A pharmacy technician or the pharmaceutical technician is a professional who works in the drug related areas of medicine under the supervision of a licensed pharmacist or another doctor to dispense medicine and drug doses. He may work as a teacher in college training other professionals to be like him, or he may be employed by third party insurance companies and also drug companies to do sales jobs for them. All these tasks have to be carried out under the careful supervision of a more qualified professional, and in the case of a hospital, any doctor may do so.
Many countries have shortages of qualified pharmacists mainly because the course is very difficult, and few students make it to the end of the course. This is why technicians have grown popular in the recent years as an attempt by the professional bodies to make up for the huge shortage in pharmacists. Consequently, pharm techs have been left with very many responsibilities to carry out in their line of work. The only time that the pharmacist will be around is when he is being consulted or when they need to supervise the work to be done.
In the country, most states have their own regulations on what is required for one to become a qualified pharmacy technician. However, there are two national testing bodies that offer two tests for all pharmacy tech trainees all over the country. These are the PTCE and the ExCpT exams. Once one has passed any of these tests, they can be attached to any public institution or be employed in privately owned drugstores. There are numerous training institutions in the country and the government has a plan to set up an American society of health system pharmacist approved course in a well planned institution by the year 2020.
The South Dakota pharmacy board is a regulatory board that required all pharmacy technicians to register by filling their forms within the first 30 days after they start working for a hospital or a private business as a pharm tech. This body only tracks professionals for disciplinary purposes, and it does not set parameters that qualify one to be a pharmacy technologist or not. Upon graduating from any institution, all people who want to practice in this field of medicine, must register with this board in order for their activities to be tracked down and to ensure disciplinary action for those that do not follow the code.
In order for you to become a pharmacy technician in South Dakota, you will not require to take any form of certification to the board. You will however need to have a license to practice there. There is not one exam that is approved as the best by the board, so passing any of them will qualify you for the post. People on internship will not need to show the registered pharm tech certificates in order to practice in the hospitals as this is still part of training. One may also take advancement courses such as a degree course or a higher diploma in pharmacy.
Some of the institutions that offer pharmacy technology education include the Allied schools, Penn Foster schools, National American University, the Ultimate Medical academy online, South east technical institute, and the west Dakota technical institute. All these institutions will give you adequate training to become a pharm tech in any of the institutions in South Dakota and beyond. Rapid City and Sioux falls have the greatest number of pharmacy technicians in the state mainly because they have the greatest number of health institutions.
Most of these institutions offer only associate degrees, diplomas and certificates in pharmacy technology. This is why you need to apply out of state for the degree programs as they are not available in the state. However, it has been established that this is one of the most popular states for pharmacy technicians.