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should I work at a pharmacy to gain experience?


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Hi everyone,

I am a senior studying biology and have just recently decided to change my career path and pursue PA school. I currently have no patient care or any medical experience at all and am wondering what the best option for me is in terms of where I am now. I am currently a student and am taking 12 credit hours a semester and volunteering as much as I can to build my application. My question is, should I get a job at a pharmacy to build experience so that when I graduate and take a gap year I will have better luck getting into a hospital as a CNA or surgical tech? I'm kind of just looking for a job that will benefit my application/resume in health care but wont kill me with a full time commitment while in school. Does anyone have any stories of what they did basically starting from the bottom to work their way up and still survive school?

Thank you!

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15 hours ago, Madidautel said:

Hi everyone,

I am a senior studying biology and have just recently decided to change my career path and pursue PA school. I currently have no patient care or any medical experience at all and am wondering what the best option for me is in terms of where I am now. I am currently a student and am taking 12 credit hours a semester and volunteering as much as I can to build my application. My question is, should I get a job at a pharmacy to build experience so that when I graduate and take a gap year I will have better luck getting into a hospital as a CNA or surgical tech? I'm kind of just looking for a job that will benefit my application/resume in health care but wont kill me with a full time commitment while in school. Does anyone have any stories of what they did basically starting from the bottom to work their way up and still survive school?

Thank you!

If you are looking for patient care experience, you won't get that working at a pharmacy. You should consider becoming a CNA, MA, EMT, etc. to gain patient care experience. 

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5 hours ago, ally321 said:

If you are looking for patient care experience, you won't get that working at a pharmacy. You should consider becoming a CNA, MA, EMT, etc. to gain patient care experience. 

Not so much looking for patient care experience. More so looking for a doable job that won’t demand a tone from me while I’m full time in classes to build my resume to become more appealing for hire as a CNA/MA when I take a gap year. While I’m working and taking classes I’ll be doing shadowing and volunteering and plan on getting my PCE when I graduate. Obviously if I can have a job that also is PCE then I’d take that over pharm tech but it has to be flexible. I’m unfamiliar with how demanding a CNA/MA job would be. Is it flexible with school? If it is then I’d consider doing that instead of pharmacy tech. 

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1 hour ago, Madidautel said:

Not so much looking for patient care experience. More so looking for a doable job that won’t demand a tone from me while I’m full time in classes to build my resume to become more appealing for hire as a CNA/MA when I take a gap year. While I’m working and taking classes I’ll be doing shadowing and volunteering and plan on getting my PCE when I graduate. Obviously if I can have a job that also is PCE then I’d take that over pharm tech but it has to be flexible. I’m unfamiliar with how demanding a CNA/MA job would be. Is it flexible with school? If it is then I’d consider doing that instead of pharmacy tech. 

Places are constantly hiring for MA's and CNA's, I don't think you would have a hard time getting hired for those positions. I know where I am from, I see A LOT of postings for hire and a good chunk are part-time or per diem. I guess you could just do some research around your area for current hiring positions. 

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I have worked in pharmacy technician since my senior year of high school. The easiest way to become a pharm tech is to start in a retail pharmacy, they'll train you for your state pharmacy technician license. You could stay in retail or transition to hospital pharmacy. I've worked in hospital pharmacy all of my undergrad and gap year. The hospitals I worked with were great with my schedule for every other weekend and I picked up during my breaks. You can get direct patient contact hours by working in different areas of the hospital, I currently interact with patients, PAs, and all healthcare members as a pharmacy technician specialists in the emergency department. 

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