Question: I am an international student finishing up a bachelor degree to apply for pharmacy school. I have been trying very hard to look for volunteering opportunities in pharmacy field. However, all the hospitals I've asked do not offering pharmacy volunteering since they worry about safety issues. So, how can one gain any experience working in the field if they cannot volunteer at a pharmacy of a hospital?
Also, since I am an international student, I cannot work anywhere but my school campus. That factor really limits me to gain any experience in pharmacy. The best I've tried is pharmacy shadowing, and it's only "better than nothing" as listed from older posts. (see: http://pharmacyschooladmissions.blogspot.com/2009/06/question-about-letters-of.html)
Answer: Thank you for your email. I had not considered some of the work limitations that may affect international students.
My best advice would be to contact the nearest pharmacy school (or the schools where you plan to apply) and ask them to put you in contact with an alumnus who might be willing to let you shadow or volunteer in their pharmacy. As I mentioned previously, several times each year I am contacted about allowing interested students to"shadow" me for a day.
I would encourage you to contact the school of pharmacies and explain your situation. I suspect they would be willing to help or they might have a professor who has clerkship students willing to let you join them. If they are unable to help you, at least you have started a dialogue with the school. I think most committees will applaud your initiative.
Best of luck.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Hi, I am wrinting a comment on this question because I am now a first year international pharmD student at UOP. You may want to contact to independent pharmacies. They may be able to offer you a volunteer position. Even you go to a pharmacy school, you may encounter a similar problem because we require the total of 1500 intern hours for the Board of Pharmacy exam. You can earn most of the hours through rotations that you do in the last year of the school. (approximately 1100 hours, depending on school you go). For the rest of the hours, you have to earn outside of school. As you have known, most of pharmacies can't offer international students the intern positions as volunteers. The options for international students will be either hospital or independent pharmacies. There are some hospitals still offer volunteer positions in pharmacy but I guess you really have to work hard to find out. Ohtherwise, I will recommend you to try independent pharmacies.
Hope it helps you and good luck!
Thank you for providing your first hand experience as an international student. Please forward the blog address on to anyone you know who might be interested in pharmacy.
Hi Admissions,
I am going to shadow a pharmacist next week. Do you have any advice for me? For example, what should I be doing while I'm there and what are some good questions that I should ask the pharmacist? I would like to get as much out of this experience as possible. Thanks.
Post a Comment