Hospital Placement - Pharmacy Technician

Questions I had before starting placement...

Will I be able to do tasks assigned to me efficiently?

Will my preceptor be strict? Coz if yes, Im intensely nervous

Will I be able to establish good relationship with my colleagues?

Do get to have fun as well?

And sooo on

Before anything else, I’d like to let you know that this particular Hospital Placement is a one of a kind, not only because I got to do it in one of the prestigious hospitals in Toronto, but its because I got delayed for 5 Months before I can get to have my final placement.

I was actually scheduled to do it at Toronto General Hospital but due to Covid-19 it got pushed back and my Placement Coordinator had to contact couple of hospitals that can accept me... Luckily Toronto Rehabilitation Institute agreed to have me for a month...

NOW

I actually want to share how the workflow is in a hospital pharmacy setting.

Weekly the pharmacy is tasked with the following

• filling med carts of each nursing unit

• Filling IV bag medications

• Doing perpetual inventory of narcotic medications every time they dispense narcotic meds

• Replenishing the pyxis which functions as a med cabinet or night cupboard

• Doing daily rounds to oick up med orders and also checking fridge temperatures

• Doing stock inventory of all medications available in the pharmacy

• Doing ordering and receiving of medications

And so on...

There’s quite a lot of duties and responsibilities that has to be done in the pharmacy, and Im very satisfied to be able to do most of these when I was doing my placement.

I’d like to encourage my fellow Pharmacy Tech students to not get nervous during placement; instead feel excited because you’ll gain a lot of learnings through this amazing experience.