Pharmacology or Pharmacy
I’m not sure whether to pick pharmacy or pharmacology for my 5th non med option at cardiff. Which is better for pay, work life balance, job prospects and opportunities
I've not done either of these but I've done loads of research on both but have decided on pharmacy (as my first option - I don't want to do medicine)
Pharmacy is an integrated masters degree, meaning you do 4 years and leave with a masters. In order to become a registered pharmacist you then need to do a foundation year in industry (like an apprenticeship) and an exam at the end of it. Doing the 4 year MPharm is the only way to become a pharmacist
Pharmacology is a 3 year BSc which doesn't really lead to one particular job, so it leaves you very flexible. However pretty much anything you can do with a pharmacology degree, you can also do with the MPharm, so if you did pharmacy and decided you didn't want to be a pharmacist you have loads of options.
In terms of jobs, pharmacy mainly leads to a job as a pharmacist, so you could work in a community pharmacy (e.g. boots, superdrug etc), GP pharmacy, or hospital pharmacy. They all have pros and cons, hospital pharmacy being often more interesting, specialised, and different every day, but usually having lower pay because of NHS salaries. It goes the other way for something like boots, where the pay is higher as it's private but days can often be mundane.
Pay newly registered pharmacists (after 5 years of training) on average:
Hospital - 40,000
GP - 35,000-40,000
Community - 50,000
Pharmacology can lead to more lab based careers, like research and drug developing. The pay obviously depends on what job you go for, but can range from about 40k - 90k
Pharmacy is more clinical and more similar to medicine, especially because by the time you would graduate, you be be a registered prescriber. People also go to pharmacists for minor illnesses, so you would be still treat people like if you did medicine, except on a much smaller scale.
Pharmacology as I said is more lab-based, so you won't see or treat patients. After uni finishes, this is the one where you will need chemistry the most.
Work life balance is good for both I think. It's hard to say about pharmacology as it leads to so many different jobs, but for pharmacy just think about pharmacy opening times and there you have it. There are exceptions to this, for example most hospitals have an on-call pharmacist at night so you could consider that.
I know I mainly talked about pharmacy here - I haven't done as much research on pharmacology as I decided on pharmacy pretty early on while I was researching.
Anyway sorry for the REALLY long answer, but I hope this helps and you get a place at you first choice for medicine!
Pharmacy is an integrated masters degree, meaning you do 4 years and leave with a masters. In order to become a registered pharmacist you then need to do a foundation year in industry (like an apprenticeship) and an exam at the end of it. Doing the 4 year MPharm is the only way to become a pharmacist
Pharmacology is a 3 year BSc which doesn't really lead to one particular job, so it leaves you very flexible. However pretty much anything you can do with a pharmacology degree, you can also do with the MPharm, so if you did pharmacy and decided you didn't want to be a pharmacist you have loads of options.
In terms of jobs, pharmacy mainly leads to a job as a pharmacist, so you could work in a community pharmacy (e.g. boots, superdrug etc), GP pharmacy, or hospital pharmacy. They all have pros and cons, hospital pharmacy being often more interesting, specialised, and different every day, but usually having lower pay because of NHS salaries. It goes the other way for something like boots, where the pay is higher as it's private but days can often be mundane.
Pay newly registered pharmacists (after 5 years of training) on average:
Hospital - 40,000
GP - 35,000-40,000
Community - 50,000
Pharmacology can lead to more lab based careers, like research and drug developing. The pay obviously depends on what job you go for, but can range from about 40k - 90k
Pharmacy is more clinical and more similar to medicine, especially because by the time you would graduate, you be be a registered prescriber. People also go to pharmacists for minor illnesses, so you would be still treat people like if you did medicine, except on a much smaller scale.
Pharmacology as I said is more lab-based, so you won't see or treat patients. After uni finishes, this is the one where you will need chemistry the most.
Work life balance is good for both I think. It's hard to say about pharmacology as it leads to so many different jobs, but for pharmacy just think about pharmacy opening times and there you have it. There are exceptions to this, for example most hospitals have an on-call pharmacist at night so you could consider that.
I know I mainly talked about pharmacy here - I haven't done as much research on pharmacology as I decided on pharmacy pretty early on while I was researching.
Anyway sorry for the REALLY long answer, but I hope this helps and you get a place at you first choice for medicine!
Pharmacy schools require you to have pharmacy as your first choice. They have plenty of pharmacy applicants, and will consider those over candidates who are only considering pharmacy as a second choice. Pharmacists are completely different to medics. Pharmacy shouldn’t be selected if you don’t get into medicine. Maybe consider bio med and then try and transfer over to medicine after - your heart has to be in pharmacy as this is a serious career.
(edited 1 month ago)
Original post by ethan642518
I’m not sure whether to pick pharmacy or pharmacology for my 5th non med option at cardiff. Which is better for pay, work life balance, job prospects and opportunities
Hi,
Awesome to hear you're interested in studying those courses at Cardiff!
If you're interested in those factors specifically (eg., pay, job prospects) I recommend having a look at Discover Uni. Its a website where you're able to compare statistics filled out by students and graduates of that course. I used this to help me decide what course and uni to choose as well! For example, in terms of job prospects, the website tells you that for the pharmacy course at Cardiff, 93% go onto work/further study 15 months after the course but for pharmacology, its 95%. So both pretty high, not much difference at all
Hope that helps
~ Fatiha, Cardiff University Student Rep
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