Would you like to work in the healthcare industry? Are you assessing your options on whether to become a doctor or a pharmacist? What distinguishes pharmacy from medicine? Which degree is harder to earn? Of course, there’s also the long-running debate about which profession earns more money: medicine or pharmacy.
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The differences and important aspects to consider while picking between a profession in medicine and pharmacy will be discussed in this post.
1.Pharmacy focuses on medications, whereas medicine focuses on treating people.
Utilizing medical procedures to preserve and restore a person’s health and welfare is what medicine is all about. A doctor’s main responsibility is to identify illnesses, diseases, and injuries and decide on the most effective course of action to eliminate them.
Contrarily, pharmacy focuses on the art and science of creating and administering medications to patients. Pharmacy professionals make considerable effort to ensure that the right prescriptions are provided while also tracking certain factors such as the effects of drugs on patients and the physiology of the patient.
A job in the medical line might be the best for you if you like interacting with people. This is because pharmacists don’t always do medical assessments and treatments themselves despite their interactions with patients.
2.The length of a medical degree vs pharmacy program
It takes five years to complete a medical degree. This does not include the two-year housemanship requirement, which is an obligatory internship. You will need to complete between 8 and 9 years of education after SPM to become a doctor once you factor in your pre-medical coursework, MBBS degree, and housemanship.
The road to becoming a pharmacist is less complicated in comparison. A pharmacy degree only takes four years. Furthermore, the mandatory service for pharmacy graduates is one year instead of the mandatory housemanship for medical graduates, which is two years.
You will only need 6 to 7 years to complete your pharmacy degree from SPM if you include your pre-university coursework, pharmacy degree, and mandatory service.
3.Medicine costs more than pharmacy degrees.
Generally, obtaining a degree in any field does not come cheap. But an MBBS degree is even more expensive. In some universities, the cost of a medical degree can be twice as much as that of a pharmacy degree. This shouldn’t be a shock to anyone. After all, educating the latest generation of physicians is no simple task.
4.Employment Opportunities differ for both courses
The obvious choice for you as an MBBS graduate is to pursue a career in medicine. You might get full-time employment that involves caring for patients at public or private clinics and hospitals. You can also enroll in an academic program at the same time to teach or conduct research.
Similar to this, the majority of pharmacy graduates work as pharmacists. Depending on your preferences, you can work in hospital pharmacies or community pharmacies. You can also pursue a career in industrial pharmacy, where you’ll work on pharmaceutical production and quality assurance.
Remember that several factors like experience, skillset, specialty, location, and job duties, might affect earnings for the same profession. Both medicine and pharmacy are notable fields that offer different advantages. Whatever you choose, be sure to select the option that best suits your requirements and aspirations.