Career Tips Guides

Pharmacy Technician- a Career Option

Becoming a pharmacy technician can be a rewarding career choice. This field has good career prospects, monetary benefits and rewards. Pharmacy technicians assist licensed pharmacists in providing health care products and medications to patients. They routinely prepare prescribed medicines for the patients; for example, counting the tablets and fixing labels to bottles. The pharmacy technician refers questions regarding drug information, prescriptions or health matters to the pharmacist.

Certification

A National Pharmacy Technician Certification Examination, conducted by the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board, which is held at various examination centers at a national level, has to be passed in order to become a Certified Pharmacy Technician (CPhT). Candidates are required have a high school diploma/GED, and must not have any record of felony. Once qualified, pharmacy technicians need to be recertified every two years.

The eligibility criteria for recertification is to have completed twenty contact hours of pharmacy related topics, within the two-year certification period. Attending lectures, college course work and on-the-job training are all considered for awarding contact hours. It is mandatory to have a minimum of one contact hour in pharmacy law. Flexibility allows contact hours to be earned from different sources. Up to ten contact hours can be earned by working under the direct supervision of a pharmacist.

Other sources are attending pharmacy colleges, belonging to pharmacy associations, and pharmacy technician training programs. However, presently, there is no federal requirement for formal training and certification of a pharmacy technician, although there may be some states that do have such a requirement. Many employers provide on-the-job training to people and recruit them as pharmacy technicians.

As reliance on pharmacy technicians continues to grow, more states and employers require pharmacy technicians to be formally educated and certified. Many employers offer to reimburse the cost of the examination as an incentive. Formal education programs are offered by the military and some hospitals. Proprietary schools, community colleges and vocational or technical colleges also offer education programs.

Place and Nature of Work

Pharmacy technicians generally work in hospitals, general medical and surgical stores, health and personal care stores, and retail or mail order pharmacies. Their job responsibilities differ accordingly, and are dependent on applicable laws and other regulatory mandates of the state. They receive prescriptions in writing and requests from patients for prescription refills. A doctor’s office may also send a prescription electronically.

The pharmacy technician has to verify the information in the prescription, for completeness and accuracy. The preparation of the prescription requires the pharmacy technician to retrieve, count, pour, measure, weigh and occasionally mix the required medication. They have to select the type of prescription container, and create and fix the labels on it. After it is filled, they price the prescription and file it. The pharmacist then checks this before it is given to the patient. Pharmacy technicians may be required to prepare insurance claim forms, maintain patient profiles, and take an inventory of over-the-counter prescription medications.

They must be aware of the latest medicines and their availability. At times, they also need to advise the patient about diet and health requirements. According to available records for 2004, pharmacy technicians earned median hourly wages of $11.37. The highest figure was $16.61 and the lowest was $7.96.

A career as a pharmacy technician can be pursued even without formal certification in most states, and allows working in clean, organized work areas. It offers a reasonably good salary and benefit package.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution’s Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Information Technology is a discipline that has a major influence on how everyone lives. It entails almost all forms of technological advancements which are often used to create, save, interchange and make use of information in its different forms. This may include business data, still images, motion pictures and multimedia presentations. It has proved to be of immense significance, as its presence seems to be apparent in almost every section of life.

Applications

It is next to impossible to think of a day without computers and communications. Most of the common applications of information technology includes storage of information, data processing, analysis of statistics, word- processing, communications, designing, accounting, management of information systems, financial forecasts and the control over the manufacturing procedure. There is a continuous development mainly in two sectors, namely, computing and communications.

Basic skills

Information Technology is in a revolutionary phase of development. It is a great industry with respect to employment opportunities. Similar to many other fields, IT recruits hardworking, dedicated, talented and forthright people with some training and working experience. In order to be successful in this field you need to possess the following characteristics. They are:

a) Good Communication Skills
b) An inclination towards problem solving
c) Team spirit
d) Creativity
e) Respect for deadlines
f) Analytical and logical reasoning ability

Job Opportunities

Many career options in Information Technology are available. People with high as well as medium skills can also find jobs depending on their areas of interest. Some of the main positions in IT sector are as follows:

a) Systems Analysts And Designers: Systems analysts and designer’s main jobs are to examine and analyze a business problem, design an appropriate system in order to deal with a particular problem, install and check the systems.

b) Software Engineering And Design: It requires a substantial amount of technical experience. Software engineers and designers work on very complicated and advanced forms of software that are used to control high- tech equipment and on usage of programs for business purposes.

c) Computer Programmers: Computer programmers are those professionals who feed data for the computers in a language that can be easily interpreted by the computer. They even design programs from the detailed description provided by the system analysts and carry out the logical steps that can be used to do a job.

d) End-User And Technical Support: People who have the experience both regarding computer systems as well as a specific business sector. It can be of immense significance for people without any technical qualifications in IT.

e) Database Controller/ Manager: A database controller/manager’s job is to ensure that the database is accurate, user-friendly and is in accordance with the latest ideas and technology.

f) Computer Sales: You need to have basic knowledge of computer fundamentals, salesmanship, and around seven years of experience in computing in order to be eligible to become a computer sales person.

g) Information Technology Manager: The main responsibility of an Information technology manager is to ensure the availability of right equipment and properly trained staffs in the organization along with arranging for the requirements within the allocated budget, negotiating with the suppliers and adapting to the latest developments.

Information technology has become one of the largest fields in today’s world and offers good job prospects. You need to have the zeal to stay as well as enable others to stay connected with the world all the time, in order to succeed in this field.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution’s Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Companies are interested in hiring those people who have a natural instinct of what makes a game good or bad, someone who knows how to design good games, a person who is passionate about playing video games. Secondly, while designing, one comes across many problems so they need someone with good problem solving skills. Last but not the least, companies need a person who can do things efficiently in a very short span of time, because of the fast paced competition in this industry.

Training Requirements

Not everyone can become a video game designer. It requires very specific training from a video game designing school. Many degrees are available online.
Colleges and universities offer degree programs and technical training in video games designing. These programs help you to develop various levels in the game from the beginning till the final stages. Technical training includes drawing, characterization, editing, interactive media and game design which strengthens your foundation for video game design.

Working Environment

Working as a video game designer involves working with a team of people from different fields who coordinate different aspects of the game to create a new video game. If you are interested in making a career in this industry you could choose from a wide range of positions. A storyboard or character artist works out the skeleton with sketches and paintings of the different elements of the game. For this you need advanced technical training in graphic design and computer animation, which helps you to put your ideas through.

Animators and character artist produce the characters of the game and give it a real look and feel with the help of 3D programs. Creating a new game is a long process and designing is one of the major stages. The team is made up of a lead designer and other level designers. It is the responsibility of the level designers to create the right environment at different levels of the game for the player. They perceive the design team’s vision of the game and create the necessary impact. They have to make the game exciting and engrossing. As the levels change, environment designers give the game a three dimensional quality. Texture artists give the flesh and skin to the various elements of the game. They see to it that the textures are convincingly fitted to their characters.

Programmers make the video game engine run. C++ is the preferred programming language. This is an essential part of video games. AI is helpful in creating different elements of the game. Interface designers create menus heads up display in the game. Sound and audio experts create the required dramatic sound effects of the game and set the right mood. Professional testers deal with bugs and other related problems.

With the help of specialized training in advanced graphic design and your passion for video games you will be able to bring your video game characters to life and use your conceptual skills to bring out the concept envisioned. This will prove to be a valued asset for creating new video games and give you the required cutting edge to succeed in this competitive industry.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution’s Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.