Pre-reg 2012/13

Hey guys, thanks for the good luck!

First day was good. The staff are really nice. I had an induction for almost half of the day, went through my timetable. It appears I will be in distribution for the first week and dispensary for the further weeks..

After the induction, we went on tour of the department and hospital before spending the afternoon reading SOPs (and chatting!) so it was quite a chilled out day.

Looking forward to starting the clinical rotation though!

Thats great to hear First days are always scary. I'll be on trust induction on my first day so will have nothing to report other than 'death by PowerPoint'

Loool. Btw good luck with the medicine application...I might be applying to SGUL next year for the same course! Always loved SGUL so I'm considering it

Ah cool. I have never really considered community and never worked in a community pharmacy, my only jobs have been in hospital (summer placements, research placements and HCA work). I will have a 4-week (compulsory) community placement during pre-reg so that will be useful experience.

That was lucky for you. I also think you are great proof that you don't need hospital experience to get hospital pre-reg (I find a lot of people worry about this and take a lot of convincing that it isn't true). I don't regret falling into pharmacy at all (for the moment) and feel incredibly lucky to have got my dream pre-reg. Not sure what I'll do if I don't enjoy pre-reg (I think I will though) and don't get into medicine, I sampled or seen many other jobs and none really appeal

Thats more or less how I ended up into the pharmacy degree to be honest, parents pushed me towards being a medic but I wasn't feeling it, was considering degrees in Chem, Engineering and Physics and to an extent did what manupalace did, checked out NHS careers and thought hey, at least there is a career path compared to a standard chemistry degree. I got into hospital quite late too, had a placement for a week or so in third yeah, didn't really want to do it but I didn't want to work mad hours for 18k as a community pre reg either!

Hey guys, thanks for the good luck!

First day was good. The staff are really nice. I had an induction for almost half of the day, went through my timetable. It appears I will be in distribution for the first week and dispensary for the further weeks..

After the induction, we went on tour of the department and hospital before spending the afternoon reading SOPs (and chatting!) so it was quite a chilled out day.

Looking forward to starting the clinical rotation though!

hi i am new here and don't know where shoul i ask, but i hope i find out here people who help me as a nearly pharmacist i am not form uk but this friday i will start work in pharmacy (as a summer placement for students) but i don't know anything about implementation of prescriptions in uk. Could you write me a sources where i find any information? or website? book or something? or any other help for first day working as a dispenser thanks

wait... you guys going through with the graduate medicine thing?

Wow so no community experience at all? The 4 weeks will be interesting for you. I've spent a lot of time in community so I'm hoping that'll help me with the OTC stuff this year. I spend 4 weeks in community too, quite looking forward to that cos it's in my comfort zone but I'm glad it's not the whole year. You seem to just be an extra dispenser and it'd bore me rigid. I loved my Saturday job so I'll hopefully do some weekend locums when I qualify but I just think community full time could get really dull.

Yeah that's true. Do you know any English students who managed to get a hospital pre-reg without experience? I'm not sure if I was just lucky cos I'm Scottish and they're aware that the Scottish hospitals don't really offer experience for students outside formal summer placements.

I just chose it cos I liked science and it seemed to have better job prospects than any of the other courses I looked at. Mad hours? I thought everyone worked the same. And 18k? Is there a pay difference for pre-reg in England?

Glad it went well How come you're both applying for medicine? Has that always been your plan?

I also knew nothing about summer placements or the ratio of students who go into hospital pharmacy, or how little clinical contact we would get (basically I was clueless). I was basically treating it as (and expecting it to be) a more clinical biomed course, thankfully my attitude improved, but personally although I have benefited from acceptance I would hate to see pharmacy courses filled with students like the first-year-me. It would be a shame and the profession definitely would not benefit.

I was wondering if you know whether LSOP are helpful in arranging placements for 1st year students or would it be better for me to try and find one by myself?
thanks

Yeah, I am, I applied to SGUL for deferred entry last year but got rejected after interview. Doing the UKCAT next week (unless I rearrange it again).



Yeah, I'm trying to keep an open mind about the 4 weeks in community, but unlike you it will obviously be way out of my comfort zone. There is a difference in pre-reg pay in England, hospital pre-regs get 21-25K (21 outside of London, 21-25K in London depending on which area), community pre-regs get around the 18K mark everywhere I think.

I know one person who got a hospital pre-reg without hospital experience (outside of uni placements), and one person who did the pre-reg I will be doing a few years ago had no experience at all.

I've always planned to apply for medicine, in fact when I first started at LSOP I wasn't even planning on doing pre-reg, then I realised how early you have to apply for and accept pre-reg and realised I couldn't apply for both at the same time (this just shows how little I knew about pharmacy). I also knew nothing about summer placements or the ratio of students who go into hospital pharmacy, or how little clinical contact we would get (basically I was clueless). I was basically treating it as (and expecting it to be) a more clinical biomed course, thankfully my attitude improved, but personally although I have benefited from acceptance I would hate to see pharmacy courses filled with students like the first-year-me. It would be a shame and the profession definitely would not benefit.

Glad it went well How come you're both applying for medicine? Has that always been your plan?

Thanks I'll be reapplying there in October. Good luck with UCAS/GAMSAT/UKCAT if you decide to do it

Interesting, grad medicine is something I am considering (like a plan D ), although it probably would of been wise to do a 3 year Bachelors or something and go in at 21, the earliest I can go in now is at 23 and graduate at 27... Damn. Still, will see how the market is next year I suppose, but allow being broke for another 4 years and fighting for that FY1 with the young ones (Ill probably loose most of my hair by then)... At least the pre reg year will let me save around £10k or so if that is the route I wish to take...

Thanks...ah well, it kinda was my plan from the start! If you have a peek at my old posts from 2007-8, you can see I was quite fixed on studying medicine.

But as my grades weren't up to scratch, I decided to apply for pharmacy with the plan that I would do locum work during my medicine degree. Things are going to plan except for the fact that tuition fees have gone up, so I can only afford to pay for the 4 year graduate entry courses. Whereas before I would have also applied for 5 year courses - just in case I didn't get into the 4 year courses.

Thank you! If I decide to apply next year, I'll definitely be asking you a few questions! And for the mo, I'll have my fingers crossed for you to get into medicine

Yeah, I'm trying to keep an open mind about the 4 weeks in community, but unlike you it will obviously be way out of my comfort zone. There is a difference in pre-reg pay in England, hospital pre-regs get 21-25K (21 outside of London, 21-25K in London depending on which area), community pre-regs get around the 18K mark everywhere I think.

I've always planned to apply for medicine, in fact when I first started at LSOP I wasn't even planning on doing pre-reg, then I realised how early you have to apply for and accept pre-reg and realised I couldn't apply for both at the same time (this just shows how little I knew about pharmacy). I also knew nothing about summer placements or the ratio of students who go into hospital pharmacy, or how little clinical contact we would get (basically I was clueless). I was basically treating it as (and expecting it to be) a more clinical biomed course, thankfully my attitude improved, but personally although I have benefited from acceptance I would hate to see pharmacy courses filled with students like the first-year-me. It would be a shame and the profession definitely would not benefit.

Interesting, grad medicine is something I am considering (like a plan D ), although it probably would of been wise to do a 3 year Bachelors or something and go in at 21, the earliest I can go in now is at 23 and graduate at 27... Damn. Still, will see how the market is next year I suppose, but allow being broke for another 4 years and fighting for that FY1 with the young ones (Ill probably loose most of my hair by then)... At least the pre reg year will let me save around £10k or so if that is the route I wish to take...

Thanks...ah well, it kinda was my plan from the start! If you have a peek at my old posts from 2007-8, you can see I was quite fixed on studying medicine.

But as my grades weren't up to scratch, I decided to apply for pharmacy with the plan that I would do locum work during my medicine degree. Things are going to plan except for the fact that tuition fees have gone up, so I can only afford to pay for the 4 year graduate entry courses. Whereas before I would have also applied for 5 year courses - just in case I didn't get into the 4 year courses.

I've heard that people were getting offered 18k but didn't realise that was all community places. We all get 21k up here. My friend's getting 21k doing community on the south coast cos she already had an offer for Glasgow so they matched the salary.

Well tbf I don't think many people know that much about placements and pre-reg going into first year.





I've never wanted to be a doctor, I had the grades but decided to apply for pharmacy instead. But now you hear so much about how it's dying as a profession so medicine has crossed my mind. I think like Scooby I'll wait and see how I get on with pre-reg and applying for jobs before I seriously consider it. Do you all have work experience? There aren't any GEM courses in Scotland so I'd have to go back to uni for another 5 years which seems like a bit too long, if I applied next year and got in I'd be 29 by the time I graduated. Fees are only £1800/year though so it is feasible.

Keep this on the low, back in the days I rejected a place to do med at UCL for pharmacy... I dont regret it right now, I enjoyed the MPharm degree and my time at uni. Regards to work experience, could you not use your pre reg year? Surely that will give you a better insight of how healthcare works rather than "volunteering" at a crappy gp surgery etc?

On another note, Ramadan has started, so far so good and Im hoping working doesnt put that much stress on me during the month. At least I have plenty of time during the day to bang out journals though... I might read the vancomycin v fidaxomicin non inferiority study just for fun?

good luck, but I can assure you that you will want to give it all up after 1 year!

Moved into my new place, starting tomorrow reporting at the pharmacy department at 9 Time to iron some clothes I think...