Career Choice Question

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karl_297

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Hey everyone,

I'm currently a fourth-year PharmD applying to hospital pharmacy residency. My end goal is to do medicine, but after graduation I'd like to work as a hospital pharmacist rather than a community pharmacist (based on my previous experiences in both settings).

I'm just wondering if there are any pharmds out there that went into med school afterwards. Did you also do a hospital residency or go into community after your pharmd? Also, how many years later did you decide to go into med school? Any tips?

Finally, do you regret it?

- A confused student
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If you know for sure you want to pursue medicine, what is the point of even doing residency and cutting your pay in half with all that student loan interest building up?
 
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I will be getting out of pharmacy before I even graduate next year, and I will be doing my own "residency" with a master of cs with ds focus.

Why bother doing pharm residency with abysmal pharmacist job market today? Why bother doing medicine taking on even more massive debt and 7-8 more productive years lost at least? it simply makes no financial sense~
 
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Just let you know that current average MD pay in california is only around 200kish, unless you go into surgical or very competitive sub-specialties like dermatology or radiology, which means even more years spent on fellowships and more years of training, and basically just keep delaying life.

Just want to let you know MANY tech jobs from MANY tech companies are starting out near 200kish with bonuses and stock options. With ~7-8 years of experience, FAANG tech Sr or Staff SWE are getting paid to the range of 300-500k a year, and their lifestyle is Amazing!

I mean, if you do can get in a decent medical school and handle the rigor of continuously putting down hardwork for years, I am 100% sure that you can easily excel in ANYTHING else too. Pharmacy or medicine don't have to be the only options.

I am in my 4th year too, so I think maybe we can correlate a bit. just my $0.02.
 
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Why did you decide to pursue pharmacy before medicine? As long as you have a passion to practice medicine because you have to keep in mind that your loans from undergrad, pharm school, and med school will build up over the next 7-14 years (that's including med school and residency length). Also there is that possibility that you do not score high enough on your Step scores to be competitive enough for the specialties you want to do in the future and you end up not liking what you do later on. Just things to keep in mind before you make your decision. Good luck.
 
DIPEA said:
I will be getting out of pharmacy before I even graduate next year, and I will be doing my own "residency" with a master of cs with ds focus.

Why bother doing pharm residency with abysmal pharmacist job market today? Why bother doing medicine taking on even more massive debt and 7-8 more productive years lost at least? it simply makes no financial sense~
Click to expand...

Just curious, how much is earning potential and job market is with mcs/ds?
 
bazuka said:
Just curious, how much is earning potential and job market is with mcs/ds?
Click to expand...
Whatever the answer is, keep in mind that salaries in the bay area are hyperinflated and your “average” tech job will not pay anywhere close to that range.
 
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Pharmacy is a Scam said:
Whatever the answer is, keep in mind that salaries in the bay area are hyperinflated and your “average” tech job will not pay anywhere close to that range.
Click to expand...
really? check out the salaries of SWEs in Seattle, New York, and maybe also Austin? They are all "hyperinflated"?
Just to FYI, microsoft sr. software engineers (>5 years exp) in seattle are getting paid well over 200k. The mode is 230k LOL
 
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bazuka said:
Just curious, how much is earning potential and job market is with mcs/ds?
Click to expand...
right now there are >40000 job openings if you search "data scientist", "big data engineer", "machine learning engineer" job titles on linkedin.
US bureau of labor statistics forecast the next decade will create more jobs than this decade and 11.5M jobs total in this field.
 
Pharmacy is a Scam said:
Whatever the answer is, keep in mind that salaries in the bay area are hyperinflated and your “average” tech job will not pay anywhere close to that range.
Click to expand...
Again just FYI, some random search "data scientists" on linkedin pops up numerous openings in BFE places like Tennessee, Kentucky, and Minnesota. Their avg pay is 130k-160k for entry level position (<= 3 years exp).
You call this "hyperinflated"? LOLLLLLLLL
 
Pharmacy is a Scam said:
Whatever the answer is, keep in mind that salaries in the bay area are hyperinflated and your “average” tech job will not pay anywhere close to that range.
Click to expand...
Oh guess what, data science alone has >20X job openings RIGHT NOW (not even including regular software engineers and web developers) than pharmacists openings across US. Wayyyy better pay, wayyy nice lifestyle, wayyy fewer grads too.
Whether you like it or not, this is the reality. suck it~
 
The green is always greener on the other side. Tech, med. whatever it is. Today I realize Im thankful as a pharmacist and there is no need to worship all these other people. It's also about quality of life, not only about money. If you want to do history, do it, or medicine.
 
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Lubeckd said:
The green is always greener on the other side. Tech, med. whatever it is. Today I realize Im thankful as a pharmacist and there is no need to worship all these other people. It's also about quality of life, not only about money. If you want to do history, do it, or medicine.
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"follow your passion"~ sounds so familiar LOL
is this also how pharm schools and other liberal arts schools con students to pay outrageous tuition for a degree that bears no future?
wanna study psychology? follow your heart, pay 40k a year for a degree in psychology. wanna be a pharmacist? chase your dream, pay 50k a year for a pharmd degree LOL
Mike Rowe of dirty jobs said: "don't pursue your passion. chase opportunity!"
 
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Lubeckd said:
The green is always greener on the other side. Tech, med. whatever it is. Today I realize Im thankful as a pharmacist and there is no need to worship all these other people. It's also about quality of life, not only about money. If you want to do history, do it, or medicine.
Click to expand...
btw, most pharmacists HATE their quality of life. All the pharmacists I have met so far, not even a single one enjoyed working as a pill counter and dealing with demanding customers.
 
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DIPEA said:
"follow your passion"~ sounds so familiar LOL
is this also how pharm schools and other liberal arts schools con students to pay outrageous tuition for a degree that bears no future?
wanna study psychology? follow your heart, pay 40k a year for a degree in psychology. wanna be a pharmacist? chase your dream, pay 50k a year for a pharmd degree LOL
Mike Rowe of dirty jobs said: "don't pursue your passion. chase opportunity!"
Click to expand...
The only reason why America is doing so well is because of the individualism in this country, the creativity. The innovation is done by creativity. a lot of pharmacists are unhappy because they aren't following their passion in life. And if you keep chasing money on the back of your mind you will say, I want to pursue this. Thats why Im pursuing certain things, music, dance. Including Data science. Then again I actually follow my passions, with a S. And Pharmacy is one of them, Im quite fine in my pharmacy, my patients and co workers buy me things. I help them out and listen to their problems, I actually have real interactions with them, I could tell them by their voice and look who they are.

side thing: Im actually doing stats through here
 
Lubeckd said:
The only reason why America is doing so well is because of the individualism in this country, the creativity. The innovation is done by creativity. a lot of pharmacists are unhappy because they aren't following their passion in life. And if you keep chasing money on the back of your mind you will say, I want to pursue this. Thats why Im pursuing certain things, music, dance. Including Data science. Then again I actually follow my passions, with a S. And Pharmacy is one of them, Im quite fine in my pharmacy, my patients and co workers buy me things. I help them out and listen to their problems, I actually have real interactions with them, I could tell them by their voice and look who they are.

side thing: Im actually doing stats through here
Click to expand...
chase opportunities and start doing it, bring passions along, then someday they will wake up and love what they are doing~
 
Lubeckd said:
The Happiness Trap: Why You’re Never Satisfied and How to Break the Cycle
Im actually on this track, sometimes love, fame, money isn't going to make you happy. We are going to keep running towards something. Im sure the back of your mind, you have unfinish business to do, not just pharmacy. Once we reach pharmd its happiness but then it fades.
Click to expand...
i used to love pharmacy. but the reality is usually never the impression.
i used to hate programming, but reality is still never the impression until you do it more and more, then somehow it starts to be a little more fun and enjoyable.
 
Lubeckd said:
The only reason why America is doing so well is because of the individualism in this country, the creativity. The innovation is done by creativity. a lot of pharmacists are unhappy because they aren't following their passion in life. And if you keep chasing money on the back of your mind you will say, I want to pursue this. Thats why Im pursuing certain things, music, dance. Including Data science. Then again I actually follow my passions, with a S. And Pharmacy is one of them, Im quite fine in my pharmacy, my patients and co workers buy me things. I help them out and listen to their problems, I actually have real interactions with them, I could tell them by their voice and look who they are.

side thing: Im actually doing stats through here
Click to expand...
also one of the most common reason why millennials are so broke today is because they followed their dreams into creative writing, history, social studies, psychology, and on and on and on AND dug themselves into this financial hell hole decorated with wishful thinking.
 
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DIPEA said:
also one of the most common reason why millennials are so broke today is because they followed their dreams into creative writing, history, social studies, psychology, and on and on and on AND dug themselves into this financial hell hole decorated with wishful thinking.
Click to expand...
and psychologist go into marketing, history into political science as well as writing. Writers become movie directors, where would we be without them? social studies to study a group of people (you got me here)
 
we have people going for 3 degrees in Denmark or here in America going for pharmd then MBA, then jd, it never stops. Once education is free, they become forever students
 
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DIPEA said:
Again just FYI, some random search "data scientists" on linkedin pops up numerous openings in BFE places like Tennessee, Kentucky, and Minnesota. Their avg pay is 130k-160k for entry level position (<= 3 years exp).
You call this "hyperinflated"? LOLLLLLLLL
Click to expand...

Can you post links to these postings? Because I live in Texas and these salaries are no where near that. Glassdoor reports: $70K (entry) - <$120K (manager) in the Austin area (n = 4.4K salaries reported)
 
Seriously Serious said:
Can you post links to these postings? Because I live in Texas and these salaries are no where near that. Glassdoor reports: $70K (entry) - <$120K (manager) in the Austin area (n = 4.4K salaries reported)
Click to expand...
2019 Senior Data Scientist Salary Austin (Updated Daily) | Built In Austin

even though the title says "senior", but the reality is, most those "senior" postings only requires 3-5 years of exp for master or phd degree holders at most. any masters or phds with 5+ years exp should have already been principal data scientists. I have college friends in mechanical engineering, started off as a data scientist at capital one with just a bachelor three years ago and promoted to sr. data scientist in less than 2 years. more than 5 years ago, "data scientists" was not even a buzzword.
And the avg reported is only the base salary, and it doesn't take into account of additional stock options that total compensation package will also likely to include, usually it's 20k to 30k per year for mid-tier companies, and up to 50k to 60k per year for top-tier companies.
 
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TheBlaah said:
Think you triggered the kid.
Click to expand...
well, he made an unsubstantiated claim. so I wanna counter that with real data. it's just that simple.
he's more than welcome to back up his claim with evidence if he likes. but i highly doubt any reliable data from reputable sources will work well for him.
 
DIPEA said:
well, he made an unsubstantiated claim. so I wanna counter that with real data. it's just that simple.
he's more than welcome to back up his claim with evidence if he likes. but i highly doubt any reliable data from reputable sources will work well for him.
Click to expand...

Maybe. But his original claim that Bay area salaries are hyperinflated remains unrefuted. They're hyperinflated for most professions simply due to cost of living. Even pharmacists are started at 150k+ in the Bay area. Areas with similar high cost of living off similarly inflated salaries (New York City and Seattle are prime examples).

His other claim was that most average tech jobs aren't close to the 200-300k salaries you were posting about. The 130-160k salaries you posted from more rural areas aren't what I would consider closer to the 200-500k salaries you originally posted about.

If anything, I think you substantiated his claims.
 
TheBlaah said:
Maybe. But his original claim that Bay area salaries are hyperinflated remains unrefuted. They're hyperinflated for most professions simply due to cost of living. Even pharmacists are started at 150k+ in the Bay area. Areas with similar high cost of living off similarly inflated salaries (New York City and Seattle are prime examples).

His other claim was that most average tech jobs aren't close to the 200-300k salaries you were posting about. The 130-160k salaries you posted from more rural areas aren't what I would consider closer to the 200-500k salaries you originally posted about.

If anything, I think you substantiated his claims.
Click to expand...

you obviously took my numbers out of context. I said

"Just want to let you know MANY tech jobs from MANY tech companies are starting out near 200kish with bonuses and stock options. With ~7-8 years of experience, FAANG tech Sr or Staff SWE are getting paid to the range of 300-500k a year, and their lifestyle is Amazing!

I mean, if you do can get in a decent medical school and handle the rigor of continuously putting down hardwork for years, I am 100% sure that you can easily excel in ANYTHING else too. Pharmacy or medicine don't have to be the only options.
"
"
really? check out the salaries of SWEs in Seattle, New York, and maybe also Austin? They are all "hyperinflated"?
Just to FYI, microsoft sr. software engineers (>5 years exp) in seattle are getting paid well over 200k. The mode is 230k LOL
"

The OP was saying he/she wanted to go to medical school, and that would be a minimal of 7 years for a typical family doctor or up to 15 years for neurosurgeon commitment, a lot of debt and tremendous amount of effort. If he/she could pull that off, then he/she could easily pull off becoming a Sr or Staff SWE in FAANG. If you read my full posts, I was proposing a financially alternative career. Did I make up those numbers? Hell no, if you don't believe any of those numbers, feel free to look it up and come back with your numbers. They are all over the internet~
 
TheBlaah said:
Maybe. But his original claim that Bay area salaries are hyperinflated remains unrefuted. They're hyperinflated for most professions simply due to cost of living. Even pharmacists are started at 150k+ in the Bay area. Areas with similar high cost of living off similarly inflated salaries (New York City and Seattle are prime examples).

His other claim was that most average tech jobs aren't close to the 200-300k salaries you were posting about. The 130-160k salaries you posted from more rural areas aren't what I would consider closer to the 200-500k salaries you originally posted about.

If anything, I think you substantiated his claims.
Click to expand...

Alright, if you wanna talk about numbers we can do some calculation.
FAANG + Microsoft + Uber + Airbnb hire thousands and thousands of engineers in t... | Hacker News

If you are too lazy to read into it, let me pull out the extract for you!

The post, which was dated in 2018, stated "FAANG + Microsoft + Uber + Airbnb hire thousands and thousands of engineers in the Valley and Seattle every year. 400K is L5-L6 salary (senior engineer, first level manager). There are a TON of engineers making that money. They are not really outliers, and FAANGMUA is also not really outlier considering Google itself has 80K employees and Amazon and MSFT have over 200K employees."

So what's the average house price for San Jose, near the heart of the SV?
https://www.google.com/search?q=ave.....69i57j0l5.7150j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Again, if you are too lazy to read into it, the number is "The median price of homes currently listed in San Jose is $990,000 while the median price of homes that sold is $943,200. "

Let's say the individual diverts all of his/her effort from the supposed a decade worth of effort from medical training into programming and works his/her way up and get to the 400k salary in 7 years. He/she should have already easily paid off a typical one million dollar house in the FREAKING Silicon Valley by then, and with a ton of savings!!!!
 
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TheBlaah said:
Maybe. But his original claim that Bay area salaries are hyperinflated remains unrefuted. They're hyperinflated for most professions simply due to cost of living. Even pharmacists are started at 150k+ in the Bay area. Areas with similar high cost of living off similarly inflated salaries (New York City and Seattle are prime examples).

His other claim was that most average tech jobs aren't close to the 200-300k salaries you were posting about. The 130-160k salaries you posted from more rural areas aren't what I would consider closer to the 200-500k salaries you originally posted about.

If anything, I think you substantiated his claims.
Click to expand...
How is the salary "hyperinflated", when the annual income of large international IT corporation senior tech worker with 7 years of experience has 2.0-2.5 : 1 house price / annual income ratio?

If you still consider the salary : cost of living in SV is too "high", then move to Silicon Valley then! Who the hell would anyone wanna live in BFE places that have higher than 3:1 house price to annual income ratio? I mean, seriously WTF wrong with them?
 
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karl_297 said:
Hey everyone,

I'm currently a fourth-year PharmD applying to hospital pharmacy residency. My end goal is to do medicine, but after graduation I'd like to work as a hospital pharmacist rather than a community pharmacist (based on my previous experiences in both settings).

I'm just wondering if there are any pharmds out there that went into med school afterwards. Did you also do a hospital residency or go into community after your pharmd? Also, how many years later did you decide to go into med school? Any tips?

Finally, do you regret it?

- A confused student
Click to expand...

You won't have time to study for MCAT or take prereq courses if you go the residency route. If you really want to go MD, start working (even part-time) and ask the Premed forum what you need to be competitive for medical school. Obviously, make sure medicine is what you really want, not money. If you want money, invest or start a business.
 
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Now I'm starting to get flashbacks of PAtoPharm.

Another student who made some grand revelation to leave pharmacy and that their new chosen profession will be best thing since sliced bread.

I'm extremely aware what the job market is like in the software sector due to family/personal connections. They're probably even friends with your current professors. I'm not going to bother disputing everything you posted as, quite frankly, it's not worth the time or effort. Come back when you get your first job offer and let me know if it matches your preconceived notion.
 
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TheBlaah said:
Now I'm starting to get flashbacks of PAtoPharm.

Another student who made some grand revelation to leave pharmacy and that their new chosen profession will be best thing since sliced bread.

I'm extremely aware what the job market is like in the software sector due to family/personal connections. They're probably even friends with your current professors. I'm not going to bother disputing everything you posted as, quite frankly, it's not worth the time or effort. Come back when you get your first job offer and let me know if it matches your preconceived notion.
Click to expand...

Remember, this is the person who went into pharmacy with completely messed up intentions. I agree with you, it's not a unicorn job by any stretch. It is quite possible to make very good at it, one of the old moderators @dgroulx had a side business in sports statistics that paid pretty well. I had a decent practice until I gave it up this year, but the sale isn't software, it's expertise, which is a completely different thing. Software is a means to an end, nothing more or less. Although, there is going to be a reckoning for so-called data scientists versus the real deal.
 
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TheBlaah said:
Now I'm starting to get flashbacks of PAtoPharm.

Another student who made some grand revelation to leave pharmacy and that their new chosen profession will be best thing since sliced bread.

I'm extremely aware what the job market is like in the software sector due to family/personal connections. They're probably even friends with your current professors. I'm not going to bother disputing everything you posted as, quite frankly, it's not worth the time or effort. Come back when you get your first job offer and let me know if it matches your preconceived notion.
Click to expand...
So your family connections are "friends" to cs professors at GaTech, UPenn, UCSD, UT Austin or UIUC?
If they do, please ask them, formally this time, what their students are making annually as cs master grads. Please, I wish you can prove me wrong here. :rolleyes:
If they are just random guys with connections to some no-name state or small non-target private schools, don't bother. I came from a FAANG feeder undergrad, and even my current school is still a FAANG recruiter target. I also have A TON of friends currently working at FAANG. If you are looking for a wishy-washy incompetent pharm kid who can only count by fives and do empty talks, you are simply messing with the wrong guy here.
 
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lord999 said:
Remember, this is the person who went into pharmacy with completely messed up intentions. I agree with you, it's not a unicorn job by any stretch. It is quite possible to make very good at it, one of the old moderators @dgroulx had a side business in sports statistics that paid pretty well. I had a decent practice until I gave it up this year, but the sale isn't software, it's expertise, which is a completely different thing. Software is a means to an end, nothing more or less. Although, there is going to be a reckoning for so-called data scientists versus the real deal.
Click to expand...
What do you mean data scientist vs real deal?
 
TheBlaah said:
Now I'm starting to get flashbacks of PAtoPharm.

Another student who made some grand revelation to leave pharmacy and that their new chosen profession will be best thing since sliced bread.

I'm extremely aware what the job market is like in the software sector due to family/personal connections. They're probably even friends with your current professors. I'm not going to bother disputing everything you posted as, quite frankly, it's not worth the time or effort. Come back when you get your first job offer and let me know if it matches your preconceived notion.
Click to expand...
I think software sector and data science are very different
 
DIPEA said:
So your family connections are "friends" to cs professors at GaTech, UPenn, UCSD, UT Austin or UIUC?
If they do, please ask them, formally this time, what their students are making annually as cs master grads. Please, I wish you can prove me wrong here. :rolleyes:
If they are just random guys with connections to some no-name state or small non-target private schools, don't bother. I came from a FAANG feeder undergrad, and even my current school is still a FAANG recruiter target. I also have A TON of friends currently working at FAANG. If you are looking for a wishy-washy incompetent pharm kid who can only count by fives and do empty talks, you are simply messing with the wrong guy here.
Click to expand...

To clarify, my family connections are CS professors at Gatech, Kennesaw, and little less directly at Michigan. If they're not your professors, they probably know the people who are.

Seeing as how this is not going anywhere just like with PAtoPharm, I'm gonna go ahead and do the same and have you on ignore.
 
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TheBlaah said:
To clarify, my family connections are CS professors at Gatech, Kennesaw, and little less directly at Michigan. If they're not your professors, they probably know the people who are.
Click to expand...
So go ahead and ask them about the numbers~I am still waiting.
 
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don't do a residency. What a waste of money and time. You've already wasted enough of both if you're going into medicine.
 
spacecowgirl said:
don't do a residency. What a waste of money and time. You've already wasted enough of both if you're going into medicine.
Click to expand...
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The Deceptive Salary of Doctors - BestMedicalDegrees.com

Share this infographic on your site! Source: BestMedicalDegrees.com The Deceptive Salary of Doctors Most people believe that high school teachers don't make enough money, and few believe that doctors should make more. Believe it or not, doctors make 3 cents less per hour than high school...
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Mcpickle said:
You seem to flip your opinion every time you post. You just quoted my comment saying its all about the money lol. So you just go with whatever opinion makes you the most interesting or cool on each post.
Click to expand...
For some people it is, you enjoy looking through my post don't you? it seems I have a fan. So Im not sure if I should dislike you or like you, but its actually the latter. Being a pharmacist is still a rewarding profession don't get me wrong. I think its hard to explain, and if I explain you get will mad at me even more. I still stick by a hierarchy of tech > pharmacist > doctor in terms of life fulfillment. As for doctors its a over inflated titled, and on the last post just too much training and opp cost, we should feel sorry for them not admired. When you are happy with what you have you don't go out attacking doctors, tech or other pharmacist like this. except to not see them do bad in life. but do you

If you have anything else besides attacking me, ill defend my points without trolling or attacking you. Else I don't think we should discuss anything else. Or Here maybe I am, attacking Tech and Doctors big egos :D, but like I said Tech > Doctor. I just don't want people entering for the wrong reasons. like they are entering pharmacy and medicine
 
Mcpickle said:
You seem to flip your opinion every time you post. You just quoted my comment saying its all about the money lol. So you just go with whatever opinion makes you the most interesting or cool on each post.
Click to expand...
if you want me posting less than done. I still don't get. Not that I have anything against you. Im just saying there are so many ways doctor as a heir achy or even tech can be surpassed
 
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