Pharmaceutical Science - What does it lead to and how does it differ?

[Peter_1993]

I saw that there were two undergraduate courses that seem very similar.

One is Pharmacy which requires the UMAT and an interview and the other which is Pharmaceutical Science which simply requires an ATAR score.

Obviously, my first instinct is that Pharmacy is the more prestigious course but do both courses lead to the same careers? Would someone that holds a Pharmaceutical Science degree be able to get a career as a Pharmacist?

Thank you.

[thushan]

I saw that there were two undergraduate courses that seem very similar.

One is Pharmacy which requires the UMAT and an interview and the other which is Pharmaceutical Science which simply requires an ATAR score.

Obviously, my first instinct is that Pharmacy is the more prestigious course but do both courses lead to the same careers? Would someone that holds a Pharmaceutical Science degree be able to get a career as a Pharmacist?

Thank you.

Pharmaceutical science is simply a science degree with a major focus on pharmacology (the science of drugs).
Pharmacy is the vocational degree, training you to be a pharmacist.
You need a Pharmacy degree to be a pharmacist.

[slothpomba]

The above is true. Pharmaceutical sciences focuses a lot more on the formulation side though, producing drugs on industrial levels. They make you take a lot of organic chemistry, physiology, ect. You should look into what units you take (might be in the handbook), this will give you an idea of what happens in the course.

Pharmacology at the two GO8 universities in Australia seems to be a lot more fluid. You dont necessarily need organic chem or physiology for instance. I know at monash only about 2 units out of about 6 strictly focus on the area of making drugs. The rest are actual pharmacology, the affect the drug has on the body and the affect the body has on the drug (this might sound trivial but they're two separate fields).

That said, its arguable how useful and practical training you how to discover and industrially produce new drugs could be done at a university anyway, especially at an undergraduate level. A lot you'd pick up on the job or learn through doing these kind of things in honours or post grad.