About

I actually got  into pharmacy by accident while in college.  Now I’ve been a certified pharmacy technician for 10 years. While going to college for photojournalism I took a part time job at Walgreen’s working in the photo department to earn some spending money on the weekends and around campus. I guess I was pretty good at it, or more responsible than other employees, I’m not sure. Before too long the store manager approached me about a pharmacy technician position that had come open and asked me if I was interested. As I was quickly growing bored with working in the photo department I took him up on this offer.

At first I was extremely confused and lost. It took me a good week to get a grasp for things, and several months to actually pick up on how a pharmacy works, all the different elements that come at you fast, but in due time it’s like a second language you quickly adapt to.

Walgreen’s put me through their pharmacy technician training program, which at the time meant working for them full time for a certain amount of time to be approved as an official pharmacy technician in training. During this time I took a class taught by a Walgreen’s pharmacist once a week at their district office while continuing working under formal on the job training and preparing for the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board exam. Walgreen’s paid for the examination fee, which I believe is $129.00 now, but at the time was a little less, and helped me get my state license to work as a pharmacy technician.

Here ten years later I’ve worked in a few different areas of pharmacy, from retail pharmacy to hospital pharmacy, from hospital pharmacy specializing in acute care and pediatrics to hospital that treats only certain conditions. There are many areas for a pharmacy technician to pursue and I will discuss them and more with everything you need to know about how to become a pharmacy technician.