Pharmacy Assistant

During the day at work, you start to feel that something isn’t quite right. You feel a slight headache coming on as well as a somewhat sore throat. Before you go home, you decide to stop by your doctor’s office to get checked out and then on to your pharmacy to buy the prescribed medicine. This scenario is a common fixture of our busy lives. However, a key point to remember is that a treatment recommended by a doctor will not be effective if the medications are not given to the patient correctly, along with clear instructions and useful advice from the pharmacist. Pharmacy assistants (or pharmacy technicians) play an active role in the dispensing of drugs. In this course, you will learn how pharmacy initiatives contribute to improving healthcare in communities, and you will understand how to use pharmaceutical resources efficiently.

Working in the pharmacy field can be a challenging profession but it can also be a very rewarding career choice. Did you know that the roots of pharmacy or the treatment of disease can be traced back nearly 4 000 years? In this course, you begin by studying the brief history and importance of pharmacy throughout history, as well as its current impact today. Pharmaceutical care involves exercising extreme vigilance while dispensing any type of medication. This makes it vital for each team member to be well aware of specific medications, dosages, and allergies a patient might require or have. You will take a closer look at the different responsibilities these workers have that usually depend on their work area. This course will also teach you sets of rules, regulations and principles of code that must be followed as a pharmacy worker, which have been designed to help you to make the right decisions.

Perhaps the next most critical and important skill set required for a successful career in the pharmacy sector is communication. It is very important to develop valued and mutually respectful relations between a pharmacy assistant and a patient. You will take a deep dive into analysing positive and negative examples of typical conversations at the counter. Then you will consider desirable communication traits and a guide on how to give effective patient counselling. Finally, you will study a list of standard prescription abbreviations and proper dispensation practices. Understanding these details is fundamental to a patient’s health and failure to convey the correct instructions or dosage can result in severe negative results. Anyone with an interest in learning about becoming a pharmacy assistant will gain a lot from this course. Enrolling will help first-time assistants, pharmacy students and anyone thinking about entering the pharmaceutical field. It provides techniques and strategies behind developing effective communication skills, practising good dispensing practices and giving efficient patient counselling.