Hooray for me...

[bringinit247]

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I'm stoked because I just landed two jobs as a pharm. tech....I am a pre-pharmacy student....Anybody have any tips for me on making the most out of this opportunity?

 

[baggywrinkle]

Originally posted by bringinit247
I'm stoked because I just landed two jobs as a pharm. tech....I am a pre-pharmacy student....Anybody have any tips for me on making the most out of this opportunity?

If you are in retail start collecting package inserts from the fast moving section and building your notebook. The top 200 list is on this board. Ask questions, find yourself an RPh mentor and build the trust so that perhaps they will teach you some compounding.
Pay particular attention to associating colors & shapes with names. It will pay off handsomely later on exams. Start a small notebook of insurance codes, workmen's comp procedures, and compounding formulas (magic mouthwash, pink lady, green lizard, butt balm). I keep mine on PDA along with a library of useful software such as IDENTADRUG. The mark of a good tech is one who notices the pharmacist floundering on the phone - the reference just out of arms reach - and whispers the correct answer just out of earshot of the mouthpiece. I have worked with such techs and they are a treasure to be protected and fed beers.

If you are in hospital do all of the above when filling unitdose carts and gravitate into the IV room whenever possible paying particular attention to the math involved there. If there is an opportunity jump into the hood to learn sterile products mixing.
If it is allowed in your hospital tell them you like to mix chemo and don't mind glowing in the dark 😉 Chances are good that statement alone will put you on the training fast track if you are reliable. A good sterile products tech is worth their weight in gold and it is a marketable skill to be proud of.

Steer clear of crusty old farts like me.

 

[Caverject]

Thats awesome. Just one thing, make sure its in two different scopes of pharmacy. For example, if you got hired at Walgreens and the local hospital thats great. If you got hired at Walgreens and CVS, you may have a conflict of interest on your hands. In that case, you should choose one or the other. Hope this helps!

 

[bringinit247]

OK this may sound like a dumb question but why would that be a conflict of interest? Why should I have to work at one or the other retail store?

 

[jdpharmd?]

Originally posted by bringinit247
OK this may sound like a dumb question but why would that be a conflict of interest? Why should I have to work at one or the other retail store?

They willl usually not allow it. It's probably possible to do, but lets say CVS knew that you worked at both wags and CVS. They would be upset that you might share important infomation with their competitors (wags), or maybe mentioned how much money a certain pharmacist makes at CVS, or how much you like/hate your job etc there. Maybe patients would follow you to the other store, yada yada. It's not good business for them. Usually you will sign some type of agreement that say you won't simultaneously work for one of their competitors. It makes decent common sense. Plus, why would you want to work at two, almost identical, retail stores?

 

[bringinit247]

Because I want to get as many recommendations to pharmacy school as possible...I put applications out at around 20 pharmacies in my area this summer, and alot of them are calling me back now....It's kinda hard to say no to them when you worked so hard just getting the applications out to them. I am worried about spreading myself too thin...I am already taking 17 credits, volunteering at the hospital, and working at a CPA firm during the week...

 

[Caverject]

The thing is though about recommendations, you are probably going to be allowed to turn in MAX 4 of them. Why do you need 20? If you have 4 people (and thats 2 professors 2 pharmacists since most schools want that now) im sure they wouldn't mind doing more than one recommendation for you. And you do really sound like your spreading yourself thin. Pre-reqs are no joke and take forever to make up if you screw up. School should be most important at this time for you and if you get one job, thats cool. Volunteering is really cool too, but I really dont think you need more than that. Of course, thats just my "dumb" opinion.

 

[bringinit247]

Can someone tell me how I can go about gaining a greater knowledge of certain drugs, especially the popular ones? Are there any online lists that have info about drug name, what it is treated for, its generic equivalent, etc.? Any help would be greatly appreciated....I really want to kick ass at this job

 

[LoneCoyote]

At my job they gave me a little book when I started with the majority of the drugs and their generics. Some coworkers gave me a list of the HIV meds, since we do a lot of them at my store, and many of them are not in the book. I can email you that list if you want it. But I am sure the stuff is online somewhere and someone else can probably tell you where. Also, putting the drugs away really helped me to figure it out since my store organizes the shelves by brand names and the generics go with their brands. Just putting drugs back for the top ones in my head pretty quickly.

 

[bringinit247]

As a pharm tech, how should I expect to progress in terms of knowledge of drugs in the coming months? What should my ideal timetable be? For example, should I know all the Top 200, their generic names, and what they are used for by Christmas, and know all the drugs in the whole pharmacy by the end of the school year? I am trying to set realistic, yet ambitious goals, because like I said earlier, I really want to make the most of this.

 

[LVPharm]

How much time do you have? 😉 There's a lot to learn if you had the time, but one thing you could do to help you learn the top drugs is to break them up into their classes. Learn the drugs in your antihypertensive drug classes: ACE Inhibitors, Angiotensin Receptor Blockers (ARBs), diuretics, beta blockers, etc. Learn your dyslipidemia drug classes: HMG CoA Reductase Inhibitors ("statins"), Fibric Acid Derivatives ("fibrates"), bile acid sequestrants, etc. Learn your type 2 diabetes drugs, antibiotics, proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), etc. You'll learn that some drugs within classes have similar sounding names (ACE Inhibitors end with "-pril") which might help organize these drugs and help you learn about them better. Read the monographs or drug package inserts stuck on the bottles. Your pharmacist might not object to you keeping those to read in your spare time. It might be worthwile (although quite ambitious) to try to learn how some of these drugs work, what is known as their "mechanism of action", which most drugs within a particular class have in common. You can find that in the drug monographs/package inserts, or Facts & Comparisons. Once again, that might help you remember the drugs.

What I'm trying to say is that if you break up the top 200 into classes, it might make the task a little less daunting. If you can learn trade/generic names with their classes you'll have learned something you can use by the time you get to your therapeutics courses.

PS. If you want a top 200 list to study, you can PM me.