Pharmacy technician resumes include information about your experience shown in a quick and easy to read format. Employers want to hire highly qualified people that are also good with customers.
Apart from highlighting your qualifications, contact information, experience etc, the following points will provide a hint on how to prepare the resume for a Pharmacy technician position.
A clear cut career and job objective which shows your sense of direction to the employer.
Your resume should have the names of each of your employers and your corresponding job titles.
Give a brief description about the employer like what they are doing, if they are not well known.
Mention the number of staff that you manage (if applicable).
List your educational qualifications with name of the institution, city, state, degree, major, year awarded and GPA.
Use important keywords in your resume in skills sets like pharmacology, dispensing and compounding, medication therapy, pharmaceutical research,
MedE America Pharmacy System etc. and in specialty areas like acute and critical care, ICU, nuclear pharmaceuticals and retail etc.
Narrate some of the main reasons why you should be called for the interview.
For example: thorough knowledge of computerized drug distribution systems, drug utilization evaluation, complex equipment and delivery systems, emerging medications, inventory management and regulations governing pharmacy services. Licensed clinical pharmacist with acute care and hospital experience. Serving and maintaining an effective communication between the community to improve drug usage and therapeutic outcomes and healthcare teams.
Mention how you have reduced costs and saved money in your department or the organization in general. Highlight any other achievements that have benefited your department and obviously your organization in general.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Thursday, November 15, 2012
A Summary of Pharmacy Jobs
There are many questions that people ask when talking about pharmacy jobs. These questions include the types of pharmacy jobs available, where these jobs are located, and how to qualify for these jobs.
Pharmacy Jobs
Medicines can be prepared and dispensed only by qualified pharmacists. In olden times, they used to mix drug products from measured raw materials according to doctor’s prescriptions. These days, they dispense pre-measured tablets and capsules produced by pharmaceutical companies. They also advise patients on the use of prescription and over the counter medicines.
In addition to technical knowledge about the required purity and dosages of many medicinal products, pharmacists also require the human touch and ethical sense to deal with customers in a trust-building manner.
Pharmacists find jobs in numerous settings, such as retail pharmacy outlets, hospitals & clinics, healthcare facilities, drug research and development, pharmaceutical sales and marketing, government agencies and universities.
Pharmacists work as pharmacy managers, clinical pharmacists, IV pharmacists, retail pharmacists and in other roles.
Who Employ Pharmacists?
Some of the major employers of pharmacists are listed below.
Retail (and Internet) pharmacies need pharmacists and pharmacy managers.
Pharmaceutical companies need pharmacists for drug research & development, and for sales and marketing.
Hospitals, clinics and healthcare facilities need pharmacists to oversee the formulation, storage and dispensing of medicines at their facilities.
Government agencies and home care facilities also need the services of pharmacists.
Armed services need pharmacists in their medical services sections.
Community and consultant pharmacies are other agencies that need pharmacists.
The demand for pharmacists exceeds supply in the USA.
How Do You Qualify as a Pharmacist?
Pharmacy is the science that deals with collection, preparation and standardization of drugs.
As a preliminary for your course in pharmacy, you need to attend college level classes in such subjects as chemistry, biology, physics and mathematics, for about two years. You might also have to pass a Pharmacy Colleges Admissions Test.
You then have to complete a 6-year (or 5 year) Pharm D. (or B.S.) curriculum prescribed by an accredited college of pharmacy. Internship under a qualified pharmacist and passing a state examination are other typical requirements before you become a licensed pharmacist.
Continuing education is a typical requirement to renew the license.
The skills in pharmacy practice include not only dispensing prescriptions but also communicating with patients and healthcare professionals. (You need to acquire the skill to read doctors’ handwritings!) They also include understanding the responsibilities of professional ethics.
Other important skills include the management of a pharmacy practice, and consulting with other healthcare professionals.
Availability of Pharmacy Jobs
As you would have begun to appreciate by now, pharmacists are trained professionals providing an essential service in healthcare. They are in high demand by many agencies and this situation is likely to continue.
In fact, all the pharmacy jobs are not being filled now for want for qualified pharmacists. A career in pharmacy is thus a promising career.
Pharmacy Jobs
Medicines can be prepared and dispensed only by qualified pharmacists. In olden times, they used to mix drug products from measured raw materials according to doctor’s prescriptions. These days, they dispense pre-measured tablets and capsules produced by pharmaceutical companies. They also advise patients on the use of prescription and over the counter medicines.
In addition to technical knowledge about the required purity and dosages of many medicinal products, pharmacists also require the human touch and ethical sense to deal with customers in a trust-building manner.
Pharmacists find jobs in numerous settings, such as retail pharmacy outlets, hospitals & clinics, healthcare facilities, drug research and development, pharmaceutical sales and marketing, government agencies and universities.
Pharmacists work as pharmacy managers, clinical pharmacists, IV pharmacists, retail pharmacists and in other roles.
Who Employ Pharmacists?
Some of the major employers of pharmacists are listed below.
Retail (and Internet) pharmacies need pharmacists and pharmacy managers.
Pharmaceutical companies need pharmacists for drug research & development, and for sales and marketing.
Hospitals, clinics and healthcare facilities need pharmacists to oversee the formulation, storage and dispensing of medicines at their facilities.
Government agencies and home care facilities also need the services of pharmacists.
Armed services need pharmacists in their medical services sections.
Community and consultant pharmacies are other agencies that need pharmacists.
The demand for pharmacists exceeds supply in the USA.
How Do You Qualify as a Pharmacist?
Pharmacy is the science that deals with collection, preparation and standardization of drugs.
As a preliminary for your course in pharmacy, you need to attend college level classes in such subjects as chemistry, biology, physics and mathematics, for about two years. You might also have to pass a Pharmacy Colleges Admissions Test.
You then have to complete a 6-year (or 5 year) Pharm D. (or B.S.) curriculum prescribed by an accredited college of pharmacy. Internship under a qualified pharmacist and passing a state examination are other typical requirements before you become a licensed pharmacist.
Continuing education is a typical requirement to renew the license.
The skills in pharmacy practice include not only dispensing prescriptions but also communicating with patients and healthcare professionals. (You need to acquire the skill to read doctors’ handwritings!) They also include understanding the responsibilities of professional ethics.
Other important skills include the management of a pharmacy practice, and consulting with other healthcare professionals.
Availability of Pharmacy Jobs
As you would have begun to appreciate by now, pharmacists are trained professionals providing an essential service in healthcare. They are in high demand by many agencies and this situation is likely to continue.
In fact, all the pharmacy jobs are not being filled now for want for qualified pharmacists. A career in pharmacy is thus a promising career.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Increasing Jobs in Pharmacy Technician Field
Pharmacy Technicians are the people that you see at the front counter of the pharmacy. They are the ones will dispense medicines, take prescriptions, count, weigh, measure prescriptions, among other tasks of running a pharmacy. The filled prescription is then priced and filed, and checked by a pharmacist before being given to the patient.
In effect, pharmacy technician jobs involve helping the pharmacists with the routine tasks of filling prescriptions. The job requires training and certification to understand prescriptions, check their accuracy and completeness, select the right medicines and fill the order attending to all the correct formalities. Technicians might receive requests from patients or directly from doctors. They must be able to decipher doctors’ handwriting and check that the prescription makes sense.
Pharmacy technician jobs are thus more than merely filling tablets and capsules into packets. Technicians might even be required to mix the medication. Where they have any doubts or questions, they must refer these to the pharmacist. That means they must know when and how to ask the right questions!
Other Technical Pharmacy Routines
In addition to filling prescriptions, drug dispensing also involves things like:
Creating and maintaining patient profiles
Preparing insurance claim forms
Reading patient charts at hospitals, preparing and delivering the medicines to the patients (after verification by a pharmacist)
Organizing the medication delivery to avoid mistakes (by assembling a 24 hour supply of medicines for each patient, packaging and labeling each dose separately in the patient’s medicine cabinet), and getting the packages checked by the pharmacist
It is typically the pharmacy technician’s job to stock the prescription and over-the-counter drugs in the pharmacy shelves, and to take inventory periodically. Pharmacy aides will help the technician in these and other routines such as keeping accounts, answering phones and handling money.
Becoming a Pharmacy Technician
As would be clear from the above, the pharmacy technician job require less drug-related knowledge than is needed for a pharmacist but much more knowledge than what a layperson has.
You have to become a certified pharmacy technician by passing an exam to be eligible for a pharmacy technician job. Technician training gives the trainees the skills and knowledge needed to perform the kind of work discussed above.
After completing training, you would typically have to get a state license to work as pharmacy technician. Pharmacy technicians have also to attend specified hours of continuing education through contact classes to be eligible for re-certification every two years.
Pharmacy Technician Job Prospects
A growing and older population, who typically use more medication, means that there will be an increasing demand for pharmacy technicians. New drug discoveries, for treating more and more conditions, also mean greater need for trained technicians able to fill prescriptions correctly.
Wherever possible, employers will prefer to employ the less expensive pharmacy technician than a highly trained (and consequently expensive) pharmacist.
Pharmacy technician jobs are estimated to grow faster than most categories of jobs.
In effect, pharmacy technician jobs involve helping the pharmacists with the routine tasks of filling prescriptions. The job requires training and certification to understand prescriptions, check their accuracy and completeness, select the right medicines and fill the order attending to all the correct formalities. Technicians might receive requests from patients or directly from doctors. They must be able to decipher doctors’ handwriting and check that the prescription makes sense.
Pharmacy technician jobs are thus more than merely filling tablets and capsules into packets. Technicians might even be required to mix the medication. Where they have any doubts or questions, they must refer these to the pharmacist. That means they must know when and how to ask the right questions!
Other Technical Pharmacy Routines
In addition to filling prescriptions, drug dispensing also involves things like:
Creating and maintaining patient profiles
Preparing insurance claim forms
Reading patient charts at hospitals, preparing and delivering the medicines to the patients (after verification by a pharmacist)
Organizing the medication delivery to avoid mistakes (by assembling a 24 hour supply of medicines for each patient, packaging and labeling each dose separately in the patient’s medicine cabinet), and getting the packages checked by the pharmacist
It is typically the pharmacy technician’s job to stock the prescription and over-the-counter drugs in the pharmacy shelves, and to take inventory periodically. Pharmacy aides will help the technician in these and other routines such as keeping accounts, answering phones and handling money.
Becoming a Pharmacy Technician
As would be clear from the above, the pharmacy technician job require less drug-related knowledge than is needed for a pharmacist but much more knowledge than what a layperson has.
You have to become a certified pharmacy technician by passing an exam to be eligible for a pharmacy technician job. Technician training gives the trainees the skills and knowledge needed to perform the kind of work discussed above.
After completing training, you would typically have to get a state license to work as pharmacy technician. Pharmacy technicians have also to attend specified hours of continuing education through contact classes to be eligible for re-certification every two years.
Pharmacy Technician Job Prospects
A growing and older population, who typically use more medication, means that there will be an increasing demand for pharmacy technicians. New drug discoveries, for treating more and more conditions, also mean greater need for trained technicians able to fill prescriptions correctly.
Wherever possible, employers will prefer to employ the less expensive pharmacy technician than a highly trained (and consequently expensive) pharmacist.
Pharmacy technician jobs are estimated to grow faster than most categories of jobs.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Career Opportunity as a Pharmacy Technician
If you want to become a pharmacy technician, it is certainly a great opportunity. You will study pretty much the same things that a pharmacist would study but you would not have to go as far in getting the PharmD degree.
Median hourly earnings for pharmacy technicians vary by geographical location as well as by the level of individual experience. The variance is anywhere from eight dollars hourly to sixteen dollars and fifty cents an hour.
The job outlook for pharmacy technicians is phenomenal. Any pharmaceutically based occupation will certainly be important now and also in the future. With people living longer and medicines becoming more sophisticated and numerous there is no way to go wrong with a career in medicine. Pharmacist and pharmacy technicians will always be in demand. Pharmacy technicians are more in demand due to the fact there can be as many as four technicians aiding one single pharmacist.
Pharmacy technicians have several options for workplace settings. The overall duties will not vary greatly in the field of pharmacist technicians. The variations in workplace choices add just enough spice to the career opportunities to make becoming a technician greatly appealing. Seven of the ten jobs occupied by pharmacist technicians are in retail pharmacy positions. Retail pharmacy encompasses both independently owned or chain store pharmacy settings.
Nearly two of ten pharmacy technician jobs are in hospitals. There are also miniscule proportions that belong to the obscure aspects of the pharmaceutical trade such as mail order, clinic and wholesalers.
It takes grand people skills to participate as a pharmacist technician. Technicians that are successful are alert, organized, dedicated and efficient in their work. A technician should have an eye for detail and not be easily distracted. An independent reliable nature encourages the pharmacist for which you work under to be confident you can handle all types of situations. Your work is directly related to life and death in more ways than one.
As a technician you will have to interact daily with patients, pharmacists, and various healthcare professionals. Teamwork is an important part of the successful career of any pharmacy technician as you will be working closely with pharmacy aids and pharmacists too.
As a pharmacy technician your duties will vary greatly from those of any other health care professional but will relate directly to the duties of a pharmacist. Your responsibilities are receiving prescriptions sent electronically for your patients where by, you as a technician; have to verify the information is accurate and complete. Then the prescription must be prepared.
These tasks take special attention to details. Prescriptions must be measured, counted, and weighed in some cases in order to for them to equal the dose requested by the physician for the patient involved. Technicians will label and price the prescriptions. Then the information has to be filed in an accurate and timely manner. There is no room for error in this type of career.
The appeal to become a technician is probably not based on such things as workplace environment but it is an opportunity to breathe easy knowing pharmacy technician’s work in clean, well ventilated work areas. All in all the desire to become a technician has to match the things we now know as vital and important to becoming a very dedicated and highly sought after technician of pharmacy.
Median hourly earnings for pharmacy technicians vary by geographical location as well as by the level of individual experience. The variance is anywhere from eight dollars hourly to sixteen dollars and fifty cents an hour.
The job outlook for pharmacy technicians is phenomenal. Any pharmaceutically based occupation will certainly be important now and also in the future. With people living longer and medicines becoming more sophisticated and numerous there is no way to go wrong with a career in medicine. Pharmacist and pharmacy technicians will always be in demand. Pharmacy technicians are more in demand due to the fact there can be as many as four technicians aiding one single pharmacist.
Pharmacy technicians have several options for workplace settings. The overall duties will not vary greatly in the field of pharmacist technicians. The variations in workplace choices add just enough spice to the career opportunities to make becoming a technician greatly appealing. Seven of the ten jobs occupied by pharmacist technicians are in retail pharmacy positions. Retail pharmacy encompasses both independently owned or chain store pharmacy settings.
Nearly two of ten pharmacy technician jobs are in hospitals. There are also miniscule proportions that belong to the obscure aspects of the pharmaceutical trade such as mail order, clinic and wholesalers.
It takes grand people skills to participate as a pharmacist technician. Technicians that are successful are alert, organized, dedicated and efficient in their work. A technician should have an eye for detail and not be easily distracted. An independent reliable nature encourages the pharmacist for which you work under to be confident you can handle all types of situations. Your work is directly related to life and death in more ways than one.
As a technician you will have to interact daily with patients, pharmacists, and various healthcare professionals. Teamwork is an important part of the successful career of any pharmacy technician as you will be working closely with pharmacy aids and pharmacists too.
As a pharmacy technician your duties will vary greatly from those of any other health care professional but will relate directly to the duties of a pharmacist. Your responsibilities are receiving prescriptions sent electronically for your patients where by, you as a technician; have to verify the information is accurate and complete. Then the prescription must be prepared.
These tasks take special attention to details. Prescriptions must be measured, counted, and weighed in some cases in order to for them to equal the dose requested by the physician for the patient involved. Technicians will label and price the prescriptions. Then the information has to be filed in an accurate and timely manner. There is no room for error in this type of career.
The appeal to become a technician is probably not based on such things as workplace environment but it is an opportunity to breathe easy knowing pharmacy technician’s work in clean, well ventilated work areas. All in all the desire to become a technician has to match the things we now know as vital and important to becoming a very dedicated and highly sought after technician of pharmacy.
Friday, November 9, 2012
A Look at Pharmacy Schools
If you plan on becoming a pharmacist it is a tough by good career goal. There are tons of schools out there in the U.S. where you can go get good training that would help you to become a pharmacist.
The decision to become a pharmacist or pharmacist technician is a sound one. It is an excellent career decision and an easily achievable educational goal also. In most cases and in many states a bachelor’s degree is not necessary in order to become a pharmacist.
In order to begin a pharmacy degree your pre-pharmacy education must be completed. You must also take the Pharmacy College Admissions Test and depending what school you are planning to attend an interview may also be required.
With so many colleges, universities, and vocational technical schools offering pharmacy courses to their students you really have a wide array of options for every aspect of fulfilling your desire to be involved in the pharmacy industry. The pharmacy degrees typically offered through most higher learning institutions is Doctor of Pharmacy or PharmD degrees and Non Traditional PharmD degrees.
The latter is designed to accommodate currently practicing pharmacists. A pharmacist who has a BS in pharmacy from any of the accredited pharmacy schools and wants to practice at a more advanced level benefits from the availability of the Non-Traditional PharmD degree. This particular degree is typically offered with flexible scheduling. Most courses are also available through Internet access to accommodate the working pharmacists who typically benefit from this type of education opportunity.
Why would anyone choose pharmacy schools in order to gain a career skill? If you think about the importance of pharmaceuticals in today’s society you will be hard pressed to argue their non-existence in the future. Pharmacy schools and the pharmacists that are produced in them are an important part of education, modern medicine, and society also.
Pharmacy schools provide both challenges and rewards. Learning the effects of medicines and understanding the human body is just the beginning of this exciting career choice. Ultimately, serving as a pharmacist is both a rewarding and challenging job.
Pharmacy schools also offer courses that strictly pertain to business at hand. Whether you are directing your studies toward being a pharmacist or pharmacist technician you will not have to do prerequisite courses that have nothing to do with your goal. Courses such as pharmaceutical calculations, pharmacy law ethics, and clinical pharmocokinetics are typical of PharmD degree courses. A license to practice pharmacy has always been required in the United States.
The rewards from attending pharmacy schools will benefit you directly and will also benefit you quickly. Being skilled at catching medicines prescribed by doctors that truly don’t mix well in a human is the life saving knowledge you as a pharmacist will bring to the work place each day. As a pharmacist you will be enriching the health and well being of your patients. You will be giving advice and recording information on a daily basis.
Along with the educational skills that you will acquire in pharmacy schools you will also gain the intuition to become a people person. All of the skills you will learn will be the beneficial and will also yield positive rewards throughout the duration of your career as a pharmacist or pharmacist technician.
The decision to become a pharmacist or pharmacist technician is a sound one. It is an excellent career decision and an easily achievable educational goal also. In most cases and in many states a bachelor’s degree is not necessary in order to become a pharmacist.
In order to begin a pharmacy degree your pre-pharmacy education must be completed. You must also take the Pharmacy College Admissions Test and depending what school you are planning to attend an interview may also be required.
With so many colleges, universities, and vocational technical schools offering pharmacy courses to their students you really have a wide array of options for every aspect of fulfilling your desire to be involved in the pharmacy industry. The pharmacy degrees typically offered through most higher learning institutions is Doctor of Pharmacy or PharmD degrees and Non Traditional PharmD degrees.
The latter is designed to accommodate currently practicing pharmacists. A pharmacist who has a BS in pharmacy from any of the accredited pharmacy schools and wants to practice at a more advanced level benefits from the availability of the Non-Traditional PharmD degree. This particular degree is typically offered with flexible scheduling. Most courses are also available through Internet access to accommodate the working pharmacists who typically benefit from this type of education opportunity.
Why would anyone choose pharmacy schools in order to gain a career skill? If you think about the importance of pharmaceuticals in today’s society you will be hard pressed to argue their non-existence in the future. Pharmacy schools and the pharmacists that are produced in them are an important part of education, modern medicine, and society also.
Pharmacy schools provide both challenges and rewards. Learning the effects of medicines and understanding the human body is just the beginning of this exciting career choice. Ultimately, serving as a pharmacist is both a rewarding and challenging job.
Pharmacy schools also offer courses that strictly pertain to business at hand. Whether you are directing your studies toward being a pharmacist or pharmacist technician you will not have to do prerequisite courses that have nothing to do with your goal. Courses such as pharmaceutical calculations, pharmacy law ethics, and clinical pharmocokinetics are typical of PharmD degree courses. A license to practice pharmacy has always been required in the United States.
The rewards from attending pharmacy schools will benefit you directly and will also benefit you quickly. Being skilled at catching medicines prescribed by doctors that truly don’t mix well in a human is the life saving knowledge you as a pharmacist will bring to the work place each day. As a pharmacist you will be enriching the health and well being of your patients. You will be giving advice and recording information on a daily basis.
Along with the educational skills that you will acquire in pharmacy schools you will also gain the intuition to become a people person. All of the skills you will learn will be the beneficial and will also yield positive rewards throughout the duration of your career as a pharmacist or pharmacist technician.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
A Closer Look at Becoming a Pharmacy Technician
Not too long ago when you went into a pharmacy to get a prescription filled you would have found that your prescription was actually filled by the on duty pharmacists. Over the years though things have changed quite a bit as a pharmacist no longer fills your prescription. While a pharmacist may be working at the pharmacy, usually it's the technicians that fill the prescriptions.
Pharmacy Technicians and assistants have existed for some time but their roles have evolved for a variety of reasons.
A big reason is that they help to reduce health care costs because they get paid much less than a certified pharmacist. Another important reason is that it simply makes sense. Pharmacy technicians and assistants are trained to handle routine work (fill prescriptions and customer service), which frees up the pharmacists to focus more of their time on supervisory duties, as well as patient care.
Adam, Executive Director of the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board, put it this way, “Pharmacists are becoming more focused on patient care, so pharmacy technicians are needed to perform more of the distributive functions.”
In general, they assist licensed pharmacists in providing medication and health care to patients by preparing and filling prescriptions and performing clerical tasks. Duties are similar but pharmacy technicians generally have more responsibilities. In addition, technicians and assistants are required to be closely supervised by a licensened pharmacist, although the laws defining what “being supervised” entails, varies by state.
In addition to having all of their prescriptions checked by a pharmacist, technicians and assistants must also direct all patient questions regarding drug information, health matters or prescriptions to the pharmacist.
Technicians follow specific procedures when filling prescriptions. After receiving an initial prescription or refill request, they must verify that the prescription information is accurate and then count, pour, retrieve, weigh, measure and if necessary, mix the required medication for the prescription. The next step is to prepare and affix the labels to the proper container. After filling the prescription the technician will then price and file it. Another important aspect of a technician’s job is to prepare patient insurance forms and establish and maintain patient profiles.
In retail pharmacies, technicians will also stock and take inventory of medications (both prescription and over-the-counter) maintain equipment and help manage the till.
In many hospitals, technicians have the responsibility to read the doctors orders from a patients’ chart, prepare and then deliver the medication after it’s been checked by a pharmacist. They may also enter information about patients’ medical records (regarding their medications) or put together a supply (normally 24 hours) of medicine for patients, including the labeling and packaging of each dose. But just like technicians working in a retail pharmacy, each package is checked by the supervising pharmacist before being given to a patient and they also maintain inventories of medicine and other supplies.
Pharmacy Assistant duties are similar to pharmacy technicians and while hospitals and pharmacies employ pharmacy assistants, the number of available positions is generally less than technicians. In retail pharmacies they work as clerks or cashiers, answer phones, handle money and perform clerical duties. In hospitals they also deliver medications and assist in stocking shelves.
Pharmacy technicians and assistants work in clean well-organized areas but are required to spend most of their workday on their feet. And because more and more pharmacies are open 24-hours a day work hours can vary with technicians and assistants are often required to work odds hours (nights, evenings and weekends). Therefore, there are many opportunities to work part-time in 24-hour pharmacies. In addition, a percentage of both technicians and assistants work part time because they are studying to become pharmacists.
States have traditionally required a one-to-one ratio of pharmacist to technician but that is also expected to change. Nate, Director of Government and Student Affairs for the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, has stated that: “Many of the major employers of technicians are expanding the number of their facilities and boards of pharmacy in some States are allowing the legal ratio of technicians to pharmacists to expand. This is a very promising field to work in.”
An increasing demand for technicians with greater responsibility has prompted some States to revise their one-to-one ratio of pharmacist to technician to two or three technicians per pharmacist.
As pharmacy technicians do more work that pharmacists usually do, they have to keep up with new technology. A good example is the increased use (by many pharmacies) of robotic machines to dispense medicines. Technicians will be required to oversee the machine, stock bins and label containers.
Pharmacy Technicians and assistants have existed for some time but their roles have evolved for a variety of reasons.
A big reason is that they help to reduce health care costs because they get paid much less than a certified pharmacist. Another important reason is that it simply makes sense. Pharmacy technicians and assistants are trained to handle routine work (fill prescriptions and customer service), which frees up the pharmacists to focus more of their time on supervisory duties, as well as patient care.
Adam, Executive Director of the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board, put it this way, “Pharmacists are becoming more focused on patient care, so pharmacy technicians are needed to perform more of the distributive functions.”
In general, they assist licensed pharmacists in providing medication and health care to patients by preparing and filling prescriptions and performing clerical tasks. Duties are similar but pharmacy technicians generally have more responsibilities. In addition, technicians and assistants are required to be closely supervised by a licensened pharmacist, although the laws defining what “being supervised” entails, varies by state.
In addition to having all of their prescriptions checked by a pharmacist, technicians and assistants must also direct all patient questions regarding drug information, health matters or prescriptions to the pharmacist.
Technicians follow specific procedures when filling prescriptions. After receiving an initial prescription or refill request, they must verify that the prescription information is accurate and then count, pour, retrieve, weigh, measure and if necessary, mix the required medication for the prescription. The next step is to prepare and affix the labels to the proper container. After filling the prescription the technician will then price and file it. Another important aspect of a technician’s job is to prepare patient insurance forms and establish and maintain patient profiles.
In retail pharmacies, technicians will also stock and take inventory of medications (both prescription and over-the-counter) maintain equipment and help manage the till.
In many hospitals, technicians have the responsibility to read the doctors orders from a patients’ chart, prepare and then deliver the medication after it’s been checked by a pharmacist. They may also enter information about patients’ medical records (regarding their medications) or put together a supply (normally 24 hours) of medicine for patients, including the labeling and packaging of each dose. But just like technicians working in a retail pharmacy, each package is checked by the supervising pharmacist before being given to a patient and they also maintain inventories of medicine and other supplies.
Pharmacy Assistant duties are similar to pharmacy technicians and while hospitals and pharmacies employ pharmacy assistants, the number of available positions is generally less than technicians. In retail pharmacies they work as clerks or cashiers, answer phones, handle money and perform clerical duties. In hospitals they also deliver medications and assist in stocking shelves.
Pharmacy technicians and assistants work in clean well-organized areas but are required to spend most of their workday on their feet. And because more and more pharmacies are open 24-hours a day work hours can vary with technicians and assistants are often required to work odds hours (nights, evenings and weekends). Therefore, there are many opportunities to work part-time in 24-hour pharmacies. In addition, a percentage of both technicians and assistants work part time because they are studying to become pharmacists.
States have traditionally required a one-to-one ratio of pharmacist to technician but that is also expected to change. Nate, Director of Government and Student Affairs for the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, has stated that: “Many of the major employers of technicians are expanding the number of their facilities and boards of pharmacy in some States are allowing the legal ratio of technicians to pharmacists to expand. This is a very promising field to work in.”
An increasing demand for technicians with greater responsibility has prompted some States to revise their one-to-one ratio of pharmacist to technician to two or three technicians per pharmacist.
As pharmacy technicians do more work that pharmacists usually do, they have to keep up with new technology. A good example is the increased use (by many pharmacies) of robotic machines to dispense medicines. Technicians will be required to oversee the machine, stock bins and label containers.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Pharmacy Technician Requirements
In the courses, you would get hands on training in the laboratory. The hands on training allows you to get a feel for what it is like to work in a real pharmacy so once you are on the job, everything would be familiar. After you have completed your courses and done some training on the job, you can then take the pharmacy technician certification examination.
How to Get a Pharmacy Technician License?
There are two entities where you can get your pharmacy technician certificate: The Institute for the Certification of Pharmacy Technicians and the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board. If you want to take the exam, you must not have been convicted of a felony within the last five years. You also must not have any drug related convictions and you must have a high school diploma or a GED. You can take courses that will help you to pass the exam. Once you have gotten your certificate, you have to renew it every two years. You will need to take 20 hours of continuing education within the two years. Four of those hours must be in pharmacy law. Part of your hours can received through training on your job as pharmacy technician and the other part of your hours can be received through a training program offered by a school.
With the right credentials and training, you will be head and shoulders above other people that have no training. You would be easily hired by pharmacies and usually offered a higher salary than others. And you would be more likely to be promoted over others.
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