Pharmacy technicians play an essential role in helping pharmacies meet the important and varied medicinal needs of their patients. Responsible for the technical aspects of both new and refill prescriptions, they ensure that each patient, dosage form, dose, and doctor is properly recorded and that prescriptions are quickly and accurately filled.
Pharmacy technicians prepare prescription products by compounding, counting, measuring, and labelling. They gather patient information for the pharmacist to review, and sometimes perform routine data entry. For many people, being a pharmaceutical technician offers a deeply rewarding career path, performing a valuable and necessary service for pharmacies and their customers.
If you’re considering training for a new career as a pharmacy technician, you might be wondering what kind of skills and qualities would make you suited for the role. Here are five of the most important.
Pharmacy Technicians Depend on Good Communication Skills
Communication skills are very important for pharmacy technicians. In any situation where medications are being dispensed, having strong written and verbal communication skills can be essential in ensuring that people are taking the correct amounts of the right medications, and that they have all the information they need to do so safely. Whether speaking with pharmacists or other co-workers, pharmacy technicians need to know that they’re being understood.
Attention to Detail is Important When You Become a Pharmacy Technician
Attention to detail is one of the most important skills to have for anyone working with medications. When they’re updating patient records, preparing prescriptions, counting out tablets, and labelling medications, pharmacy technicians need to make sure that they pay attention to every detail. If you enjoy detail-oriented tasks and often find yourself double- or triple-checking your own work, then you might just excel in a pharmacy technician college course.
Attention to detail is one of the most important skills for anyone working in a pharmacy setting
Strong Math Skills Will Come in Useful
Many of the common tasks performed by pharmacy assistants, such as rationing medications and converting measurements, involve working with numbers. While pharmacy technicians don’t need to be math-whizzes, at least some degree of mathematical aptitude will be very helpful in ensuring the accuracy of customers’ medications and doses.
Computer Skills Will be Helpful in Your Career
Like many jobs today, pharmacy technicians can expect to use computers regularly during their day-to-day work. When you become a pharmacy technician, you’ll use special computer programs to keep track of important, and often highly sensitive, information, like patient histories and current prescriptions, as well as details regarding the composition of specific medications, so some familiarity with computers will come in handy.
Pharmacy technicians should be comfortable working with computers
Pharmacy Technicians Need to Stay Well-Organized
The work of a pharmacy technician can be fast-paced at times. Having strong organizational skills will go a long way in staying on top of the various tasks you’ve been assigned and making sure that each customer receives the correct prescription. If you enjoy multi-tasking, excel at managing your own time, and are able to stay organized even when things get hectic, then these skills will serve you well as a pharmacy technician.
Are you interested in training for a career as a pharmacy technician?
Contact KLC College to learn more about our pharmacy technician diploma program.