Monday, March 05, 2007
dear kyle
Dr. Kyle, I was wondering if you had any input on opportunities in neuropsychopharmacology. What with your background I thought you may have an idea of what type of person typically does work in this field. I am looking into going to pharmacy school and perhaps getting a ph.D as well. The only drugs that would interest me enough to pursue these lofty goals are the ones that are psychologically active. Any information would be appreciated.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Kyle! You backstabbing son of a bitch! Answer me! What do you expect me to do? !explative!
Hey, kyle. Its just your cousin me using an avatar for my name. Sorry about that raving madness a little bit ago. I just...just...wanted to hear from you, that's all. Ok, well good talk! Hear from you soon!
Kyle, I just wrote your name in the snow outside campus. It took me like 3 hours I wanted to get the font just the way you like it...you know...sans serif. Well, just keep hangin' on alright?
...I'm so cold...kyle...cold...I'm thirsty...
Jeez, calm down. I’m here, I’m here.
I don’t know a whole lot about neuropsychopharmacology as a career, but do know that pharmacologists tend to work on the drug development side of things (i.e. chemistry), neuropharmacologists tend to work on figuring out how those drugs act in the brain and affect behavior (i.e. neuroscience), and pharmacists tend to interact with humans in clinical/hospital settings or in pharmacy stores. The pre-clinical research side of things would probably require a PhD or some extensive lab training with your pharmD, whereas the PharmD would be sufficient for the human/hospital work.
If you like the idea of pre-clinical research, I’ve actually taught a course on neuropsychopharmacology using a book called “Principles of Neuropsychopharmacology” by Feldman, Mayer, Quenzer. You could take a look at it and see which side of things interests you most: the behavior/psychology side, the chemistry side, the neuroscience side. That might help narrow down your interests a bit.
Do you know which pharmacy school you’ll be going to? It might be worth talking to faculty there and asking about neuropsychopharmacology research opportunities to get a flavor of what it’s like. I could look up some myself as well.
KYLE
One option that I am considering is doing kind of both. I would be getting a pharm d. and jointly a ph.d similar to a m.d. ph.d. I am pretty certain that I don't want to work in a community or chain pharmacy so I am wondering what alternate opportunities there are for a pharm.d. See with the pharm.d you don't need to have an undergraduate degree to enter so I thought that it was exactly what I wanted my sophomore year only now am I beggining to worry about being stuck in walgreens, hence, the joint degree. The ph.d, becuase it is associated with the pharmd also doesn't require a bachelors degree. The ph.d part would be somewhat truncated, as I would be simultaneously working on pharmd. I have applied to this program at the University of Illinois - Chicago, and here at Wisconsin. The issue is that there is almost no information on this because it is kind of new, so I am waiting for the interviews to really get down to business. That is the long and short of it.
You mean you don't want to move pills from a big bottle to a small bottle in suburban Walgreens? That's just silly.
The joint degree sounds cool. The PhD part will involve mostly research in a facultly member's lab (probably of your choice), so it could be useful to look up available faculty or research centers and see if their work is interesting...maybe even prior to the interview for preparation. You could also look up some of their publications on www.pubmed.com to get an idea of what they do (search by last name and virst initials: SMITH KS). Dig it.
Post a Comment