Pharmacy Tech Requirements

A pharmacy technician is a professional working under the supervision of a licensed pharmacist. The technician gives assistance to pharmacist in preparing medications. He receives requests for medicines to be filled, counts out medicine and labels the bottles in which medication is to be placed. The pharmacy technician is skilled in administrative duties and customer service. There is a general set of requirements individuals must meet in order to work in the pharmacy setting.

Educational and Certification Requirements

• The technician must hold a high school diploma and complete a pharmacy technician program that results in a certification as a pharmacy technician. In many cases the worker will get informal on-job-training to obtain skills as a technician. Through coursework in a certification program the tech will gain required skills such as medical and pharmaceutical terminology, calculations, pharmacy record keeping, and drug names, dose, and uses. Certificated coursework usually results in techs getting an internship in a pharmacy that usually lands a technician position.

Knowledge Requirements

• Technicians in a pharmacy setting here in the United States are required to have an excellent command of the English language. This means accurate spelling of words, following rules of composition and precise grammar. She must have great customer care skills. Being able to make a general assessment with the customer and meeting their needs for service is essential. She ensures the customer is 100 percent satisfied. Having skills in mathematical subject such as arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics and other general mathematics applications gives the tech a head start to calculating and preparing medications.

Skill and Ability Requirements

• The pharmacy technician is required to be an attentive listener, effective speaker and seek ways to improve service. He learns fast and is interactive in the learning process and in turn is able to instruct if the opportunity presents itself. The tech must develop reading comprehension, time management and writing skills.

  She can express herself orally and speaks to others with sense of understanding. Recognizing a problem shows the technician to have the ability to foresee there is something wrong. The ability to reason is a very important requirement for pharmacy technicians because it is an aid to solving problems. Ordering and grouping medications by name, number and letters goes to the well organized tech.