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Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration

Bridgette Castronovo
Harrison High School
Advanced Scientific Research
Curran
April 25, 2022
Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 2

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Career Choice.................................................................................................................3
Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
Job Description............................................................................................................................4
A Day in the Life.........................................................................................................................6
Pros and Cons...............................................................................................................................8
Chapter 2: From Here to There........................................................................................................9
Professional Profile......................................................................................................................9
Education...................................................................................................................................10
Budget........................................................................................................................................11
Chapter 3: Personal Assessment....................................................................................................12
My Skills....................................................................................................................................12
My Personality...........................................................................................................................14
My Motivation...........................................................................................................................15
Chapter 4: Productivity..................................................................................................................17
My Project..................................................................................................................................17
Career Connection......................................................................................................................18
References......................................................................................................................................20
Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 3

Chapter 1: Career Choice

Introduction
The career that I have chosen to explore is pharmaceutical engineering. Before securing

my internship as a pharmacy technician at Pharmacy Partners of Georgia, the only careers within

the field of pharmacology that I was familiar with were pharmacists and pharmacy technicians.

Through my internship, I have had extensive opportunities to experience the daily

responsibilities of a pharmacy technician and a pharmacist. While I liked working with the

medications, I found the work repetitive, and I could not see myself filling prescriptions for the

rest of my life. I shared this opinion with my mentor, and she told me about the field of

pharmaceutical engineering after I mentioned how I liked the creative, forward-thinking attitude

found engineering disciplines. I researched this career thoroughly when I got home from my

internship and found that pharmaceutical engineering might be a great fit for me because it is

situated within the medical field, but the work focuses on developing new medications and

technologies which is an application of medicine I would much prefer long term to direct patient

care.

The typical responsibilities of a pharmaceutical engineer consist of being a part of a team

working to create a new medical product. Professional in this career may work on the research

and development side of a project identifying a problem and designing a product, they may

manage other engineers and scientific professionals in the testing stages, or they may help to

market the product after it is completed. While a pharmaceutical engineer would generally

specialize in one of these areas, creativity, ingenuity, and a growth mindset are elements found

throughout various positions in the career. As a pharmaceutical engineer who would prefer to

work in the research and development sector, I would spend each day trying to improve an
Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 4

aspect of pharmacological science which would make my days unique, thought-provoking, and

fulfilling. I honestly could see myself as a pharmaceutical engineer because I find the subject

matter of drug interactions with the body fascinating, and I like the work that engineers typically

do striving to better technology and medicine. Although my top two career exploration results

suggested that I should be a psychologist and the third suggested that I should be a journalist

rather than engineer, I think this career matches fairly well with some of the underlying criteria

the computer program used to select those careers (Career One Stop, 2022). Engineers work to

try to advance medical science to create a desired product much like how psychologists do

research to better understand the brain and journalists do research to write their next story. This

investigative mindset is present in both the careers that were recommended to me and the career

that I chose, which makes me feel confident that pharmaceutical engineering is not too far off

from a career that is well suited to my personality and preferences.

Job Description
A pharmaceutical engineer is a scientific professional who uses engineering and design

principles to try and innovate. This can take many forms as pharmaceutical engineers may work

trying to create new industrial equipment to produce medications, new delivery systems or

technologies to enhance a medication or procedure, or they may work more directly with drugs

trying to develop or improve formulas. Pharmaceutical engineers are typically employed by

research and development labs, either by the government or in the private sector where they

work closely with other professionals such as pharmacological scientists to create the desired

product (Best Accredited Colleges, 2021). The daily responsibilities of a pharmaceutical

engineer will vary greatly based on the location in which the person is employed. If a

pharmaceutical engineer works for a company that is trying to find a way to design machines that

package medications in a more cost-effective way, then the pharmaceutical engineer’s daily
Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 5

responsibilities may include touring an existing manufacturing plant, drawing up designs to

improve the machine, meeting with a pharmaceutical scientist to discuss quality concerns, and of

course, building and testing the resulting product. If a pharmaceutical engineer is employed to

create a new drug formula, their daily job description would focus more on meeting with

pharmacists and biochemists to discuss drug interaction in the body and how a medicine or

procedure could be produced or delivered differently to achieve an improved result. In both

settings, pharmaceutical engineers are problem solvers who examine existing science and

collaborate with others to find ways to improve the technology, medication, or therapy within the

field of pharmaceuticals.

The expected salary for this career is not reported by the BSL, but it is estimated that

pharmaceutical engineers make around $84,000 a year which is comparable to related

engineering disciplines. The job growth is about 27% per year which is faster than the national

average and the unemployment rate is between 2-4% (Willis, 2019).

Pharmaceutical engineers who are satisfied and successful in their careers are people who

have a passion for the subject area of pharmacology which means that they have a strong interest

in biology and biochemistry. This job requires that the engineers be inquisitive, creative,

inventive, as they must actively work to try and expand the science and technologies that

currently exist in the field of pharmacology. Additionally, proficient computer science skills are

beneficial in this career as pharmaceutical engineers may need to work with complicated

software to analyze the results of new drugs or therapies, determine how effective they are, and

identify areas that need further testing. There is also a social skills component to this job as the

products being designed have a direct impact on the health of individuals seeking medication or
Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 6

medical treatment, so empathy and compassion are important characteristics that make a

pharmaceutical engineer good at their job.

In regard to demands, requirements, and expectations of this career, one of the most

important things is that pharmaceutical engineers must be self-motivated. Creating new products

and technologies requires unique thinkers who push themselves to see science in a new way.

Engineers are required to try and create or adapt technology or medicine working in a team

setting, so they must be willing to work with and listen to the ideas of others while pushing

themselves to be a valuable contributor (Indeed Editorial Team, 2021). More specifically, it is

expected that the engineers contribute to pharmaceutical innovation using the design process to

empathize, ideate, design, prototype and test a new medication or therapy.

A Day in the Life

A typical work environment for a pharmaceutical engineer is in a lab setting for a

company, university, or government organization. Because of the cutting-edge nature of

pharmacological research, these labs are usually equipped with advanced technologies and there

is little to no travel involved in this career. The workweek for this career is usually a standard

nine to five adjusted slightly for the company or lab’s operating hours. Because there are no

patients involved, there are no night shift rotations, and it would be uncommon for engineers to

be required to work overtime or during unusual hours.

Because most pharmaceutical engineers work in advanced labs, most are employed in

cities where major research centers and universities are located although there are certainly

pharmaceutical engineers employed by private companies who live in less urban areas. The

typical pharmaceutical engineer can expect to make a yearly salary of around $84,000 dollars. In

regard to benefits, pharmaceutical engineers can expect insurance (medical, dental, and vision,)
Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 7

through their employer in addition to retirement plans such as a 401(k), paid holiday and sick

leave, and potential stock in the company (Indeed Editorial Team, 2021). While I have not had

the opportunity to speak directly with a pharmaceutical engineer, I have spoken to a pharmacist

which is a very similar career. The pharmacist I spoke to discussed how she finds contentment in

knowing her work is positively impacting the lives of the patients that the pharmacy serves, and

she enjoys getting to work with a variety of other professionals within the field of pharmacology.

While she didn’t discuss many downsides to her work, she did say that managing the volume of

prescriptions that the pharmacy receives can be overwhelming. If I were a pharmacist, I think

that I would enjoy learning about the different uses for specific medicines, but I think I would

find filling prescriptions day in and day out to be too repetitive. That is why I chose to further

explore pharmaceutical engineering because their daily job descriptions sound more varied and

interesting. The job outlook for this career is increasing as technology advances, and there is an

increasing need for medication both because of population growth and average life expectancy

rising.

Pros and Cons

To me the most rewarding thing about a career as a pharmaceutical engineer I would be

working to create medical technologies that have the potential to directly impact peoples’ lives.

This type of work is extremely meaningful as these technologies and therapies have the potential

to treat patients who are suffering and provide a building block for further scientific

advancements. Knowing the significant impact that the projects I am working on will have on

patients would leave me feeling satisfied that the work I am doing is important which would help

me enjoy my career more.

Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 8

However, there are certainly some cons associated with a career that requires advanced

specialized training. Both the economic cost and time commitment of going to college are

significant barriers to entry to obtaining this career, and it is something you need to consider

before committing to this career path. In terms of the career, I imagine it could be frustrating to

try and create new products that take a significant amount of time and resources knowing the

product might eventually not be successful. These professionals undoubtedly face setback after

setback through which they must persevere which I am sure would be draining at times. For

example, trying to create new drug formulas is extremely technical as drugs interact with

different people’s bodies in different ways, and the strict FDA regulations make drug trials

extremely time-consuming and difficult to perform. Pharmaceutical engineers may worry about

the increasing bureaucracy of drug companies in the healthcare market as drug companies have a

large amount of control over the price, so even if the engineers can produce the product more

cheaply, that does not necessarily mean customers would get the product at that price.

Additionally, I imagine it would be frustrating to be bound by the research projects supported by

the employer as they may choose not to venture into more theoretical research. As previously

stated, the job outlook for this career is rapidly increasing and the field is stable and will

certainly exist for years to come (Indeed Editorial Team, 2021).

Chapter 2: From Here to There

Professional Profile
There are two major components of this career: pharmacy and engineering as implied by

the name. Regarding the pharmacy component of this career, it is necessary to enjoy medicine

and the interaction between medicines and the human body and to appreciate the potential of

novel therapies to improve the quality of human life. This study necessitates attention to detail,

so people looking to go into this career should have a good attention span and enjoy highly
Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 9

technical work. A lot of the interactions between the drugs and the body act on a microscopic

level, so it is important to enjoy spending time analyzing small differences and hypothesizing

potential ways to adapt the medication if the results are not what was expected.

The other facet of a career in pharmaceutical engineering is the fact that while the career

deals with medical sciences, it is first and foremost a discipline of engineering. The mindset of

engineering is different than other professions because it is centered on trying to advance

existing science rather than apply it. This requires creative thinking, problem solving,

persistence, and adaptability. Engineers are responsible for working with existing science and

technology to create something that will better some quality of the human condition which the

opposite approach to something like a career as a doctor where you spend your days applying the

science you learned in school to treat patients.

To be successful in this career, in addition to displaying the aforementioned

characteristics, it is also important to understand if one’s learning style matches. Engineering

careers are extremely tactile and involve moving parts with your hands, conducting experiments,

and designing and testing products. There is little auditory learning involved in this career and

there is little visual learning either. This is appealing to me as I think that the kinetic/tactile

learning style is the one that is most effective for me, as I enjoy working with objects and

building things with my hands.

Education
The educational process to become a pharmaceutical engineer is long and demanding like

many other similar careers in healthcare or engineering. Like other engineers, pharmaceutical

engineers are required to obtain a bachelor’s degree in an engineering science. A bachelor’s

degree in an engineering discipline is a strenuous four-year degree that is heavily focused on

Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 10

math and the science related to the sub-discipline of the specific degree. Biomedical engineering,

for example, is the most common bachelor’s degree for those looking to go into pharmaceutical

engineering, but it is possible to choose this career path with a degree in a related engineering

discipline such as biochemical or chemical engineering (Willis, 2019). The vast majority of

positions open to pharmaceutical engineers require a master’s degree in pharmaceutical

engineering, and some people gain Ph.D.’s in the field to enhance their knowledge and to expand

their job prospects. In addition, the nature of engineering requires pharmaceutical engineers to

constantly keep up to date with the latest medicines and technologies in order to be effective, so

learning is by no means complete after obtaining one of the aforementioned degrees and

pharmaceutical engineers are required to attend seminars and trainings to understand emerging

science and technologies (Best Accredited Colleges, 2021).

It is important to note, however, that it is very uncommon for someone to obtain a

bachelor’s degree in pharmaceutical engineering as that is not an engineering branch typically

offered by most universities. This means that people wanting to attend schools which do not have

a pharmaceutical engineering program will have to major in one of the related biological science

or engineering disciplines instead and obtain a master’s degree in pharmaceutical engineering

later on. This results in a lot of students choosing a different but related career that more closely

aligns with their degree after graduating from college so that they are more likely to be hired.

This is neither good nor bad because related careers such as biomedical engineering, biochemical

engineering, and chemical engineering are well respected and high paying. Rather, it simply

warrants a proactive attitude on the part of students looking to become pharmaceutical engineers

because they need to actively choose coursework and minors that apply their major to
Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 11

pharmaceutical engineering as well as try to gain relevant internships or work experience to help

tailor their resumes to align with that of an aspiring pharmaceutical engineer.

Budget
The aforementioned schooling process is neither short nor cheap, so it is important to do

a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether the salary of a pharmaceutical engineer warrants the

cost that the career requires. I have recently committed to the Georgia Institute of Technology,

which is a school with a large engineering program. However, they do not offer pharmaceutical

engineering as an undergraduate major so if I were to select this career path, I would need to

obtain a four-year degree in biochemical engineering and then seriously consider getting my

master’s degree in pharmaceutical engineering after. As an in-state student attending on the Zell

Miller scholarship, it would cost me around $20,000 a year to get this bachelor’s degree. If I

completed this degree in four years, a bachelor’s degree in a science such as biochemical

engineering would cost me around $80,000 before interest (Georgia Institute of Technology,

2022).

This number is honestly staggeringly high considering I am an in-state student on a full-

tuition scholarship. However, the starting salary for Georgia Tech engineering students is around

$70,000 at the low end which would be a significant enough salary to pay monthly expenses as

calculated previously in the post-college budget we completed. However, if I were to lose the

scholarship, my yearly expense of college would increase by $12,000 dollars per year which

would end up increasing the $80,000 total price tag by $48,000 for a total of $128,000 before

interest (Georgia Insitute of Technology, 2022). At this point, I am most likely going to try and

find work with just a bachelor’s degree as a master’s program would add an additional $20,000

per year not accounting for room and board and meal plans (Georgia Insitute of Technology,
Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 12

2022). Currently, that expense would be too much for me to afford as the cost of attaining that

degree in my opinion is too high to justify the cost. In terms of life after college, I completed a

budget for a year living on our own and a reasonable yearly expense for me was around $57,411

after calculating both fixed and discretionary expenses. Based on this budget, it is almost certain

that any position or salary I would receive as a pharmaceutical engineer would be sufficient to

cover my yearly expenses as the salary range for this career generally falls around $80,000 (Best

Accredited Colleges, 2021). However, this does not allow for much of a surplus, especially

considering rising prices and the possibility that I will choose a more expensive lifestyle than I

did when completing the budget. Therefore, while this career is a financially stable option that

would allow me to pay my bills, a combination of expenses including college debt will still

certainly stretch my paycheck more thinly than I would like.

Chapter 3: Personal Assessment

My Skills
As I progress into the next stage of my life and attend college with the ultimate goal of

getting a job that I enjoy and find fulfilling, it is important to reflect on the skills that I have built

over the course of my lifetime. In regard to skills related to being successful in school and in my

career, I think that the most notable is my work ethic. I have a healthy respect for deadlines, and

I possess the self-discipline to make myself sit down and do the work that needs to be done. This

has allowed me to be successful in my classes as I stay on top of my work and study content

when I don’t understand it fully. In my opinion, self-discipline is a learned skill that you develop

by consistently setting and meeting deadlines and not allowing excuses to prevent you from

completing the task at hand. This skill is extremely applicable to the field of pharmaceutical

engineering because it requires you to constantly re-evaluate your thinking to try and create
Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 13

something novel. Discipline will help me not to get frustrated and give up when I inevitably run

into challenges making medicine or therapy as a pharmaceutical engineer.

In terms of soft skills, I think that I am a strong public speaker and communicator of

ideas, I know how to manage my time, I am reliable, and I am flexible when working in a group.

I demonstrated these skills at the multiple science fair competitions I presented my work in

throughout my time in the STEM program when I had to present my work to the judges and

explain it all effectively and concisely in just a few minutes. Being a strong public speaker will

help me to effectively communicate my ideas in a career setting. This is especially relevant as a

key aspect of engineering is being able to explain your ideas to your peers so that you can work

together and ultimately, convince a potential buyer that the product you created is worth

purchasing. However, it is also important to understand your weaknesses, and, in my opinion,

my biggest weakness is my lack of organization. I don’t have a system of keeping track of my

work other than checking my teachers’ blogs and hoping I remember which has caused me to

unintentionally not turn in assignments in the past. This lack of organization also manifests itself

frequently when I misplace items or leave them behind. Obviously, in a professional setting, I

will simply have to keep a detailed calendar and invest more effort into keeping up with my

things because not doing so could negatively impact the work of the company.

My Personality
While I think it is important to pay attention to how one’s personality type, intelligences,

learning styles, and skills match that of their future career prospect, I don’t think that there is

only one way of thinking or one set of skills that make someone successful in a specific career.

For pharmaceutical engineering specifically, people who are resilient, creative, and hardworking

will in my opinion be successful. Additionally, it would certainly be beneficial in this career to

Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 14

be a good communicator and to work well with others. In terms of learning styles, engineers

must enjoy working with their hands. I think that I fit in well with the aforementioned traits that

make a successful pharmaceutical engineer as previously discussed, so I think that I am

compatible with a career in pharmaceutical engineering.

However, it is important to note that my career cruising profile did not recommend a

career in engineering for my top three career matches. Instead, the program selected two types of

psychology as my top matches (Career One Stop, 2022). I think the reason that these careers

were selected was that I answered the questionnaire in a way that highlighted liking to find the

cause of problems while also working with others which lends itself to the field of psychology

and psychological research. While I don’t think that the suggested careers are a bad fit for me, I

think that the criteria that matched those careers to my personality would also apply to

engineering. In my RIASEC assessment, I scored the highest in the investigative category, which

fits very clearly within engineering careers (Career One Stop, 2022). The category that I scored

the next highest in was artistic, which is a skill that will allow me to think creatively to design

new technologies and therapies as an engineer. Another personality inventory that I took to get a

better understanding of myself was the free online version of the Myers Briggs Personality Test

where I was determined to be an INTJ (Truity, 2022). This personality inventory matches the

profile of engineers as they tend to be more introverted people who like to try to solve problems

and find new ways of doing things. INTJs are generally considered to be calm, logical thinkers

which I think applies accurately to me and to those who would be successful in my chosen field.

My Motivation
Overall, although I think that pharmaceutical engineering would be a good fit based on

my personality, interests, and skills, I don’t think that I want to pursue this career specifically. I
Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 15

am simply more interested in other areas of engineering, and I think that the scale on which

medicine interacts with the cells is too small and that I would eventually tire of doing the work.

However, that is not to say that I have discounted this career completely. If I were to pursue this

career, I would stick to my current plan of enrolling fall of 2022 at Georgia Tech, and I would

probably major in biochemical engineering. As an undergraduate student, I could join related

associations such as the National Society of Professional Engineers and/or the American

Pharmaceutical Association to supplement my coursework and network connections within the

industry (Union University, 2022). After graduation, the degree in biochemical engineering

would prepare me for completing a master’s degree in a specialized program at a school such as

Rutgers University. Upon graduating, I would look for a job with one of the major employers of

pharmaceutical engineers which are Pfizer, Novartis, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Merck

(Blanchard, 2022).

In terms of where I will have to move after graduation, if I were to secure a job with

Pfizer which is arguably the most influential pharmaceutical company at this time, I would most

likely need to move to the location of one of their major research and development sites. These

labs are located in Andover, Massachusetts and Boulder, Colorado (Pfizer, 2022). I would be

happy living in either of those locations, but realistically, I would probably stay along the East

coast, so if I followed this path I would most likely end up in Andover, Massachusetts.

As previously discussed, the major obstacle to this career path is the cost of

attaining the necessary education. Because pharmaceutical engineering is a specialized field, a

master’s degree is required to be competitive, and that degree would present an additional cost

after college that I am not sure I can cover. Of course, I could take out loans to cover the cost and

I could get a part-time job to minimize the cost as much as possible, but realistically the extra
Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 16

expense is unlikely to be worth the specialized degree when I could go directly into the

engineering workforce after college in a similar career such as biomedical engineering. However,

there are opportunities such as work-study programs, scholarships, and grants which could

potentially provide the funding for graduate school, but I would still feel more comfortable

graduating with a degree with which I can move directly into the workforce.

There are three skills that I have learned during my capstone class which will support my

success in a career as a pharmaceutical engineer. One such skill I learned recently was how to

create a Gantt Chart to organize my tasks and to plan out how long they will take to complete.

Utilizing this method of organization will allow me to stay on top of my work and be more

efficient with my time. Another skill that I learned from this class that I will carry with me into

my future career will be how to format a table of contents, create headers, and how to cite using

Word. These applications save a significant amount of time when writing a paper which is

something I am sure to do in college and in my career. The last skill that I believe will help me

achieve my career goals in the future is my knowledge of Excel and its capabilities. Through

some of the assignments, I learned how to create tables in Excel and how to create running tallies

such as budgets which will be absolutely essential to my ability to visualize my money and

budget in the future, which will help me make wiser decisions.

Chapter 4: Productivity
My Project
My applied learning project is a 3-D printed device that will allow pharmacy technicians

to halve pills into the appropriate dosage quantity more quickly. This idea was in large part

inspired by one of my co-workers, Lea, who has been kind enough to talk with me on multiple

occasions about the field of pharmacy. One day when we were working alongside each another
Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 17

in one of the packing isles, she mentioned that one of the biggest inconveniences that she

experiences regularly as a pharmacy technician has to do with having to halve pills by hand to

create half or one fourth quantities as required by the prescription (Andrews, 2022). The

pharmacy’s supply is only whole pills, so whenever a prescription calls for a half or quarter

tablet, the pharmacy technicians need to halve the desired quantity by hand using a little blue pill

slicer that halves the pills one at a time. This is an inefficient process as orders can have up to 90

pills per patient and the additional step of halving the pills adds a significant amount of time to

the packaging process (Andrews, 2022). Therefore, my product is necessary because a

significant number of prescriptions call for medications that are either half or one fourth of the

dosage quantity provided by a singular pill, and if the pharmacy technicians had a tool that could

halve multiple pills at once, this process would become more efficient, and the pharmacy

technicians could use the time they regain and apply it somewhere else.

To create my product, I decided to commit to learning how to use a 3-D printer, because

this provides an opportunity to challenge myself to learn a new technology that may be of use to

me in the future. 3-D printers can allow you to design a product electronically and have it

become a reality. To create this product, I began designing sketches in my notebook where the

device would allow for multiple pills to be halved at once. After designing a pencil sketch that I

was happy with, I began playing around with a digital design software called TinkerCad which

connects to the 3-D printer and allows the machine to fabricate the design. However, I will

admit, it is very difficult to design products digitally when you have little experience, so I spent

several hours over the course of the last few weeks reading about how the TinkerCad software

works and then playing around with some of the practice designs and instructional projects

provided by the application. Once I felt relatively comfortable with TinkerCad, I began creating
Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 18

my own digital design. Because I knew from my sketches that I wanted to create a drawing on

TinkerCad where the pills rested up against each other in a line so that many of them could be

sliced at one time, I focused on using the hole feature to create a hollow, long skinny box with a

detached top. Then, with the help of the graphics and design teacher at Harrison High School,

Mr. Ward, I was able to successfully 3-D print one of my digital prototype drawings. After

printing my prototype, I then super glued the lid of the box to the inside of a disassembled stapler

and attached a razor blade to the top while leaving the body of the 3-D printed product

unattached so that it would be easier for the pharmacy technicians to insert and remove pills. I

tested my product with Aspirin pills that I had in my house and found that my applied learning

project functioned as intended as it smoothly cut the pills I inserted in half.

Career Connection
My applied learning project to 3-D print a device that will halve more than one pill at

once is related to the career of pharmaceutical engineering in two major ways. In terms of the

function of the project, it is clear how having a device that halves multiple pills at a time will

allow pharmacy technicians to be more efficient in their work. My product will save valuable

time which will allow the technicians to perform tasks that are of more importance such as filling

a greater volume of prescriptions. The second major way this project relates is through exposing

me to a major emerging technology: 3-D printing. Although pharmacists do not currently make

use of a 3-D printer in their daily work, this technology is quickly becoming applicable in a

variety of professions as it gains an operating base in numerous fields, including health care. In

the future, there is potential that pharmaceutical engineers will work using the 3-D printer to

design novel medical technologies and therapies, so having some experience with 3-D printing

will help me be up to date with emerging work in the pharmacological field.

Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 19

In further discussion of the potential groundbreaking applications of 3-D printed

technologies in the health care field, it is exciting to note that the emerging field of bioprinting

has led scientists to 3-D print living tissues that are being used in human trials of organ

transplant donations (GlobalData Thematic Research, 2020). There is also potential for 3-D

printing to create a personalized medicine where variables such as dosage and delivery system

are customized to the specific patient which would raise the standard of care. In short, 3-D

printing has the potential to revolutionize many aspects of the medical field and having some

prior experience with 3-D printing will only benefit me as it becomes more and more relevant to

the research and development sector of engineering.

Pharmaceutical Engineering Career Exploration 20

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