Question about Radiography and Pharmacy at uni (1 Viewer)

[hjp.]

i'm going to put my preferences in for uni next year, and i'm wondering about radiography.
i do chemistry, but not physics, and i imagine it would involve a fair amount of physics.

should i not even bother, or is it not that bad?

and anyone who does pharmacy, how is it?

 

[fermium]

In VIC, physics is a pre-requisite for radiography. If you don't do physics, you can get 99.95 and you still won't be accepted. Not too sure about NSW.

Basically it comes down to what you prefer. If you prefer patient contact and getting your hands dirty, go with radiography. If you choose to be 'clean', go with pharmacy. Radiography is more practical, pharmacy is more theoretical.

And I'll just add that in the public sector, radiographers and pharmacists are both classified as 'health professionals' and are on the same pay-scale. There is a perceived notion that pharmacists make a lot of money. That's true if you can open your own shop, and then it comes down to business. Radiographers can open their own radiology (although arguably its harder than opening a pharmacy), but a successful radiology clinic can be a gold mine too.

 

[hjp.]

thanks!

 

[sparkerasp]

i'm going to put my preferences in for uni next year, and i'm wondering about radiography.
i do chemistry, but not physics, and i imagine it would involve a fair amount of physics.

should i not even bother, or is it not that bad?

Yes, definitely do a bridging course if you can if you want to enter radiography. I was at the University of Sydney Open Day on saturday and I spoke to the Radiography people and they said you should do physics, or you will find it very difficult.

Radiographers can open their own radiology (although arguably its harder than opening a pharmacy), but a successful radiology clinic can be a gold mine too.

That hardly ever happens. It's majoratively the radiologist that opens up their own private practise and hire radiographers to work there.

 

[bregitta]

You'd have to do a unit of physics at uni to get into a Victorian course (although this may be changing, apparently..) but the level of physics required in radiography is a lot less than the level of chemistry required in pharmacy. You learn the physics principles behind the equipment but when you start practising the only physics that you really need to know are correct exposures

 

[lala2]

Just on the physics/chemistry issue: pharmacy is actually not that much chemistry, it's a lot of pharmacology and physiology, which are more medical sciences. There's your basic first year chemistry courses which every other science student does, then there's 4 semesters of medicinal chemistry, but it's basically analysing drug molecules and saying which functional groups confer biological activity. So it's not chemistry chemistry as such. I didn't do physics and I was fine. Finally, the course is hard, but doable. If you need any more info, please PM me.

P.S. I'm a third year pharmacy student at USYD.

 

[fallen__angel]

I'm in second year radiography atm, and I didn't do physics at school. The physics briding course was alright (despite being a rip-off), but in the lectures and tutorials they go thru the necessary physics in detail so really the briding course is only for if you know nothing at all about physics.
Radiography itself is very practical, and you will be spending ALOT of time with patients so you will need to have good communication skills. There is only a little bit of physics involved, plus anatomy and relevant physiology is more important anyways.
Just in case you haven't started researching on the courses, here's a link:
http://www.fhs.usyd.edu.au/mrs/fstudent/undergrad/index.shtml

good luck