Memorizing medications for pharmacy tech

Started by ramizlol
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ramizlol

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10+ Year Member
Hello, I just accepted my offer for a pharmacy tech position. I want to get the ball rolling since my training is not gonna start for three more weeks. What about each medication should I know? Thanks
 
Brand/Generic/Indication for the most common drugs is all you need to know as a pharmacy tech. Lots of people will come in and say refill my blood pressure meds and you have to know that amlodipine is for blood pressure while their atorvastatin is for cholesterol. Or some people will only know brand name (ex. keppra) but since the pharmacy fills generic, you'll see the generic name. Some companies (like walgreens) have an easy database to look up brand/generic while I've heard that others (like CVS) do not. This really comes with time, though. Memorizing the top 200, though, is overkill.
 
romaniangirl said:
Brand/Generic/Indication for the most common drugs is all you need to know as a pharmacy tech. Lots of people will come in and say refill my blood pressure meds and you have to know that amlodipine is for blood pressure while their atorvastatin is for cholesterol. Or some people will only know brand name (ex. keppra) but since the pharmacy fills generic, you'll see the generic name. Some companies (like walgreens) have an easy database to look up brand/generic while I've heard that others (like CVS) do not. This really comes with time, though. Memorizing the top 200, though, is overkill.
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What do you mean by indication? Also, when doing drop off and you have to put the insurance information but more than one of them pop up. How do you know which one it is? So it would be useless if I memorized the brand and generic names for the common medications?

Thanks!!
 
Indication means what the drug is used for (lower blood pressure or cholesterol, a pain medication, etc.). Which company do you work for? I am familiar with walgreens' system, but not so much other companies like CVS or Walmart when it comes to choosing insurance. Memorizing brand/generic is very helpful, but at the same time, it's not really worth your time. It would be better if you kept a little cheat sheet in alpha order or something in case you need to look it up. Spending hours memorizing brand/generic/indication is a waste because you will pick it up by working. If you just keep a little slip of paper with common drugs and their brand/generic/use on it, that would be the most efficient thing to do, in my opinion.
 
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