| In Texas, there's a southern career school that offers | | | | these drugs/medications |
| pharmacy technician programs that may completed in | | | | - Prepare prescription labels, containers, and added |
| as little as a couple of years. This is just one of many | | | | cottons It doesn't sound very exciting. Except the drug |
| pharmacy technical institutes across the United States | | | | part. Fortunately, pharmacy technician degrees are |
| that delivers an exciting, rewarding educational | | | | about to get a lot more dynamic, because now I'm |
| program that lets you do the unthinkable--work with | | | | going to go into all the rewarding aspects of this |
| drugs! | | | | often-overlooked education and career choice: |
| According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, "job | | | | |
| opportunities are expected to be good" for the | | | | 1. Amazing work environment. Say goodbye to |
| pharmacy technician. For a college student following | | | | cockroaches, obnoxious temperatures, and |
| the health care industry like myself, or for anyone with | | | | back-breaking labor. The pharmacy technician always |
| their hands even mildly wet in politics, the knee-jerk | | | | works in a sterile, perfectly controlled, relaxed |
| response is--"Of course it is! It's in the health care | | | | environment; the only kind where drugs can be handled |
| industry, the largest growing industry in the United | | | | conscientiously. |
| States thanks to national health care reform!"--but don't | | | | 2. Various work places.Your work environment could |
| be so quick to act. The technician is the not the person | | | | be located in all kinds of facets of the health care |
| you think of, handling the health affairs of individuals | | | | industry, from your local grocer with a pharmacy, to a |
| across the United States. | | | | hospital, to a nursing home. This not only means more |
| They're clerks, really. Clerks that work with drugs. You | | | | jobs available, but shorter commutes, with a pharmacy |
| know that person that hands you your prescription and | | | | of some sort on practically every corner. |
| says, "The pharmacist would like to give you directions | | | | 3. Near-guaranteed employment. Pharmacy technicians |
| on how to use this medication?" That's your pharmacy | | | | held 285,000 jobs in 2006; back then, employment was |
| technician! The pharmacy technician is responsible for: | | | | stellar, and a certified pharmacy technician hardly |
| - Handling the prescription requests and refills, either via | | | | worried about looking for work. With health care's rapid |
| paper or electronically | | | | expansion, things are only looking better, with an |
| - Verifying that the information on the prescription is | | | | estimated 32% increase in growth up until 2016--way |
| complete and accurate (because we don't want those | | | | higher than most job projections, even in the health |
| drugs falling into the wrong hands or anything) | | | | care sector. |
| - Retrieve, count, pour, weigh, measure, and even mix | | | | |