
Ask YC:  I'm about to give up on computing altogether and pursue a career as a pharmacist.  Mistake? - amichail
I've basically had it with failure after failure.  In fact, I'm sick of computers altogether.<p>I'm planning to study pharmacy at the University of Toronto:<p>http://www.pharmacy.utoronto.ca<p>Do you think I am making a mistake?
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rsheridan6
I'm doing just that. Not everybody at Hacker News is going to become a
successful founder who ends up selling their startup for millions of dollars.
I fucked up my shot at it and ended up in tons of debt. If I had followed Paul
Graham's advice and been 23 and childless I would take another shot at it, but
as it is I need a job that pays real money, not a long shot at becoming rich.
I'm sure I'm not the only one here who will end up getting a job.

Pharmacy pays better than most software jobs, is more stable, has a more
flexible schedule, has plenty of jobs outside of places where a shitty little
house costs a million bucks, and the process of becoming a pharmacist is not
nearly as hellish as the process of becoming a researcher (as an undergrad I
decided I didn't want to go to grad school, and I didn't even have a family
that couldn't possibly be supported by a grad student's miserable stipend). My
program is 3 years and does not involve being a professor's slave.

I don't see why I would prefer to become a software engineer anyway. Both
involve programming, but a startup founder solves his own problems while
software engineers solve somebody else's. To me, that's a critical difference.

Anyway, I admit I would have preferred to have become a successful startup
founder, but other than that pharmacy is about as good as it gets. There's a
reason that 16 applicants were rejected for every one that was accepted to my
program, and it's not because the career is only slightly preferable to
shoveling shit in Louisiana.

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kyro
That this would pass as a funny April fools joke, is the joke.

Come on yc'ers, get some humor!

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tjr
There's nothing wrong with starting over in pharmacy if you really believe
that's where your interests lie, but I would encourage you to make sure. We
can all get temporarily distraught due to failures, bad experiences,
unpleasant people to deal with, etc., etc.

For the past few weeks I too have been feeling distraught with my life in
computing, but a few weeks is hardly enough to toss out the past 16 years of
working and studying to be a software engineer. Maybe someday I will change
careers, but it ought not be a quick decision.

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simplegeek
Acquiring domain-knowledge is a huge plus. You might try Pharmacy and later
try finding an unoccupied niche. Once you've found a niche & you've reasonable
hacking skills you can do wonders. I think it's a reasonable combination
(software skills+pharmacy).

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alex_c
Big mistake.

You should study Life Sciences at University of Toronto instead. Guaranteed to
launch your career forward.

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bootload
_"... I've basically had it with failure after failure. In fact, I'm sick of
computers altogether ..."_

You lack determination.

It might also be your approach. Woz advises youngsters using computers to get
some form of immediate success to avoid the negative feedback loop you
describe. So carefully look back at what you are doing and see if you can
choose projects, problems that have a quicker positive pay-off.

Choosing to do pharmacy does not necessarily mean you will avoid computers.

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omouse
Drugs are the answer! Go for it! :P

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bvttf
How do you feel about dispensing birth control?

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amichail
Before this gets too much out of hand, it's a joke! Slightly early for April
fools...

Anyway, it is true that I am sick of failure after failure. But I have no
other career choice given my personality: I have to be in control of my own
destiny and have been in love with computers for a quarter of a century.

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aneesh
A joke it may be, but not a particularly funny one.

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amichail
You seriously think anyone on Hacker News would consider a career as a
pharmacist? I mean maybe a software engineer/researcher in bioinformatics, but
a pharmacist?!

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tjr
Why not?

Most of my work and education has been in software, but I am also a
professional musician, an avid photographer, and have significant interests in
linguistics, politics, U.S. history, and education. One of the funnest jobs
I've ever had was scoring open-ended essays written by grade-school students.

I don't see why a programmer couldn't develop an interest in pharmaceutical
work.

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amichail
From wikipedia:

"In their traditional role, pharmacists typically take a request for medicines
from a prescribing health care provider in the form of a medical prescription
and dispense the medication to the patient and counsel them on the proper use
and adverse effects of that medication. In this role, pharmacists ensure the
safe and effective use of medications."

Sounds like fun.

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kyro
I hope you don't make your career decisions based on Wikipedia excerpts.

There are pharmacists that work in ICU's (Intensive Care Units) and hospital
departments as part of teams where they play a pretty significant role and
interact with surgeons and other doctors. They are the go to individuals when
it comes to drug compatibility and whether a patient can withstand a specific
drug. I've seen it first hand, and it looks far from boring, not to mention
the fact that in the end, they're working to help increase the quality of
people's lives.

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amichail
What exactly do they do that can't be done by a computer? I would expect a
computer to be more reliable than a pharmacist's memory.

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mechanical_fish
You would have a computer _counsel patients_? You would have a _computer_ ask
people to describe the side effects they've been experiencing, and ask probing
questions to evaluate how serious those side effects really are, and which of
their two dozen drugs might be causing them, and which drugs might be usefully
discontinued or substituted and which might not? You would have a _computer_
decide whether or not the patient's phone call, complaining that their latest
drug isn't as effective as usual, warrants a call to their primary-care
physician?

You would assign important decisions about your medical care to the sole
discretion of a Java program written by a committee of outsourced developers
that don't know or care any more about pharmacy than, say, you?

It sounds like you don't have a lot of experience with serious illness.
Congratulations, and may you remain healthy for as long as possible!

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yummyfajitas
>You would have a computer ask people to describe the side effects they've
been experiencing, and ask probing questions to evaluate how serious those
side effects really are, and which of their two dozen drugs might be causing
them, and which drugs might be usefully discontinued or substituted and which
might not?

The only thing here I actually would want the pharmacist to do is ask the
questions.

The rest of it should be done by computer, and in fact some of it already is
(checking for drug interactions). People sometimes forget stuff, whereas a
database doesn't. People are sometimes mislead by experience/spurious
correlations, while a properly designed computer system won't be.

So I would, in fact, assign important decisions about my medical care to a
java program written by a team of doctors, pharmacists and computer geeks.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_The only thing here I actually would want the pharmacist to do is ask the
questions._

Well, sure. I'll go ahead and grant you that. But asking the right questions
is a very important, very difficult art. The answers _depend_ on which
questions are asked, and how.

 _People sometimes forget stuff, whereas a database doesn't._

True, and lots of mistakes are made because of inadequately systematized drug
dispensing systems. But I'm not saying that your pharmacist shouldn't be
_highly augmented_ by powerful computer technology. Just that there's going to
be a human pharmacist in that loop for the foreseeable future.

There are drugs that don't require pharmacists: we call them _over-the-
counter_ drugs. Maybe _someday_ our computers will get so good that every drug
will be OTC... but I'm not an optimist. At some point designing drug cocktails
becomes an art: There's no optimum to seek, because there are a number of
different goals that one could pursue and tradeoffs one could make. That takes
an artist -- a _consulting_ artist, like an architect or a decorator. And
that, in turn, takes serious social skills that computers don't have.

