Will Pharmacy Tech Cert help?

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So.. I recently got a job as a Pharmacy Tech trainee at CVS (I figured "hey..it's not fast food and it's at least in the health care field") I have 6 weeks of training to do which brings me to my first question;

1) Will I be certified in anything after this training or is it just like training to be a trainee? haha

and lastly

2) If I can somehow get certified in Pharmacy Tech would it look better for Nursing in the future whenever I can list certifications..or will it not really effect the likelihood of me getting a position in the future/look better?

As always.. thanks in advance!

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Specializes in Emergency, Tele, Med Surg, DOU, ICU.

No I don't think so. Nursing schools look at your prereq grades mainly.

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It will be something good to go on your resume. And you will become familiar with drugs you'll need to know for pharmacology.

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The person who can answer your first question is the person who is training you. Typically, while it isn't fast food, it isn't much.

The answer to your second question is "no". It will not affect the likelihood of your getting a position once licensed as an RN or LPN. Employment, steady and worthwhile, is what will be of interest on your resume. Pharm Tech is not a certification of interest on its own.

Becoming familiar with sound-alike medications WILL, however, be helpful to you while in nursing school. It will not get you into school ahead of someone with better grades, though. Once you are in school (are you?) it will most certainly help with increasing familiarity with common medications, no doubt.

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Specializes in L&D, infusion, urology.

It may help you learn meds, which is always good, but I doubt it'll help you much with RN jobs. Maybe a little. But really, they want to see RN experience. It will help you to get familiar with talking to patients, which is a big hump many people have to work to overcome. I have a ton of other medical experience, but I am treated as any other new grad when applying for jobs. That said, those who have seen me in clinicals have seen that I have that advantage over other new grads, and the nurse manager that has seen me a lot has offered me a position once I'm licensed. You still need to network the same way we all do.

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Specializes in ICU.

I worked at CVS as a pharmacy tech and at a private pharmacy that distributed meds to nursing homes. No it won't matter at all. The only thing it will help with is learning what the different meds are and what they do which will help you in pharmacology. I know a bazillion meds I feel like and you will already know the abbreviations for reading orders for meds. Like what PO, QD, QID, and stuff like that means. You will at first just be counting pills and putting them in bottles for the pharmacist to check and when you get a little more experience they may let you type in meds to the system. I know at my pharmacy the more experienced techs guarded that computer like it was their property. I did data entry at the other pharmacy and it was so boring. All I did was type in I PO QD 500 times a day. It just wasn't my cup of tea.

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