Pharmacy Technician
One career in the health care industry that is growing rapidly is that of the pharmacy technician. With more and more drugstores opening up, both stand-alone businesses and those tucked into other stores, the demand for the technician will continue to grow. It's become a matter of convenience in this country to be able to go to the grocery store and do our banking, pick up flowers for the wife and drop off the prescription the doctor just gave us. This trend isn't going away so we will see more demand for pharmacy technicians for some time to come.
What does a pharmacy technician do?
The job duties of a pharmacy technician will vary according to the environment in which they choose to work. Almost all job descriptions will include being able to assist the pharmacist with dispensing medications, including logging the received prescription, bottling the correct number of tablets or other form of medication and labeling the bottles correctly.
With a large drugstore, there will often be those who are known as pharmacy aides, just a step below the pharmacy technician. These people will usually do the administrative and clerical jobs involved in such places like stocking the shelves and ringing up customers. In smaller settings, such as the drugstore inside the grocery store scenario above, the pharmacy technician will often find that those tasks are also part of their job duties.
If the pharmacy technician is employed by a nursing home or assisted living facility, they will often be entrusted a bit further. They will generally also prepare sterile solutions on their own as well as deliver medications to the doctor or nurse on duty. Not all facilities will have these types of positions available, of course. Usually it is only the larger facilities that will have their own pharmacy on grounds.
There is also a growing demand for the pharmacy technician in the various mail-order drugstores that are available. Much of the time, almost all of the work is done by an army of technicians and then the pharmacist will simply follow-up and double check that the prescriptions are handled properly.
In those circumstances, the pharmacy technician will often be responsible for checking the prescription for accuracy, dispensing the medication, bottling and labeling and then will often also be responsible for keeping the customer file updated and even handling insurance claims. The actual job duties may vary according to the state, as well, as not all states allow for this much autonomy for the pharmacist technician.
