If you’re studying Life Sciences, or have your degree, but have yet to decide on a career path, there are countless options to consider. Here we look at four different careers profiles that might help you make a decision.
If you’re unsure about which career might be suitable for you, whatever stage of your life you’re at, talking to a specialist life sciences recruiter, such as Proclinical, will help you make the right decision about which career path to take. There are many jobs you might be qualified for with a life science degree, but may not have considered.
Hospital Pharmacist
There are many roles for a pharmacist, be it in the community, hospital or industry. Hospital pharmacists work as part of a medical team caring for patients and become highly involved in patient care. Pharmacists accompany doctors on ward rounds, discussing medication requirements with professionals and patients. There are many tasks hospital pharmacists undertake, such as manufacturing sterile medicines, working in the dispensary, helping explain medicines to patients and purchasing medicines for the hospital. You may work in hospital management or focus on your own particular interests, such as respiratory medicine, cardiology, urology, haematology, paediatrics or infectious diseases.
Industrial Pharmacy
If you’re interested in developing new drugs and ensuring their effectiveness and quality, you might like to consider a career in Industrial pharmacy. Your work could contribute to a new medicine that saved lives all over the world. You will work with state of the art equipment and technology. As well as research and development, you may choose to follow a managerial role within a pharmaceutical company, or become what is known as a Qualified Person (QP). QPs ensure the medicines your company manufactures contain the right ingredients in the correct quantities.
Drug Safety
Another fascinating and important job within the pharmaceutical industry concerns drug safety. It’s an extremely important role and one with a very great level of responsibility. Pharmacovigilance and drug safety involves the detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of possible negative side effects of a medicine on patients. To do this it is necessary to collect and assess as much information as possible about a drug and the incidence of adverse side effects. An Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR) may occur while a drug is at the trial stage, or early on in its prescription history and these incidents must be monitored carefully and reported on to the relevant government body, under strict guidelines. This work plays a major role in patient safety.
Medical Writer
Many disciplines in the health profession require writers who can read, understand and synthesise scientific information at a very high level. Medical Writers listen to clinical, scientific and regulatory professionals and write papers for presentation in a wide range of areas. A report could be a submission to a regulatory body, papers for publication in scientific journals, reports for policy makers, or for exhibitions and presentations. You will be acting as a scientific journalist, collecting information, editing manuscripts and always choosing your words very carefully. You may be managing a team of writers and checking their work before submission.
Author Bio: Jess Blackwell has a life science degree and is a careers advisor with a special interest in the medical profession. She has worked as a consultant with Proclinical .
