Pharmacy Technician Schools Play Important Health Care Role

by Michael Bustamante

Pharmacy assistants play an important role in health care, and you can qualify to take on this role with good training from pharmacy technician schools. There are a number of good schools for pharmacy technicians throughout the US and Canada, where you can become certified and learn to assist pharmacists with dispensing prescription medications and keeping pharmaceutical operations running smoothly.

Although the pharmacy technician is not the same as a pharmacist, many of the duties are shared, with pharmacy assistants taking on the bulk of the everyday, routine tasks. Pharmacy technician schools can teach you to perform general administrative duties, as well as to prepare prescription medications under the watchful eye of a pharmacist. You will learn to screen calls from medical offices and from patients; assist patients in submitting prescriptions to be filled; recommend medicines and other health care products; submit forms to HMOs, insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid; fill and label prescriptions; and enter patient information into a pharmacy database.

The health of patients depends on accurate dispensing of prescribed medicines, and it is up to the pharmacy assistant to verify the accuracy of filled prescriptions. Pharmacy technician courses will include instruction in ordering bulk medicines; preparing chemotherapeutic agents; compounding oral solutions, ointments, and creams; and prepackaging various medicines, nutrition solutions and intravenous mixtures; and much more. Your training will include many subjects relating to pharmacology, such as biological sciences, health sciences, natural sciences, medical and pharmaceutical terminology, basic anatomy and physiology, and mathematics.

Pharmacy technicians are required to have a minimum of an associate degree, with a focus directly related to the duties of the pharmacy assistant. You can get a degree in the field from various schools, colleges, vocational schools, and even online schools for pharmacy technicians. Upon graduation, you will be eligible to take the P.T. Certification Board National Exam to become a certified pharmacy technician.

To find out if training in pharmacy technology is for you, contact one or more Pharmacy Technician Colleges on our website and request additional information today.

DISCLAIMER: Above is a GENERAL OVERVIEW and may or may not reflect specific practices, courses and/or services associated with ANY ONE particular school(s) that is or is not advertised on SchoolsGalore.com.

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Michael Bustamante is a staff writer for Media Positive Communications, Inc. and ArticleSourcePlus.com. Find Pharmacy Technician Schools, Colleges, Universities, Online Schools and Vocational Schools at SchoolsGalore.com, your resource for higher education.