Pharmacy or optometry as alternative to med (1 Viewer)

[anfonnee]

Hey just wanted an opinion on what people reckon would be a better alternative career to being a doctor: pharmacist or optometrist? I've kinda always been set on doing med but wanna look at other options and kinda leaning towards these two. Pros and cons of each maybe, and advice from people already doing the course or perhaps people in the same situation as me. Any input would be appreciated =)

Cheers

(sorry if theres already a similar post, couldn't find it anywhere)

 

[Wooz]

Hey just wanted an opinion on what people reckon would be a better alternative career to being a doctor: pharmacist or optometrist? I've kinda always been set on doing med but wanna look at other options and kinda leaning towards these two. Pros and cons of each maybe, and advice from people already doing the course or perhaps people in the same situation as me. Any input would be appreciated =)

Cheers

(sorry if theres already a similar post, couldn't find it anywhere)

These careers are not alternatives to medicine. They are different career paths altogether.

Alot of prospective doctors who fail to make the cut become dentists.

If you really wanted to do medicine you should consider the alternative pathways of getting into medicine such as applying as a non-standard or graduate medicine.

 

[ASNSWR127]

RN's (registered Nurses) do a lot of the responsibilities of a Dr nowadays, particularly if you do various courses to 'upskill' you shoudl look into that...

 

[Tim035]

No offence to you in particular, but I really hate this large sum of individuals who go- Dam I didn't get into med, guess I'll pharm, optom, or dentistry instead; with no motivation or reason to do them outside of the fact they failed to make the cut.

 

[Wooz]

I concur!

This is another reason why Umelb decided to implement graduate medicine with their new model, stating 'too many students were doing medicine for the wrong reasons'.

 

[katie tully]

RN's (registered Nurses) do a lot of the responsibilities of a Dr nowadays, particularly if you do various courses to 'upskill' you shoudl look into that...

Nah, they dont.

6 years of uni plus another 5 or so of specialised training, as opposed to a three year nursing degree?

They do not share the same level of responsibility.

 

[ASNSWR127]

Nah, they dont.

6 years of uni plus another 5 or so of specialised training, as opposed to a three year nursing degree?

They do not share the same level of responsibility.

I never said they share the same responsibility, please read a lot more closely next time.

I said that they share some of the responsibilities of a Dr

with medit is a 5/6 year degree yes. Nursing is 3.
However there is specialist training (post grad) involved with Nursing (as there is with med) including pre-hospital, emergency/Intensive care, pallative etc etc. the extra nursing training period should also be included.

Plus nurses are generally a lot nicer than Dr's.

You also have to do 1 year post registration experience in a hospital (2 if you want to go ADF like myself)

Any Dr worth his/her salt would never ignore out of hand the advice given by a nurse on a pt, whether i be diagnostic or whatever.

The Registered Nurse is the pt's advocate, a truly special position to hold.

 

[katie tully]

do a lot of the responsibilities

Well this implies what? And what are these said responsibilities?

And it's not the same dude. For starters, my mum is a nurse with a masters degree. I work in a hospital. I have a fairly accurate first had knowledge of the roles and responsibilities, and training inolved with the two.
You can't compare the specialist training a doctor does with the training a nurse does.

Let's use palliative care as an example. A palliative care nurse can only implement therapies approved by a doctor. They can only administer the medications approved by a doctor.
Nurses cannot diagnose. They cannot prescribe medication.

Yeah, one year post graduate. So if we include that with the 3 year degree, it's a total of 4 years training.
Any nurse who knows their position will not give out of hand advice to a doctor, because it's not their job nor are they qualified.

 

[lil_georgie_gal]

Something which is unknown is that many senior nurses do help out intern doctors etc with decisions and procedures. Yes they may not "diagnose" but the role is not so blunt as to say oh nurses just stand there and carry out orders without speaking a word. Nurses are there with the patient 24/7, they understand the norms for their pts and are essential the ones who are responsible for handling any immediate changes with the assistance of doctors.

Nurses and doctors work together, its not one against the other, so nursing would be a good alternative, u get lots of hands on work too, and like any career there is ups and down

 

[ASNSWR127]

Something which is unknown is that many senior nurses do help out intern doctors etc with decisions and procedures. Yes they may not "diagnose" but the role is not so blunt as to say oh nurses just stand there and carry out orders without speaking a word. Nurses are there with the patient 24/7, they understand the norms for their pts and are essential the ones who are responsible for handling any immediate changes with the assistance of doctors.

Nurses and doctors work together, its not one against the other, so nursing would be a good alternative, u get lots of hands on work too, and like any career there is ups and down

Quite so...

plus there are all of the skills and clinical decisions that are nurse initiated, for instance a CNS can initiate IV therapy and anti-emetics for a severely dehydrated pt, this is one of those skills that would normally be associated and "ordered" by a Dr. There are others but I thought that was a good example, or the initiation of Morphine (and other sched 8 drugs) in a rural or remote area.

Good career with plenty of areas to branch into, for myself in the ADF I will be riding in armored ambulances to pick up wounded soldiers somewhere in Afghanistan or Timor, or jumping out of a helicopter on a retireval, or operating a clinic in the jungle, or helping indigenous children somewhere, or setting up a filed hospital.... so many opportunities all of which take note of the qualifications and talents of RN's.

You can upskill into a Nurse practitioner, do post-grad med, emergency/ICU nursing, pre-hospital, paediatrics, retrieval, or just be the damn best ward RN you can be! we are all there to care in our different contexts and to detract from that is not the right way to look at life.

When I did school (NIIS) Nursing prac I was on the ward at Lithgow there was not one MO on ward, it was run by RN's and all incidences were dealt with and signed retrospectively by MO's, MO's that had the trust in their Nursing staff. I hope Katie Tully (if she wants to be an MO) has that same trust in her Nursing staff or she will not go far.

Katie Tully I think your mind set is still a long time ago in a place far far away back when Nursing was not considered a profession but rather a trade or 'job'.

 

[katie tully]

Katie Tully I think your mind set is still a long time ago in a place far far away back when Nursing was not considered a profession but rather a trade or 'job'.

No you git, not at all. I fully appreciate that nursing is an important sector, and as I've said, my mother is a registered nurse, so it's not like my knowledge of them is based on some archaic evidence from 500 years ago. That and I work in a hospital and deal with nurses on a day to day basis. This may be where my perception of them is skewed, I am quite skeptical of the whole fairy tale image of what a nurse is and should be, because I see first hand what they're not. Not all, but after a few years in this game I've seen how the system can make them cynical.

I'm saying you can't compare nursing with medicine because the responsibilities ARE NOT the same, and as much as you want to emphasise how great a career nursing is, you cannot compare a 6 year university degree plus another 4+ of specialist training, with a 3 year degree and one year post grad training.

I wholly encourage people to consider nursing, it's a worthwhile degree. Just don't go in with misconceptions of what your role really will be.

 

[katie tully]

You can upskill into a Nurse practitioner

Yeah, do you know what it takes to be a Nurse Practitioner? I know two who have just passed. One had to prove they'd done 5000 clinical hours, had to sit through a 4 hour interview with scenarios, etc. The other one had to do a 10,000 word thesis and an interview. Even the local doctors said the requirements to become a NP are more than what would be required to go through medical school.

So you can't just upskill.

 

[ASNSWR127]

your role is to care

Same as an MO.

Perhaps you Katie Tully are one of those twats that want Dr before and MBBS after their names? simply for the "prestige" and "glory". Who want to walk around with a stethoscope around your neck ordering drugs left right and centre? if so don't you apply either! please!

Just out of interest what area of the hospital do you work in?

Please do not think I was trying to say that the responsibilities are the same. You know very well they are not. you also know equally well that I never said they were.

I said RN's have a large responsibility.

Please dont deal in 'soundbites' when you quote me either, take the whole thing not a sentence or phrase and put it out of context.

If you want to do that go and be a journalist for the telegraph please

 

[katie tully]

Haha, you are such a fool. Why are you getting so defensive? As far as I was concerned, this was a friendly debate. Why get so defensive.

Is it because I am right.

You keep saying

Please do not think I was trying to say that the responsibilities are the same. You know very well they are not. you also know equally well that I never said they were.

Yet you initially said

do a lot of the responsibilities

So what does that mean. Would you like to retract your previous statement?

I care not for prestige at all. If I am in the hands of a capable nurse, that to me is good enough.
Secondly, how am I taking it out of context, I just cbf quoting the whole thing if it's not relevent.
Thirdly, I'm not a Medicine student. I'm a Medical Science student, so why are you harping on about me wanting prestige?

I'm not telling you what hospital I work in, it's irrelevant.

You sound like you have a bit of an inferiority complex, and think that if anybody says anything against nurses, then they automatically think nursing is a useless profession. I'm not going to keep saying how much I hold nursing in high esteem, I just took offence to the original statement that nurses "do a lot of the responsibilities of a Dr"

 

[ASNSWR127]

Haha, you are such a fool. Why are you getting so defensive? As far as I was concerned, this was a friendly debate. Why get so defensive.

Is it because I am right.

You keep saying


Yet you initially said


So what does that mean. Would you like to retract your previous statement?

I care not for prestige at all. If I am in the hands of a capable nurse, that to me is good enough.
Secondly, how am I taking it out of context, I just cbf quoting the whole thing if it's not relevent.
Thirdly, I'm not a Medicine student. I'm a Medical Science student, so why are you harping on about me wanting prestige?

I'm not telling you what hospital I work in, it's irrelevant.

You sound like you have a bit of an inferiority complex, and think that if anybody says anything against nurses, then they automatically think nursing is a useless profession. I'm not going to keep saying how much I hold nursing in high esteem, I just took offence to the original statement that nurses "do a lot of the responsibilities of a Dr"

I didn't make it unfriendly ; P

sorry if I sounded defensive but I get a lot of flack for wanting to nurse as a male, joking off mates but it grates on my nerve after a while (hope they are reading this LOL)

I retract all offensive statements and I am not too stupid to know when I make a mistake, I have made a mistake over what sort of person you are and I apologise : )

The responsibilities were more referring to the extra clinical skills that RN's can do nowadays e.g cannulation and signing for more drugs and more complicated dressings etc. etc.

However I am probably also talking more form my context where I want to nurse (in the ADF) as most of it is out of hospital with no MO around a lot of the time, I sometimes forget what the role of the average RN can be in a lot of cases. Again sorry for this oversight.

Friends again? (if ever LOL)

 

[katie tully]

Dude, don't misunderstand me.

I think it's great you want to be a nurse. We definitely need more male nurses, and I was in no way trying to detract from what a great profession it is.

It's just that sometimes we get new nurses and they have this attitude like, well I'm a nurse and I can do this and Dr. is just arrogant. TBH, I'd be a little arrogant if I entered uni at 18 and didn't fish studying till I was 30! They're hard to work with, definitely.

Yeah, there has been a focus towards training RNs in specialised areas, to compensate for the doctor shortage, especially in rural areas (which is where I am). TBH, cannulation isn't that hard (I've been trained in venepuncture/cannulation), but it's suprising how many nurses can't do it.

Mum just finished training last year, she is licenced to take X-Rays and has FLEC and a few extras.

 

[ASNSWR127]

Dude, don't misunderstand me.

I think it's great you want to be a nurse. We definitely need more male nurses, and I was in no way trying to detract from what a great profession it is.

It's just that sometimes we get new nurses and they have this attitude like, well I'm a nurse and I can do this and Dr. is just arrogant. TBH, I'd be a little arrogant if I entered uni at 18 and didn't fish studying till I was 30! They're hard to work with, definitely.

Yeah, there has been a focus towards training RNs in specialised areas, to compensate for the doctor shortage, especially in rural areas (which is where I am). TBH, cannulation isn't that hard (I've been trained in venepuncture/cannulation), but it's suprising how many nurses can't do it.

Mum just finished training last year, she is licenced to take X-Rays and has FLEC and a few extras.

OK no I totally understand and like I say this is tainted with the context in which I want to nurse.

There is one rule that all nurses that I have met seem to live by though and that is that they are the pt's advocate first and foremost and that the pt comes first - that is an attitude which I am afraid all those billions of years at uni sometimes destroy's in MO's

Cheers for a robust debate.

 

[lala2]

I concur wholeheartedly with Wooz. However, I can shed a bit of light on pharmacy as I'm doing it myself.

PROS

- Work/lifestyle factor--if you were looking for something more relaxing, pharmacy is not a bad choice, especially if you go into community pharmacy and own your own business, which leads to:
- Potential to make big bucks--medicine will make you comfortable, but if you want to really reap in any sort of big, big money, pharmacy's got potential
- Less training--four years plus one year registration as opposed to six years (minimum) plus at least 5 years of specialist training = 5 versus 11 years. If you want to marry and have kids, not saying it's impossible in medicine but you gotta carefully time it. When you get registered as a pharmacist, you'd be 23/24 which is still young.

CONS

- Lots and lots to memorise--medicine has even more though, but you are the expert on drugs. It is hard work, it is not simply a sub-counterpart to medicine.
- Work/play lifestyle while at uni--I find that med students are insanely involved in everything, probably because they get less contact hours than we pharm students. If you're really keen to get involved, like I am, you might find that the high number of contact hours gets in the way of quite a few things. It gets better as the years go by, but then you have placements for subjects, work commitments, and what not, just trust me it fills up quickly so there's not much space for life outside of pharmacy...
- People in pharmacy are boring--this is just a side note, I have found people in pharmacy to be very boring, and it is a small world. Don't let this influence your decision, but I thought I should just drop it in there that if you're expecting it to be like the quintessential uni stereotype of everyone has exciting lives and knows everyone around campus, and what not...it's not like that in pharmacy. We do have a few personalities, but not many, not the way Arts students do.

IN GENERAL:

You'll memorise more than you ever think you could possibly handle. Rattle off any brand name and I'll probably know what it is, at least by its generic name. It's a full-on degree, lots of hard work, but definitely doable. Anything else feel free to post up or PM me