Catina Hunter
7/14/2014
The Worth of a Pharmacy Technician
The Essentials of College Writing
The work of a pharmacy technician can be both complex and stressful. We are not paid enough. For me it’s complex because I have to where many hats. It’s also stressful because not only do we have to deal with sometimes irate pharmacist but also facility employees. I have to even sometimes correct the pharmacist we are trained to assist. Our pay does not reflect the work or effort we put into our jobs. Even though we do more work physically and mentally than the pharmacist our pay does not reflect it. My work is far more important than what we are paid for.
I on a daily basis assist customers, enter prescripstions, check inventory of controls, make sure patients get their meds in a timely fashion and deal with sometimes egotistical pharmacist who think we are nothing. I work for a Long Term Care pharmacy. Where our patients are most important. Dealing with families of patients who are end of life is also stressful. Will the comfort meds get there soon enough. Which is also stressful. I have to deal with nurses that think we are magician and can make things happen in a blink of an eye. Some technicians make less than $10 an hour. Which I think is unfair. I have argued this point for the other technicians for years. Some are even certified. Why be certified if a technician is barely making more than minimum wage?
I work in the control department. I have been accused of not doing my job or just not care. I care more than I should. I care because my mom was an end of life patient with pancreatic canc are even certified. Why be certified if a technician is barely making more than minimum wage?
I work in the control department. Which consist of schedule 2-5 medications. Schedule 2 being the most addict. I have been accused of not doing my job or just not caring. I care more than I should. I care because my mom was an end of life patient with pancreatic cancer. I saw her suffer and waste away. She had her comfort meds. So when she died she wasn’t in pain. Which makes what I do important to me.
Sometimes I have to deal with nurses who are brutal with their words. We can’t dispense controls with a prescription, which they don’t understand. There are times when we call and page doctors but the return the call or page at their convience which makes the pharmacy see negligent. The technician are the ones that get the phone calls from families or nurses saying we didn’t do our jobs. I have often wondered why some doctors choose to do long term care when they really don’t care. I don’t feel that it’s fair for a patient to expire and not be at least comfortable.
Then there are the coworkers who choose not to care or not do their jobs and not care about the patients. It’s just a job to them. To me it’s more. When you have a job that involves patients, they should come first. It could one day be that technician or pharmacist laying in a facility needing someone else to do everything for them. Their lack of work of ethics increase the other technicians workload. Not only slacking technician but lazy pharmacist as well. The slackers want more money even though they don’t deserve it. The individuals, such as myself that put their all into the job have to fight tooth and nail for a fair wage. Whatever the pharmacist is dealing with that day, we get the brunt of it (Fike,Hoffman 2008) I have experienced a pharmacist going through a divorce and I caught hell everyday until it was over. From being yelled at and called names we had to deal with it.
In conclusion a pharmacy technicians job is never done. We have more responsibilities than the pharmacist sometimes. The pharmacist think we are there to basically cater to them and not the patients, for a lot less than what they make. No we don’t have the education of a pharmacist but I do more of their work for them. I have experienced the good and bad pharmacist being a technician supervisor. I can honestly say if it were not for the patient and the experience with my dying my I don’t think I would be doing this job.

References: Fyke,J and Hoffman M, International Journal Of Pharmaceutical Compounding 2008 American Journal of Health System Pharmacy, 2008