October is Pharmacists Month | Let’s Celebrate Together!
Every October, we celebrate pharmacists with Pharmacists Month! Today I’m sharing a guest blog post by OSM1 Student, Med Life Motive
Guest Blog: Pharmacy Technician to Medical Student by Tram-Anh Huynh, OSM1
After I graduated from college, I was fairly young with little work experience in the health care field. I knew I would be taking 1-2 gap years while applying to medical school so I chose to train as a pharmacy technician because it was relatively quick training, the job had flexible hours, and it was interrelated with my aspirations to work as a physician in the future. I loved working in the pharmacy and I believe that a lot of people do not know the value and the essential role pharmacists play in a patient’s care.
Working as a pharmacy technician, I learned so much about medications, insurance coverage, and patient care. As part of my training, I know exactly how prescriptions are supposed to be written, common abbreviations, and how to deal with insurance rejections. I believe my experience in the pharmacy has and will continue to shape my outlook on health care.
Now that I’m in medical school, I learn the material with a different perspective compared to other students. As we learn diseases and disorders and their common treatments, I am already familiar with most of the medications, common dosages, their use, and routes of administration. Not only that, working in pharmacy has given me the opportunity to speak with patients at a different stage in the health care process. As a future physician, my active knowledge of the patient’s health stops when the patient leaves the clinic or hospital and I will not know until the patient comes back. The patient’s insurance coverage, compliance, and inquiry are only a few things that pharmacists and technicians deal with that the physician does not directly deal with. I’m so lucky to have that personal understanding of what a patient goes through after they leave the clinic or hospital. This personal understanding contributes significantly to the high level of compassion and care I will uphold for my patients during their visit.
Bio:
Jessica Louie, PharmD, APh, BCCCP is the CEO of Clarify, Simplify, Align and Host of The Burnout Doctor Podcast. Dr. Louie uses her signature Burnout Doctor Method to coach burned out pharmacists & professionals to simplify because work-life balance is a LIE. Align work into your life & break free from people pleasing, perfectionism and thrive in life on YOUR TERMS.