Pharmacy Quagmire - hospital or community?

[rajah21]

I'm planning on studying Pharmacy at Monash Uni next year and am trying to decide which path I should take: hospital or clinical.

Unfortunately, I'm grossly uninformed about both options so if anyone has any advice or wisdom they're willing to share, it would be greatly appreciated

Thanks!

[Toothpaste]

I'm planning on studying Pharmacy at Monash Uni next year and am trying to decide which path I should take: hospital or clinical community.

Unfortunately, I'm grossly uninformed about both options so if anyone has any advice or wisdom they're willing to share, it would be greatly appreciated

Thanks!

One of those things that depends on your own preferences (through experience). In a hospital setting you generally deal with health conditions in an acute setting. In a community pharmacy you'll deal with more chronic problems (you'd get your regulars coming in for their medications). I also assume that the knowledge you'll be using would vary between the two. By this is mean like .. you'll see more of stuff like heparin injections in a hospital. The other health professionals you deal with would vary a bit too (more direct contact with doctors/nurses/others in a hospital, you ring them in a community pharmacy to check prescriptions).

How they help you decide:

1. getting experience during your course
Pretty much almost everyone gets a part-time student job in a community pharmacy during their undergraduate studies (this helps in recognising medications, dosages, the poison schedules, etc - need to know for final exams).

You can apply to do summer hospital placements in December/January. The process is apply through SHPA, interview with your chosen hospital, shortlist, start in the summer.

2. placements near the end of the course
So yep, you get 4 years to decide, with the end of 3rd year and most of 4th year doing placements in both settings (including a rural placement). They tell you heaps about both types throughout the course.
http://www.pharm.monash.edu.au/courses/pharmacy/pep.html

3. pre-registration year
The year after you graduate ("5th year" - not really since you've graduated, it just seems like that) is your pre-registration year. In 4th year you apply for an internship with either hospitals or community pharmacies. If you do an internship with a hospital they recommend you get some sort of exposure in community pharmacy because the registration exam is mostly based on community. You work full time during the year, and yes the pay is low.

Hospital: SHPA - http://www.shpa.org.au/ (click on careers)
Internship rules etc: http://www.pharmacybd.vic.gov.au/pharmacists_prereg_prereq.php

Another option is industry, I don't know much about it.
http://vcenotes.com/forum/index.php/topic,15063.msg161779.html#msg161779


If you're in it for the money, generally, community would be better (if you own your own pharmacy). It takes a lot of money to set up your own though, it's not that easy.

http://www.medstudentsonline.com.au/forumdisplay.php?f=68

Go to this to ask staff/whoever about it:
http://www.pharm.monash.edu.au/futurestudents/undergraduate-seminar.html
This Tuesday.

Also you can switch between the two sometime down the track because you're not limited to one.

Questions? I think I'm going in circles.



EDIT: I've learnt a fair bit after the original post so I guess I'll update it.

In a hospital you would expect to do a various range of roles. The most similar to community being the outpatients dispensing (in a nutshell it's putting scripts together both for patients and for ward pharmacists). You'd also be expected to counsel patients being discharged from the hospital since they might be given drugs to take home, if not, you're probably just going to tell them what's happening with medication (point is, it changes on a case-by-case basis). Ward pharmacists are the ones up in a particular ward they're assigned to, checking drug charts, medication history interviews, making sure that everything the physio/docs/others write down makes sense, etc. There's also the hospital manufacturing of drugs - "non-sterile" being the closest to your university practicals and "sterile" being the one where you gown up and go through many pressurised rooms to get to your workbench. But yeah, in a hospital the scripts you put together would probably be much larger in quantity than your community pharmacy scripts due to the nature of patients (they usually want a larger supply - say, 2 or 3 months, so they don't have to return as often).

I don't particularly understand the "classes" of pharmacists as of yet (all I know is it depends on experience and 1 is lesser than 3). In a community pharmacy the highest position is obviously owning the pharmacy (or so I see it; what's better than being the boss of yourself?). You can go even further and own heaps more .. so yeah I guess if you see being rich as the "highest" position - generate some sort of monopoly over everyone else and you're the supreme ruler of Pharmland. You'd really need a lot of money to start one up though, think: a couple of millions+. I'm not sure what being top of the hospital is, maybe being the director of the pharmacy department? You'd have a lot on your hands. They also run briefing (lectures/dept. meetings pretty much) for their staff every few weeks, topics may include budgeting, stock problems, staff issues etc.

As for switching around the careers, it seems to be easier to go from hospital back to community pharmacy rather than the other way around. So if you're still really unsure during internship place selection - I'd personally go for hospital. That said, the registration exam is more focussed on community ...

- and that's the extent of my knowledge at this point in time.

[Eriny]

I guess community you could probably travel around a lot and still find work. I met someone who did a pharmacy degree, decided that she didn't like it, but then worked as a pharmacist part-time to fund her further study. I guess that sort of flexibility could also be good.

[rajah21]

Thanks so much for your advice - it's given me quite a bit to think about

Just two questions:
1) Regarding moving up levels in the respective fields, do you know what the highest position is that can be occupied in hospital and community pharmacy?
2) Is there a significant difference between the pay for hospital pharmacy when compared to community pharmacy?

Thanks again for your help. I really appreciate it