy technician and while I was working towards being a candidate for pharmacy school.

 

[DOOM N GLOOM]

I work at Walgreens pharmacy as a pharmacy technician (I used to be pre-pharm before I switched to dentistry). This past summer we had an intern from those new pharmacy schools that do not require PCAT. A patient came in with red spots on their arm and the pharmacist asked the intern if he wanted to do the consultation. He looked at the patient arm and said "Looks like you have malaria, would you like to get a malaria vaccine today"......

Medical School is obviously harder than pharmacy school. You can reason that just by their respective entrance exam. But the standards to get into pharmacy school have gone down because too many schools are opening and many schools are desperate to fill their class (More students = more money), so they lower their gpa and PCAT standards.

No disrespect to any current pharmacy student, pharmacist, or faculty but this is what I have been seeing and saw during my time as a pharmacy technician and while I was working towards being a candidate for pharmacy school.

Feel free to disrespect all the students and faculty

 

[princeafrica]

Feel free to disrespect all the students and faculty

Lol, I mean if people are really really passionate about it go for it. But people shouldn't make the mistake I did of going into pharmacy because it seems like easy money

 

[ChicPharmDee]

I work at Walgreens pharmacy as a pharmacy technician (I used to be pre-pharm before I switched to dentistry). This past summer we had an intern from those new pharmacy schools that do not require PCAT. A patient came in with red spots on their arm and the pharmacist asked the intern if he wanted to do the consultation. He looked at the patient arm and said "Looks like you have malaria, would you like to get a malaria vaccine today"......

Medical School is obviously harder than pharmacy school. You can reason that just by their respective entrance exam. But the standards to get into pharmacy school have gone down because too many schools are opening and many schools are desperate to fill their class (More students = more money), so they lower their gpa and PCAT standards.

No disrespect to any current pharmacy student, pharmacist, or faculty but this is what I have been seeing and saw during my time as a pharmacy technician and while I was working towards being a candidate for pharmacy school.

This is true. "Lower their GPA and PCAT standards." Plus, the PCAT is much simpler and takes less time than the MCAT... Less competitive too.

 

[Timbo]

But the standards to get into pharmacy school have gone down because too many schools are opening and many schools are desperate to fill their class (More students = more money), so they lower their gpa and PCAT standards.

I wonder why this isn't happening to medical schools or any other health care professional schools? You would think being a "doctor" would be a more recognizable profession. Plus there is still an actual growing demand for physicians whereas with pharmacy, there's already a surplus of pharmacist and growing unemployment. Why are pharmacy schools the only healthcare schools that have let their profession go down the toilet?

 

[DOOM N GLOOM]

I wonder why this isn't happening to medical schools or any other health care professional schools? You would think being a "doctor" would be a more recognizable profession. Plus there is still an actual growing demand for physicians whereas with pharmacy, there's already a surplus of pharmacist and growing unemployment. Why are pharmacy schools the only healthcare schools that have let their profession go down the toilet?

Because Medicine is the gold standard “medical profession” by which all other healthcare professions are derived from so their standards will never change. Pharmacy just happens to be another one of those pseudo-healthcare professions that is trying to self-validate its worth.

Who’s ever heard of a pharmacist before the 1920’s?

 

[princeafrica]

I wonder why this isn't happening to medical schools or any other health care professional schools? You would think being a "doctor" would be a more recognizable profession. Plus there is still an actual growing demand for physicians whereas with pharmacy, there's already a surplus of pharmacist and growing unemployment. Why are pharmacy schools the only healthcare schools that have let their profession go down the toilet?

Pharmacists ain't fighting this growing number of schools and lower standards

 

[DagS132]

I always assumed if you can't make it into pharmacy school, you definitely can't make it into medical school.

 

[ChicPharmDee]

I always assumed if you can't make it into pharmacy school, you definitely can't make it into medical school.

Second that.

 

[Timbo]

I always assumed if you can't make it into pharmacy school, you definitely can't make it into medical school.

That doesn't say much. Nowadays people won't couldn't make it to PA school are getting in pharmacy school lol

 

[allantois]

Hmm let's see, I always see pharm students come in for half a day and then leave for the day

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

Anybody know which one is harder? Medical school or Pharmacy school

For someone who's taken both MCAT and PCAT, I can personally tell you that... if you don't already know the difference, then you're not fit to go to either... haha

MCAT is MUCH harder to even study for let alone sit through. Once in school, based on what my doctor friends told me, first two years of both schools are about similar until you hit 3rd year of med school, things escalate very quickly and residency is when all doctors start to think everyone else is beneath them... so there you go lol

 

[Khalsu]

Just because some pharmacy schools do not require PCAT scores doesn't make it easier to get into. If I am not mistaken, all of the schools in CA do NOT require PCAT - and there are some really credible schools there. (ie, UCSF, USC, etc). And by the way, standardized testing does NOT correlate or reflect a linear scale relationship of outcomes (A students do not always make better doctors), so I think that is why some campuses are getting rid of that methodology for selecting a potential candidate.

I'd agree though - Med school is probably a lot harder. But what do I know? I only completed my Pharm D + 2 years of residency.

 

[ChicPharmDee]

I know I'm not the one to go to Med School, let alone defeat the hassle of taking the MCAT, so I settled with Pharmacy. I survived the PCAT, so there's that. Take what you know you can handle.

 

[Timbo]

I know I'm not the one to go to Med School, let alone defeat the hassle of taking the MCAT, so I settled with Pharmacy. I survived the PCAT, so there's that. Take what you know you can handle.

Why choose Pharmacy though? PA or NP would be a lot closer to what med school would be. Besides there aren't any jobs in pharmacy to "settle" into after you graduate.

 

[ChicPharmDee]

Why choose Pharmacy though? PA or NP would be a lot closer to what med school would be. Besides there aren't any jobs in pharmacy to "settle" into after you graduate.

I guess everyone has a different experience after graduate school. Like I said, I don't think I'd be able to hand anything EXACTLY like Med School.

 

[Timbo]

I guess everyone has a different experience after graduate school. Like I said, I don't think I'd be able to hand anything EXACTLY like Med School.

PA I’m sure is much easier than med school and compared to pharmacy school, it requires less time and money, pays just as much if not more, and has better job prospects. However if you don't think you’d be good at performing diagnosis and other procedural things involved, then that’s understandable. I just fear that you are selling yourself short thinking that pharmacy is a safe profession to settle into even though you’re not truly passionate about it. At least that’s what it sounds like to me right now. Ten years I would say go ahead, but now the pharmacist surplus is real and it will be much worse 4 years from now. If you think choosing pharmacy is “settling” as if it was a safe career choice then I hope you realize what a huge gamble you’re taking right now. Check the pharmacy forums now and you’ll see the entire front page is about unemployment, wage/hours cuts, layoffs - it wasn’t that way just a few years ago. I graduated over a couple years ago and consider myself lucky to be gainfully employed full-time even though I have to live in an undesirable middle of nowhere area. I know a lot of new grads who were forced to move across the country for jobs and are currently struggling to even get enough hours to pay their bills. My job is not even that secure - company is struggling and will most likely be bought out and laid off by Walgreens or CVS eventually (seems to be the trend currently). I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like 4 years from now when you graduate and pharmacy schools are still graduating PharmDs in record high numbers.