Preparing for a career in clinical pharmacology should begin in high school with science and mathematics courses and certainly in college undergraduate coursework. Whether pursuing pre-med, pharmacology or a biomedical research career path, a student needs to take physics, organic chemistry, biology, biochemistry and other sciences. Pre-med and pharmacology students are required to take anatomy and physiology courses as should biomedical students interested in clinical pharmacology.
Pursuing a Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) degree provides the perfect basis for a future in clinical pharmacology. For example, Purdue University’s rigid four-year professional program for a Pharm.D. allows little wiggle room for poor performance in any subject. The curriculum is heavily weighted with a variety of biology and molecular, medicinal and biological chemistry. There is, of course, a good deal of lab work and much of the final two semesters are spent interning in hospital and community pharmacies.
Association for Medical School Pharmacology urges medical schools to add components of clinical pharmacology into their pharmacology courses to give future physicians a taste of the discipline both to broaden their understanding and to open the door to anyone interested in pursuing a clinical pharmacology career following medical school. However, most medical schools have a rigid curriculum and while pharmacology is a part of it, clinical pharmacology is not necessarily a major consideration.
Harvard Medical School’s Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology offers a number of graduate programs that lend themselves to the study of clinical pharmacology such as biological and biomedical science, chemistry and chemical biology, molecular and cellular biology among several others. As an example of the course work, the molecular and cellular biology program begins with three required courses 1) genetics, genomics and evolutionary biology; 2) cellular, neuro and developmental biology; and 3) physical, chemical and molecular biology. The courses create a foundation and help students decided the elective course to take the second semester as well as the knowledge and skills to pursue clinical pharmacology in-depth.
John Hopkins University’s clinical pharmacology program offers a fellowship training program to train physician-scientists to conduct human pharmacology studies. Aimed at doctors with an interested in drugs and human interaction, the fellowship requires a four-year commitment during which the participant completes a Ph.D. in clinical investigation, applies for research grants and publishes at minimum two research papers. The final goal is to produce researchers with an understanding of and appreciation for laboratory-clinic interaction and with the acquired skills to become independent researchers and teachers.