There are many ways that one can move up in their career as a pharmacy assistant. In this blog, we’re going to explore the ways that this can be achieved.
Don’t Sell Yourself Short
A concrete way to move up from working as a pharmacy assistant would be to go back to school and become accredited as an Regulated Pharmacy Technician (RPHT). With that accreditation, you will be able to open yourself up to for opportunities.
A Registered Pharmacy Technician maintains a license and can work within a specific scope of pharmacy practice. To obtain this license, an individual must graduate from an accredited program and complete three different licensing steps. There is the potential to earn almost twice as much as you would earn as a pharmacy assistant.
Inform yourself about what RPHTs do. The scope of practice of an RPHT includes preparing prescriptions, double-checking prescriptions for distribution to patients, receiving prescriptions, and transferring prescriptions. You may be responsible for weighing, counting, pouring, and mixing medications. RPHTs will sometimes even prepare IV admixtures, TPN solutions, and chemotherapeutic agents with aseptic techniques.
Another thing you can do to move yourself up in the pharmacy sector is to change how you see yourself. You should never consider yourself to be “just” a pharmacy assistant. When you use phrases like that to describe yourself, it puts a negative spin on how you see yourself in the pharmacy work environment. When you think negatively, your thinking might result in a poor quality of work.
Furthermore, you should remind yourself what your goals are. Always make time to re-evaluate yourself, to make sure that you are on the right track based on your goals. It’s easy to get lost in your work as a pharmacy assistant and fall short of your goals. Sometimes we allow ourselves to be comfortable with the tasks assigned to us. We might use our comfort as an excuse to not push ourselves further.
Hard Work Pays
If you are willing to take it one step further, you can go back to school and become a fully licensed Pharmacist. Here is a list of things you need to complete or obtain in order to become a pharmacist in Canada:
- Graduate with a bachelor of science degree in pharmacy from a Canadian university.
- Complete a national board examination through the Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada (PEBC)
- Practical experience through an apprenticeship/internship program
- Fluency in English or French
Once you become a Pharmacist, you have the ability to start earning even more. Becoming licensed would also be a strong foundation for your future. Pharmacists have several different channels through which they can work, not limited to retail pharmacy.
No matter what stage your pharmaceutical career may be at, I will be available to work with you to get your career to the point it should be at by offering you relief, part-time, or full-time opportunities. Contact me to learn about these opportunities, so that you can bolster your pharmacy professional resume.
