Intrinsic qualities of a pharmacist

[newslang]

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I'm looking for advice ony my carreer path. I'm an inpatient hospital technician and aspiring pharmacist. I've been at my current job for 6 months and found that I still make mistakes, probably around 1%. Mainly minor errors, such as missing when a PPI is ordered BID. It's apparently perfectly acceptable for techs to make mistakes, so this isn't a problem for my current job.

On the other hand, I think about how nobody checks the pharmacists' work. If I'm not perfect as a tech, is pharmacy a poor career choice?

 

[PharmDstudent]

I'm looking for advice ony my carreer path. I'm an inpatient hospital technician and aspiring pharmacist. I've been at my current job for 6 months and found that I still make mistakes, probably around 1%. Mainly minor errors, such as missing when a PPI is ordered BID. It's apparently perfectly acceptable for techs to make mistakes, so this isn't a problem for my current job.

On the other hand, I think about how nobody checks the pharmacists' work. If I'm not perfect as a tech, is pharmacy a poor career choice?

I don't think pharmacy is a poor choice for you at all!
Although, you should be able to make fewer mistakes than 1%. Here's some advice, check your medication against the RXs as if you were a pharmacist. Is the strength right, should it be XR or SR, how many tablets do you need to fill it, etc.? Once you start double checking your own work, you should find that you make fewer mistakes.

I'm not perfect as a pharmacy student, however I pay a lot of attention to the drugs, their strengths, and dosing. Other stuff, like doctors, insurance, and the original RX date, I make more mistakes on. This happens to me, because I'm not perfect. I try to be 100% perfect with the drugs though. I found it easier to be more accurate in a hospital, because there are less distractions. Therefore, you would have to pay closer attention to the drugs themselves in retail.
Good Luck!

 

[Requiem]

There is so much more to being a health care professional in terms of "intrinsic qualities" than error rates with regards to TID vs BID that I kinda don't know where to start.

P.S. It's not your ass on the line when a script goes out. Let the pharmacist worry about the pharmacists work.

 

[Quiksilver]

you would be surprised at the fact that there are mistakes that the pharmacist makes or does not catch. It is important to check over things even as you are cashing the patient out of the pharmacy. Really common but minor mistakes include missing the fact that the patient requested a non-childproof cap or not noting that their prescription may look slightly different for being a generic. The way pharmacy and law are set up to catch those mistakes, and any others before it gets to the patient. No one is perfect. but this is in a retail setting.

in my work with a clinical pharmacist, well he didn't make any mistakes that i was aware of. but then again the guy is just an incredibly intellegent pharamcist and he was in a non-dispensing practice.