Med vs Pharm. PART TWO

Before anything else, read PART ONE first..


The saga continues very soon after...
We've seen the good, the bold, and the beautiful. Now brace yourself for the ugly truth..again, in my very own twisted, baseless grounds.

Reasons NOT to choose medicine as your career:

1. EXPENSIVE career. Even before you begin, it has already completely burn off your pocket mercilessly. Typical scenario applies to paying money for exams merely for application process such as UKCAT *meow*, ICAT, entrance exams, eligibility certificates and more to empty your wallets. That's only starters. Light starters, mind you. Next comes the main course, guarantee to cultivate wings on your money. As if it's not enough, you'd have to pay additional costs for living expenses, examination papers, external posts, course works, researches, etc...all for a BACHELOR DEGREE. By then you become a GP, alongside with pride and glory, your bank account would have depleted to the extend until you're reduced to a pauper, albeit the new knowledge to save lives. More to come: Specialisation, postgraduate trainings, information upgrades and bla bla bla...tell me, do you still expect your mum and dad to boost your studies??


2. So many to learn, yet so little to be used when put to practice. Medicine students have to learn all about human bodies, yet the depth of knowledge learnt is somewhat shallow (think spreading butter over a wide surface of bread as the analogy) This is why specialists exist and they get to earn more comfortably to exxhange with their knowledge.


3. Working time being inflexible. Doctors make time to for other activities to their work schedule, whereas generally pharmacists make time for their work schedule to fit their life. Long story short, a doctor's life revolves around their work as their centre, being enslaved to their patients.
4. For those who needs straight eight hours of sleep and clean, state-of-art environment to study and work in, do think twice. Take some time to visit public hospitals and their ERs. If that's not your cup of tea, don't even think of being a doctor. That's how a hospital should look like and be and that's where doctors must take as their second home. Please, don't tell me you expect to work in hospitals like House's.


5. If you face cadavers every single lesson in medical schools and even after 30 days the sight of them still make you feeling nauseous as though you're pregnant and are having morning sickness, just pack your bags and head home, cause it means that's not your cup of Milo.


6. It is a known fact: Doctors today are increasingly growing in quantity. The rate of growth is not linear or directly proportional, I tell you...it's growing with a positive high power index exponential rate. Medical schools booming everywhere in every single corners in the world, with Malaysia being no exception. In our nation's own case, it is indeed a sore sight for any eyes. Ready or not, local institutions recklessly carry ahead with courses bearing the names MBBS, sometimes even without proper facilities while conducting classes in shop lots before moving to new campus. Don't ask me which university is that. DO YOUR OWN HOMEWORK. Anyway, back to doctors' factories...soon doctors will be over-supplied in the world, in a sense, though logically speaking...such thing is impossible.

Reasons NOT to choose to be a pharmacist:

1. Scope of work in pharmacy may be diverse and wide but the range of knowledge involved may not be as dynamic as medicine, thus if you have sudden lose in interest in Chemistry, you're a goner. Work will be boring, and boring.
2. Does not apply to the future or the next few years to come...only for NOW. In Malaysia, even doctors have dispensing rights. It seems in Sarawak particularly, the only thing left for present pharmacists to do is (i) open a pharmacy shop selling health paraphernalia (example, vitamins and lotions). Prescription drugs, forget it. You can always get them in clinics, from doctors, not pharmacists. or (ii)work in the public hospitals. Mind you, even then some of my friends working there complain of being subjected to hierarchy of staffs, doctors being more superior than they are.
3. You miss all the drama and actions that only doctors have in their work life. But fret not, if you're bored, get into the lab and watch some bacterias.
4. As general pharmacists, basically all you do is dispense drugs and interaction with patients are limited. To some it's an advantage, for me, as a pharmacist you just lost the main key in treating patients.