Dentistry for pharmacists

[spartacus]

I'd rather be a bungling doctor that earns a lot of money a belongs to a prestigius white collar profession who would not get struck off or prosecuted because of his powerful governing body, than a 'competent' pharmacist who earns peanuts, belongs to blue collar 'profession, has a joke of a governing body, is probably a failed medical/dental applicant, and would get prosecuted and struck off for a simple error

[crit care]

i'm not a failed medical/dental applicant!

[pharmer7]

It just comes down to this same thing that it would have made more sense for pharmacists to actually be the prescribers, while doctors just diagnose. However, it would probably have required some third occupation who would fill in the pharmacists role. Not sure what it would be called, but "dispensing monkey" springs to mind .

[newby82]

I read that the goodwill value of pharmacy is approx 5-6 times net profit (on AAH website). Ive seen in pj pharmacies valued at £600000 and they are fairly quiet, about 250 items a day. So even after they have paid themselves a pharmacist salary that it a big net profit to pay back loan and have some for mortgage and other things. Also parallel exporting is meant to be very profitable. If you got a new contract in a village and it was succesful you could sell to multiple after few years and just invest money. Feeling more positive about pharmacy. It is interesting many companies are announcing record profits even with all cat m clawbacks.

[zakkaz]

Would you have the time, patience, motivation, money, high stress threshold, little/no social life, with which to train staff, manage, motivate, devote everything in, dealing with customers/patients, building up those relationships, counting those pennies, in the most horrific economic and competitive climate of our times, in which to even consider opening your own pharmacy?

I wouldn't.

Re: dentistry: see 1st paragraph, add and amend as applicable.

Re: pharmacy, stick with what you're good at/trained in, until you have enough money to what you like. Average UK salary is about £26k. Pharmacist will earn 35-50+, so it's good. Appreciate what you have. And build a balance in life.

[phb10186]

I am a pharmacist, my brother is a dentist:

I looked into this myself, and it will be a standard fast-track dentistry degree you will have to do, which is four years in length, plus an additional year of vocational training (though this may be increasing to two years soon).

Unline pharmacy, you are qualified from the time you leave university, the VT year has no pre-reg exam equivalent.

On top of this, you will have to acheive a UKCAT score that the receiving school of dentistry deems acceptable.

Have you considered the vast array of MScs, MBAs or even a Law conversion; all of which are faster and will allow you to develop.

I ended up doing an MSc in Health Economics, which I found thoroughly interesting and only took a year.

[vanquish s]

Can I ask, what job opportunities the msc in health economics presented, as I have been considering this strongly, I find it very interesting.

[phb10186]

Sure.

Well, unlike pharmacy, it matters where you do the MSc more than what you study probably.

The top five institutions are Imperial, LSE, UCL and Oxbridge - so if you want to maximise the potential, try to go to one of those, or at least one of the traditional Red Brick unis, such a Bristol, Leeds etc.

With pharmacy (science), and an economics MSc (social science), you are arguably in a good position to enter any job; though clearly there is a positive spin on something health related.

You could work in Health Policy at a regulatory agency, become a Health consultant, or enter industry or even go into banking/ trading - though for the latter you would need to do more studying as well.

Anything is a posibility, so as long as you can convince the interviewer to give you a job!

There are plenty of jobs out there for a pharmacist with a degree in economics... it is a good skill set.

Above all else, you should go because you enjoy it - otherwise it will be a fairly painful experience.

[andrew paxton]

Oddly enough, when I qualified (in 1980) Pharmacists were ex-officio qualified in Dentistry, a historical anomaly that we voluntarily gave up a few years later.

[andrew paxton]

have to agree with Nik on this one. In hospital everyone needs a pharmacist, not just junior doctors. I have consultants asking me questions....these are drs who ahve more qualifications than me, been practicing since before i was born, and yet still ask questions on how to prescribe drugs. Even reading out the BNF they still manage to mess it up!

So they aren't ALWAYS more valuable!!

Not more valuable, just more expensive!