CEimpact Podcast

Pharmacy Technician by Choice

• CEimpact

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Ever imagine what it's like to evolve from a retail pharmacy worker to a celebrated pharmacy technician trainer?

Join Ashlee as she talks with Nicole Foster, the manager of pharmacy technician and client education at CEimpact about her inspiring journey.

During this episode, the two discuss
- Nicole's career and mentors
- The essential shift in the perceptions surrounding pharmacy technicians
- Nicole's predictions about the future of pharmacy technicians

To learn more about our Pharmacist by Design membership, click here. 

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Speaker 1:

Nicole, welcome to Level Up. It is really exciting to have you Lately. The past couple of weeks I have been trying to talk or bring in guests that Let me start over, Bryson. Let me introduce you first and then we'll go into that. Okay, Okay, Nicole, welcome to the show. I am super excited to have you. Welcome to Level Up.

Speaker 2:

I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1:

I know this is exciting. We've been trying to get this on our calendar for a couple of weeks now and, due to our scheduling and mostly mine we have had to rearrange our schedules. But, first and foremost, happy National Technicians Day. As we are recording this, it will be before, but as this goes live, this will come after the day. So I just want to first and foremost say congratulations to you and all your success and thank you for what you do for not only the pharmacist profession, but also for the Pharmacy Technician career path.

Speaker 2:

Thanks.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's nice to have you, so why don't we start by sharing a little bit about yourself? I know that could be a winding answer, but just how you got into the seat that you're currently in now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So what's funny about being a Pharmacy Technician? And ultimately, as I'll, I guess, cover here in a minute and one of the things that I really want to see change is, when you ask people this question, I want it to be like hey, I went to high school and then I found this out and I wanted to do this and this is I wanted to be this from the jump, but for a lot of people right now, that's in the profession. That's not the story. Pharmacy Technician tends to be kind of like a fallback or a second plan or something that happened instead of what you really wanted to do, and myself included.

Speaker 2:

I graduated high school, didn't really know what to do, went to college, didn't really know what I wanted to do. To be honest, come from a family of nurses and aviation people in the Navy, and so I didn't want to fly airplanes and so I thought, yeah, maybe I'll be a nurse. And so I got a job working at just a retail pharmacy and loved it. To be honest, I liked every aspect of it, did it while I was in college and ultimately changed from nursing to pre pharmacy because I wanted to go to pharmacy school. And unfortunately, I you know, life happened. Not everybody has a smooth sailing time and I was in college and I really struggled in organic chemistry and I did pass it, but it was literally so hard literally.

Speaker 2:

So hard. It's the worst.

Speaker 1:

I have PTSD just thinking about it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I just pray that my children never go to organic chemistry so I don't have to relive that. But I had a teacher who was really complicated and new to education and in this type of education and just wasn't very Encouraging. And then I had an advisor who basically told me I'd never make it in pharmacy school and then I should consider dropping out of college and waiting till I was more mature to go back to school Because I didn't think I could handle it and so at 20 that was really hard to hear and so it really kind of just made me think well, you know crap, maybe I don't need to do this, maybe I'm not meant to do this.

Speaker 2:

And so I finished my baccalaureate degree in biology with all of the requirements to go to pharmacy school, but just kind of didn't try, I didn't even apply, and so my confidence was just very low. And so Around that time the retail pharmacy that I worked for Needed someone for their two districts their north and south districts to train pharmacy technicians To take the PTCB certification exam. Okay, and so they thought I was a good trainer and they were like why don't you try to do this? You know you have a college degree. And so I did that for their corporate for about two years and I really liked it.

Speaker 1:

I had no idea you did that. That is so cool.

Speaker 2:

I yeah, it was a lot of fun. I learned a lot. I didn't really have any education experience at that time, so it was like trying to figure out how to Try out by fire, like teach people things, and I had them like once a week for six weeks kind of thing, and so it was really interesting and so that kind of sparked a well, maybe I could teach, like I could get summers off, like that would be really cool. You know this naive approach to public education and so I got my master's in education and I Did my student teaching and I was like I hate this, this is horrible. Well, I teachers get treated horribly. I don't want to do this. And oddly enough, like I'll just be really honest, I made more money at that point at Walbert or at my retail Walgreens. Then I did in the public educate or would have made it with a master's degree in public education, which I think speaks to a whole nother issue. Yeah, but I was like I really literally can't afford to do this at this time and.

Speaker 2:

I don't want to so. I didn't, and so I was kind of stagnant right. I was stuck kind of working in retail pharmacy and I have a master's, my student loans are coming do like I, you know. I Was really kind of like what do I need to do here? And, as luck would have it, a couple of pharmacists friends that I made along the way Got a job at a hospital and they were like you will love this, like you need to do this, so they Put my name out there.

Speaker 2:

I applied, I got an interview, so I started staffing on like an evening shift at a level one trauma center where I live in Nashville and it was amazing and I just learned so much and I thought I kind of walked into it a little cocky, to be really honest. I was like I know so much I have. And then I got there and I was schooled real quick about Inpatient pharmacy and about academia will do that to you, no worries, for sure.

Speaker 2:

And so I was humbled and I just was like I'm like a sponge in a lot of situations.

Speaker 2:

I just soaked up as much as I could and I'm a process person. So I began really looking at Operational things in my area and where it worked and tried to just be helpful and improve things and train people and things like that. And then I'm a management position came open and I applied for it and I was qualified the on paper, I guess and so then I got it and I started doing Compliance and onboarding. So if you came into the pharmacy department in any capacity Pharmacist, technician, support staff at all you onboarded with me first and I did all your regulatory compliance stuff, made sure you had everything, and then I sent you out to where you go and Then I also did wraps, like if people quit, like I did some of the HR, a kind of stuff to help out, helped with that, with recruitment and all kinds of things and during this time I learned so much about how the world of pharmacy works and I had like the back end of things.

Speaker 1:

And.

Speaker 2:

I had a really awesome kind of mentor Shout out to Mark Sullivan. He is the chief pharmacy officer. I know Mark Vanderbilt Medical Center.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, he's amazing and he might not know me, but I know him.

Speaker 2:

Everybody like it's. I literally will have.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I did a site when I was a resident. It was like 10 years ago, longer maybe. I did a site visit because I did residency at the University of Kentucky, so we were just not too far away. Yeah, and I live in Kentucky, lexington, for five years so I did a site visit when we were doing going through all of our I think it was the specialty pharmacy or 340 B stuff, and so I met him, but he probably doesn't remember me.

Speaker 2:

He'd be surprised. He like files things away and like yeah he might not remember your name, but he doesn't really forget faces. Yeah, and so he was. The time was like I think I don't know if he was a director yet If he was like managing all the inpatient operations. I can't remember at that time exactly what he was doing, but he, we were just bleeding technicians like on the right yeah like number.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, just we couldn't keep them and Didn't matter, and it was just crazy. And so we were like strategizing on what we could do and all these things. And I remember he came into my office, just sat down in the corner, my desk is like what are we gonna do? I don't know what to do. And so we would just brainstorm. And through the process of his transfer all this out, he really encouraged me to like join as HP, to be involved in our local state pharmacy organization we call TPA, and so he really said, like to get you prepared to like do things, you need to be plugged in, you need to have education, you need to know people, you need to do all these things. And so he was like you just just do it, like just sign up, start you know getting information, whatever. And then was really supportive whenever I came to him with ideas about like going to mid-year and things like that, which was kind of unheard of at that point for technicians in our operation. Only if you presented or had a poster or something like that Did you go. Um, and so through all of that I was like, well, you know, I used to teach these certification classes and I think maybe we could grow our own, like I think we could just train our own. And so the wheels really started spinning and he really kind of Nurtured that thought process and so fast forward many years later, um, right before covid started, we were like we're gonna do this, we're gonna start a program, and so then covid happened, but we still got it off the ground. So I actually started the pharmacy technician training and education program at Vanderbilt medical center in nashville and got that accredited. Um, all while being a member of the ptcb certification council and ashp's pharmacy technician accreditation commission.

Speaker 2:

Um, it's funny how you go down these roads and Things just start happening and like you start talking to people and you have conversations. And I think the biggest thing for me was I never let it intimidate me when I walked into a room and it was like just full of pharmacists and I always, to a fault, offer my opinion and my thoughts, and so I think just Wiggling my way and faking it till I make it to have a seat at the table at some of these conversations really kind of opened one door to another door and all of these things and so and then just connections of knowing people and so just honestly, my connections with some people with pharmacy technician certification board, ptcb certification Council I heard of an opportunity to come work for CE impact and it was very intriguing and it was something like I'd never heard of before. And so I reached out and kind of threw my name in the hat and, you know, had some conversations and realized it was just an amazing fit for me and so what I do now is I'm the manager of pharmacy technician and client education here at CE impact and I, you know, manage a lot of our joint provider stuff. So when we work with colleges or pharmacies or medical centers or state pharmacy organizations to help them accredit education that they want to offer to staff members, whoever, I do a lot of that kind of stuff and help support them through that process.

Speaker 2:

But the thing that I love probably the most is getting to work with you and other people on our team and develop really good pharmacy technician education. One of the things that hooked me in about coming to CE impact was our tech by design concept and it was really getting off the ground at that time and just being able to say that I work for a company that not only offers really good pharmacy technician CE and pharmacist CE, but from my point of view at that point in time the pharmacy technicians CE, but it's also like we really try to have it made by and designed by pharmacy technicians. It's been my experience in the continuing education realm as a learner needing CE that a lot of the content feels like watered down pharmacist content for lack of a better term and it's kind of like after a certain point it almost feels insulting.

Speaker 1:

Because you're like.

Speaker 2:

Are we not important enough to have our own education and so to be able to be a part of something that's like you are important? You do deserve your own career path. You deserve your own education for sure that is modeled and designed by your peers, and so it was just really cool to me and groundbreaking in thought, and so, yeah, I jumped in and here we are that yeah.

Speaker 1:

What does your day look like on a day to day basis? Don't say nothing. No day is the same, because that's a. That's an easy answer.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, he, sometimes they are like you get to a flow and it the things you're doing during your task time maybe different, but I would say that I am have the really wonderful opportunity to work from home, yeah, which is nice. I thought, you know, I had that happen when I started with you know, working from home during coven, and I thought I would hate it because I'm a people person, but I actually don't mind it because I can. It makes me pour more into my personal relationship, like outside of work and not do rely on those connections, which is really you have to be intentional.

Speaker 2:

But anyway, I work a lot with our joint providers and managing getting their stuff in and peer reviewing content and getting things accredited and making sure everything meets those ACP standards to deliver, you know, good joint provider education. I do that. That's probably like 75% of my day and then the rest of the time I'm, you know, helping coordinate with pharmacy technician projects or special things we're doing with education partners and stuff like that and I really, really enjoy it. And then I also which I left out I am a member of the Tennessee Board of Pharmacy. I'm actually the first technician member that Tennessee Board of Pharmacy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you are inaugural inaugural and so that just started in July and so we actually haven't had an in person meeting since then and so I think we have one in November or some really excited. We've done some like phone meetings and some like email back and forth, and so that'll be a really cool new kind of adventure for me to set out on, I think what is your role on that?

Speaker 1:

What does that look like?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So you hear about, like what does the Board of Pharmacy do?

Speaker 1:

you know, like I don't know like it just sounds cool.

Speaker 2:

And so when I did my orientation with the executive director, she said that our goal is to protect public health and to be an advocate for people in the community. Right, and so she explained it in that I'm not there to advocate for technicians. I'm not there to advocate for pharmacists or pharmacy policy. I'm there to make sure that what we're doing is the board and the things we're supporting and the decisions we're making are in the best interest of the citizens of the state of Tennessee.

Speaker 1:

Wow, and not really yeah, cuz I know it's not like an advocacy role, it is a. It's a neutral position, making sure that your neighbors and your kids are safe.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, there's a nap on my head. Um, so yeah, I really it kind of was like a For lack of a better term like a gut punch a little bit. You're like, oh, this is actually kind of serious, like this is, this is important. Like a lot of the stuff I've done in the past has felt important to me, like things Advocacy and advancing careers and all that stuff felt feels important, but this Literally is like, oh, like this is, this has how many old implication?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure. How many people are on the board?

Speaker 2:

Oh, I should probably know that I don't.

Speaker 1:

What is I mean? What does it entail? So is there like, say, for example, there's 10 people who? What are the? What is the demographics of the people who sit on the border there? Mostly pharmacists, assuming?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean well, so there's like a public member I think yeah, yeah so I think between the public member and myself were the only non Pharmacists, I think okay, I could be wrong.

Speaker 1:

That's how California is. Yeah, I was just curious what what those meetings look like. But we're gonna have to have you back on the podcast and, like I don't know, six months after your November meeting to see what that's like. I know.

Speaker 2:

I'm really excited. I it's funny because they livestream the board of pharmacy meetings so that anybody can watch them, and I've actually, over the past like a year, I've watched several, because there was some really like important topics, legislation and topics that were, you know, being talked about and I wanted to see what was happening. Yeah so that was helpful, I think, in seeing how the flow kind of works and what they do and then just getting some background during my orientation. So, and how long is?

Speaker 1:

your come. How long is your commitment? Seven years?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a long time.

Speaker 1:

I'm like, oh, we're gonna a child. This is.

Speaker 2:

I I literally have seven year olds. I have twins that are seven and I'm like this feels like a long time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so they're gonna be 14 or whatever. They'll be in high school whenever this is over, which is just baffling in my brain to even comprehend. But yeah, I'm really excited Nervous, honestly to. It's a, it's a heavy. It's a heavy thing to be the first I don't think a lot of people Talk about that on certain things, there's a lot of pressure that comes with that. That's like you don't want to screw it up, you don't want to get in that position and people be like this was a mistake. Yeah, we don't need this to happen.

Speaker 1:

Well, we can talk about in posture syndrome on a separate episode, but that's definitely not the case here.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I live that yeah.

Speaker 1:

Speaking of career paths like, what do you think the future of the of the profession or the career path for the tech Technician looks like? Where? Where do you think it's heading?

Speaker 2:

It's funny because I feel like we're at this Weird kind of Breaking point, for lack of a better term.

Speaker 2:

I think for a long time pharmacy technicians have been considered just like ancillary support staff and in a technical capability, just like there to punch the numbers and there to count the pills and scan out the things and stock the machines and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2:

And I think that for a long time it's just been like ah, there's really no clinical knowledge required to do this job. We don't need to pay you X, y, z and we don't need you to have these degrees and we don't need you to have these certifications. And the number of times that I've been told to my face in like you know, national or state level meetings I just need a warm body. I don't, it doesn't have to be blah, blah, blah, I just need a warm body. And I remember like multiple times being like that's offensive first of all, but okay, and then I realized like we have to change that narrative and I think there's so many awesome technicians like here in Tennessee, but at the national level as well, that are just killing it and trailblazing and showing people that we are capable of higher level thinking, we are capable of clinical decisions, we are capable of things that were never considered before, and I think that's really shown through COVID.

Speaker 2:

To be really honest, I think COVID's been horrible and there's been a lot of horrible things that have happened because of it, but I think there's been some really key paradigm shifts that have happened because of COVID and I think one of those is the role of the pharmacy technician has evolved drastically since then. I remember January of 2020, at our state pharmacy association meeting trying to like decide what we were going to advocate for for legislation for the year, and we brought up technicians being able to give immunizations, and I remember being shut down so hard, like where does it end? I remember that was like a phrase that kept getting tossed around when does it end If we give all of our duties to pharmacy technicians? What are the pharmacists going to do? And so I was just like OK, and then two months later, the world shut down and then we had to let technicians give immunizations and they stepped up.

Speaker 1:

The technicians have stepped up so hard. They were forced to enter that position because of the need. Yeah, that tends to happen. I was on our last podcast with Liza and Zach from PTCB. That's what he said. I venture to say a big statement, but I think majority of COVID vaccines were either delivered by pharmacists or pharmacy technicians. I was taken back by that statement.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's funny because, as we're talking about the world evolving, pharmacy technicians are not the only ones that have evolved.

Speaker 2:

Especially since COVID, I think the world at large, especially in the United States, really has seen the value that a good pharmacist and a good pharmacy and pharmacy technician as a whole, as a team, can, what they can provide to their community, what value we have in the health care setting, and I think that's really cool.

Speaker 2:

I don't think that happens very often that the world recognizes what you do and how important it is. And to that vein, I think for a long time there's been a stigma because the pharmacy technician role has been so technical that we are unpolished and uneducated and sometimes rough around the edges. So to be able to have seats at tables, to prove that narrative wrong. I think the more people that step into those roles and the more advanced roles that are out there, people are proving that wrong. But I really see now that we've got more people than not in those positions that are making decisions, that are running whole sides of corporations, that are either pharmacy technicians by training or eventually became pharmacy technicians, that are making large decisions for the better of clinical practice or a decision of a company or a healthcare system. I think as we see more technicians step into those roles, I think we'll really kind of see this breaking point occur with the profession, where they realize again their hand is forced.

Speaker 1:

Right, right. What do you think my pharmacist colleagues or our pharmacy partners can do to elevate the role of the technician? I'm sensing, first and foremost, a sense of empowerment or collegiality. That's kind of what I'm hearing, but what do you think?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean that's pretty spot on. I mean it's easy to say like advocate to pay your technicians more and advocate to provide education.

Speaker 2:

I mean, yeah, who doesn't want to make more money?

Speaker 2:

Come on, let's be honest, everybody wants to make more money, but that's not always the fix right.

Speaker 2:

Providing a pizza party is not always the fix for a bad day.

Speaker 2:

Providing a raise is not always the fix for crappy job conditions. So I think, as a whole, pharmacists that are in position of power, as like CEOs and chief pharmacy officers and managers, even just frontline staff management at organizations like providing a non-toxic work environment, is key. No matter how much money you make, if it's toxic you're not going to stay, and so pharmacy technicians don't have the opportunity to develop and learn and grow in a toxic environment. So that to me, is just like everyone working on their soft skills and trying to do better. And then, just like you said, the collegiality of like considering them a partner in that venture that they're on, like not considering them as your support staff but really consider them as your partner, as your clinical partner or whatever however you want to phrase it, giving them the respect and education opportunities that they deserve and pouring into them being a mentor, I think, never counting someone out just because they're a technician, trying to see potential in people and nurture that and foster that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that. Well, I think you're doing amazing work and you're stepping into a new role that comes with being a inaugural again. So thanks for the work that you do here at CE Impact. We definitely see your impact on CE Impact. I think having the lens of the technician amongst a team of pharmacists is a challenge to begin with, and I think you're doing a great job navigating that.

Speaker 1:

And then also, I have to give you a shout out, because we collaborated on the personal branding CE for both pharmacists by design as well as technician by design, and so Nicole and I worked together on that, or I kind of dragged her along with it. I was like, nicole, you're going to do this with me. You're like, okay, I'm going to do it. So I would encourage everyone to go back to, or to enroll in, the by design membership and take the personal branding course.

Speaker 1:

I mean, obviously this is a bit of a humble brag, right, it's me and Nicole who created the content ourselves and Jen interviewed me for the topic and the concept of personal branding. But I think it's really important that especially the technicians, or the employers who employ technicians, who are listening, take steps to empower the technician and give them the tools not just the soft skills per se, but really tools on how to navigate their career and the roadmap on how to stand out and how to thrive in their career, and that's what we dove into specifically in the CE that we created together. So, nicole, thanks for being along this journey with me. Really appreciate you it. I know it was a challenge and maybe a new concept for some of the in some of the content, but you did a great job and I really appreciate your time and energy and efforts and it was fun having you here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was great. I really I think it's great information. I mean, obviously, like you said, humblebrag, we created the content, but I learned a lot just reading over your content and stuff that you put into it and realize how important perception is in those things and I think it's really, it's really cool for anybody to listen to. To be really honest, but specifically if you're trying to grow that healthcare journey or that pharmacy technician journey or pharmacist journey, I think it'll be really helpful to help, you know, put you down the right path and help what people think about you.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, I agree with you. Good, all right, I appreciate you. Yeah, thanks, thanks for joining. Have a good one, happy Technician Pharmacy Day and happy technician pharmacist, pharmacy month, all of the things we're encapsulating into this umbrella.