Transcript: Get A Life As A Pharmacist or Pharmacy Tech
1996
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00:00:01 The purpose of this video is to examine a particular career choice through candid interviews with role models, showing actual work situations and illustrating credentials, salary and other facts about the occupation.
00:00:13 At the end of the program and on worksheets, you will find references to other sources that help you even further.
00:00:19 Although our programs are diverse and multicultural, circumstances prevent representation of all 127 multicultural groups in every program.
00:00:27 The producers want to encourage the viewer to identify with the role models based on fundamental human qualities rather than race, ethnicity, physical attributes or gender.
00:00:37 Address your own unlimited potential by realizing what you can achieve, whoever you are, if you try hard enough.
00:00:57 I want to be an airline pilot.
00:01:04 A television producer.
00:01:05 A teacher.
00:01:06 A baseball player.
00:01:07 A firefighter.
00:01:08 An architect.
00:01:09 An attorney.
00:01:10 I want to be a speech-language pathologist.
00:01:11 We all want to be nurses.
00:01:13 A music therapist.
00:01:14 An accountant.
00:01:15 If I had to do it all over again, I would become an opiologist.
00:01:19 A social worker.
00:01:20 I don't know what I want to be when I grow up.
00:01:22 I would like to be a surgeon.
00:01:23 A police officer.
00:01:25 I'm a mother and I'm studying to be an OBGYN nurse.
00:01:28 I would like to be a lawyer.
00:01:30 If I could do it all over again, I think I'd want to be a writer.
00:01:33 I'd become a theater director.
00:01:34 I want to be a social studies teacher.
00:01:36 Where do we go from here?
00:01:40 Where do we go from here?
00:01:42 Please tell me.
00:01:44 Where do we go from here?
00:01:47 Where do we go from here?
00:01:51 Where do we go from here?
00:01:53 We have liftoff at 934 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
00:02:02 Whether you're 15 or 50, you deserve the career of your choice.
00:02:07 Vocational Video's Day in the Career series can help you make that choice.
00:02:12 If you can dream it, you can live it.
00:02:15 Where do you go from here?
00:02:17 As far as your imagination can take you.
00:02:21 Where do we go from here?
00:02:43 When most people think of pharmacists,
00:02:45 they think of some guy or lady working behind the counter at their local drugstore.
00:02:48 But there's a lot more to it than that.
00:02:51 Today, pharmacists work in a variety of settings
00:02:54 that may include hospitals, research, HMOs, home care, and more.
00:03:01 Also, there's an entry-level position in the field that most people don't know about.
00:03:06 It's called Pharmacy Tech.
00:03:08 In this video, we will explore both occupations
00:03:11 and also give you the information you need to take action if you like what you see.
00:03:17 And now, the Get A Life series presents Pharmacists in Pharmacy Tech.
00:03:23 I started in pharmacy when I was 14 years old.
00:03:27 I started off working in a drugstore in the city as a delivery boy.
00:03:32 And I enjoyed the work. I enjoyed dealing with people at the time.
00:03:37 And I thought it was a good profession to go into.
00:03:40 I had respect for the pharmacist that took care of me when I was a child.
00:03:43 I figured it would be something nice to take care of people myself.
00:03:46 In high school, I wanted to get into the medical profession of some sort,
00:03:50 but I didn't want to really become a physician.
00:03:52 And I enjoyed working with people and talking to people,
00:03:55 so I decided to go into the pharmacy profession.
00:03:57 Joe fills up the prescriptions, speaks to the doctors on the phone,
00:04:02 gets the prescriptions from the doctors.
00:04:04 And as soon as he gets backed up, Scott helps him fill them.
00:04:08 And Joe will check what Scott does, make sure the medicine's right.
00:04:12 I put it on the shelf, or they set it up for delivery, give it to me.
00:04:15 It's delivery. I bag it up, charge it, and it goes out.
00:04:19 Basically, you have a math and a science background,
00:04:22 and that follows you right through pharmacy school.
00:04:25 It's all basically math and science.
00:04:27 It's a five-year course.
00:04:29 It's the same as it is today as it was back in the 70s.
00:04:35 Most of the time that you're dealing with, you know,
00:04:39 filling prescriptions and how to fill prescriptions,
00:04:40 you go through an internship where you have to,
00:04:43 you go from a retail environment to a hospital environment.
00:04:46 Some people like dealing with the retail trade.
00:04:49 Some people like the sterile environment of a hospital.
00:04:51 And other people like working in research,
00:04:55 where they, you know, work with developing new drugs and things like that.
00:05:01 If you enjoy being with people and dealing with people every day,
00:05:05 you're going to have that opportunity every second of the day,
00:05:07 whether it be on the phone or whether the person comes in.
00:05:10 Your mind has to constantly be moving from the moment the first patient
00:05:14 or the first phone call of the day happens
00:05:16 until the last moment when you lock the door,
00:05:18 because every prescription filled must be totally accurate, no errors.
00:05:24 And you have to constantly be dealing with these people.
00:05:27 Some of these people are extremely demanding,
00:05:29 and you might have two or three phone calls waiting for you,
00:05:32 one after another, and it could be very taxing on your mind.
00:05:36 In our pharmacy, we employ a pharmacy technician, Scott,
00:05:39 who is a tremendous help to me.
00:05:41 Without him, I would not be able to actually fill as many prescriptions as we do.
00:05:46 He, by counting the medications out
00:05:51 and taking care of all the manual prescription processing
00:05:56 after I do everything by the computer,
00:05:58 it enables me to answer people's questions
00:06:00 and counsel people on their questions and problems.
00:06:03 What I do here is pretty much I put away the orders I come in in the morning,
00:06:06 and after that's finished, I count up the medication and put them into bottles.
00:06:10 I go on deliveries.
00:06:12 I make sure everything is stocked up in the store.
00:06:15 Joe, the pharmacist, supervises me
00:06:17 to make sure that what I put in the bottles is what is prescribed
00:06:20 and that the counts are correct.
00:06:22 I wait on customers when they come in the store,
00:06:24 take care of what they need if they're picking up prescriptions
00:06:26 or over-the-counter items.
00:06:28 I plan to go back to school, become a pharmacist.
00:06:30 It's helped me here because I know a lot about the medications
00:06:33 and how to dispense them.
00:06:36 And I like it here, and hopefully maybe I can come back here.
00:06:41 To be a pharmacist, you must have an ability in advanced math and sciences,
00:06:45 good interpersonal skills, and manual dexterity.
00:06:49 Pharmacists earn on average between $50,000 to $60,000 per year.
00:06:54 Pharmacy owners can earn more,
00:06:57 and those employed by large companies may earn less.
00:07:00 A pharmacist must have a bachelor's degree
00:07:02 specializing in pharmacy studies.
00:07:05 A master's and Ph.D. are also obtainable.
00:07:09 Some colleges require a student to take a PCAT,
00:07:13 pre-admissions test, to enter their program.
00:07:16 There are about 75 colleges that offer pharmacy degrees in the U.S.
00:07:21 Because of more advanced drugs being introduced
00:07:24 and the public's increased sophistication level,
00:07:27 the pharmacist is being used more and more
00:07:30 as an information source for doctors and their patients alike.
00:07:34 An alternative to the intensive study to becoming a pharmacist
00:07:39 is the occupation described as pharmacy tech,
00:07:43 which is a position that does not require the same credentials as a pharmacist.
00:07:48 A tech can start without any formal training in many states.
00:07:52 Some pharmacists become researchers or use their training to enter medical school.
00:07:56 Others work in retail pharmacies, hospitals, and other health facilities.
00:08:01 Being a pharmacist, one of the major responsibilities
00:08:05 is making sure that what the doctor is prescribing
00:08:09 will coincide with the patient's disease and how they're taking it,
00:08:14 making sure that the doctor doesn't overprescribe
00:08:17 or give the patient too much medication.
00:08:20 Sometimes that may happen, so you call the doctor up,
00:08:23 you tell him what the problem is,
00:08:25 and he will tell you to either change it or go ahead with his directions.
00:08:29 We have to be on our toes 100% of the time, 8 hours a day.
00:08:33 There's never a break in the time where you can just lay back and say,
00:08:37 oh, my job is done.
00:08:39 The job is really never done because either you get a call in the middle of the night
00:08:43 that the patient has a problem or you come in the next morning
00:08:47 and you see on your fax machine that the patient needs
00:08:50 another half a dozen different medications,
00:08:53 and just making sure that the dosages are right and the medication is right
00:08:58 for the patient to have, that the drug does not interact with any other drugs
00:09:02 that the patient is taking is a big responsibility.
00:09:05 A typical day at a retail pharmacy, normally we open at 9 o'clock,
00:09:10 so I might be here about 8, 8.30 to prepare, open the door at 9 o'clock,
00:09:15 and basically the phone starts ringing before you even walk in the door.
00:09:22 And it's one phone call after another.
00:09:25 You typically fill anywhere from, in this pharmacy,
00:09:28 between 100 and 150 prescriptions per day.
00:09:31 Phone is ringing off the hook all the time.
00:09:34 People are always coming in asking questions that only you could answer.
00:09:39 My advice would be for somebody who maybe would be in high school
00:09:42 and would ask me whether I feel it would be good for them to become a pharmacist,
00:09:46 it would be a good profession for them, I would tell them really
00:09:48 the best thing to do would be to first start, get a job in a pharmacy,
00:09:52 whether just a stock clerk or a delivery person,
00:09:55 they can see where the going's on in the pharmacy,
00:09:58 and they'll see if they really would enjoy that type of work.
00:10:01 You're part of the health care profession.
00:10:03 You are a middle man between the patient and the doctor.
00:10:06 So basically you're buffering their questions and the nurse's questions
00:10:11 to what the doctor has to say about the particular patient
00:10:14 and the drugs that they're taking.
00:10:16 As you can see, pharmacists and even pharmacy techs
00:10:20 serve as an important part of the health care team.
00:10:23 Job opportunities are expected to be above average through the year 2005.
00:10:28 For more information on pharmacy as a career, some good resources are
00:10:33 the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy,
00:10:39 the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy,
00:10:43 also check with your local community college for certificate programs
00:10:47 on pharmacy tech or assistant.