SPOTLIGHT ON ALLIED HEALTH
PHARMACY TECH OUTING
Cleveland Job Corps Pharmacy Tech Instructor, Sophia Dawn White, CPhT decided to supplement her lesson plans by taking students on a two-day tour on April 14 & 15 to Central Rx Pharmacy, St. Vincent Charity Inpatient Pharmacy and Rite Aid Pharmacy. Over the course of two days, the students received professional in-sight and direct experience that a classroom cannot alone provide.
At Central Rx, which is a combination store, Outpatient, Mail Order and Com-pounding Pharmacies, students observed the compounding room where pain and scar creams are measured from powder forms and are packaged for shipping. The pharmacist expounded on the counting machine that places medication in “strip packages” to prevent missing dosages. (The pharmacist gave students “mock” packages filled with plain chocolate M & M’s!)
At St. Vincent Charity, the Lead Technician Supervisor, Curtis Banks, CPhT, escorted students through the Inpatient Pharmacy, IV lab and the Center for Disease Control (from Atlanta), “Terrorist First Response” hospital and medications storage area (the best part of the tour). “The St. Vincent Charity tour was a mind blowing experience! To be able to see first-hand what pharmacy technicians do from compounding to record keep-ing, gave me clarity and under-standing,” stated Rico Jackson, Jr., Pharmacy Students