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Pharmacy technicians and their supervising pharmacists fill out as many as 3 billion prescriptions in the U.S. every year, according to the Federal Drug Administration. As hard as they work to avoid mistakes, even the best doctors and pharmacy professionals are human. Mistakes do happen. If you’re thinking about pursuing pharmacy technician certification, you might be wondering how seriously the profession views its role in the push to keep medication errors to a minimum. The answer: very, very seriously. “I cannot think of a priority that would rank higher … patient safety must come first,” Mike Johnston, chairman and CEO of the...
If you’re new to online learning, you’ll quickly find it’s essential to know the ins and outs of using the educational software, in particular, the discussion board feature. If you don’t, you might alienate yourself from fellow classmates, irritate your professor, or worse—miss an important assignment. As I’ve worked on my master’s degree online, I’ve encountered several discussion-board snafus committed by fellow students, and made some goofs myself. To save yourself from facing the same fate, check out the following tips. They’re based on Blackboard, one of the more popular discussion-board programs used in online courses across the country. 1....
From hospitals and insurance companies to clinics and nursing homes, the health care industry as a whole is working feverishly to modernize how they track patients and the care those patients receive. If you’re a tech whiz, there’s an emerging field of study that combines information technology, clinical practice and business management you may want to consider. It’s called health informatics, and it’s all about how technology can improve the way health data are collected, stored, processed and communicated. Right now, health informatics programs are far outnumbered by related programs that have been around longer, such as health information technology or...
President Obama has been making heated calls on Congress to prevent interest rates on federally-subsidized Stafford student loans from doubling this summer. This week, he cooled it down a notch in a “Slow Jam the News” segment on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Obama – or the Barackness Monster, as Fallon called him – kept his tone serious during the five-minute jam. “On July 1 of this year, the interest rate on Stafford student loans – the same loans that many of you use to pay for college – are set to double. That means some hard-working students will be...
Donna Kentley had wanted to be a nurse since she was a girl. In college, her plans changed when she met a physician assistant while working at a teaching hospital in Boston. She became intrigued with the profession and later changed her major from nursing to biology, then started trying to figure out whether PA studies or medical school would be the better fit for her. As she weighed the pros and cons of each, she worried that the work demands she’d face as a doctor might swallow up her personal and family life. “I liked the idea of having...
Jon Lowe’s health care career started out in the Army, when he stitched up wounded soldiers as a paramedic. When he got out of the service, he spent several years working as a licensed practical nurse, then got his physician assistant degree. He spent much of the past 25 years in urgent care centers and emergency rooms, before transitioning to family practice several years ago. Today, he’s part of a primary care team that focuses mostly on geriatric and internal medicine at the Redmond campus of Group Health Cooperative. The Seattle nonprofit, a medical care and insurance coverage provider, has won...
At last … if you’re one of the millions of students who go to college part-time or transfer to a new school, the feds who track graduation rates are going to quit ignoring you. This week, the U.S. Department of Education announced it will soon start adding part-time and transfer students to its tricky graduation-rate calculus. Just how soon remains to be seen. The Chronicle of Higher Education rightly points out that this overhaul is not going to be easy: “Now begins the arduous task of figuring out exactly how to capture those transfer and part-time students in the data-collection...
There’s a reason nursing programs are rigorous. Our health care system would be in serious trouble without the broadly skilled, around-the-clock support that nurses provide daily in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and public health centers. Whether you’re just starting out as a licensed practical nurse (LPN) or rising up the ranks to become a nurse practitioner (NP), you’ll likely have continuing education classes throughout your career, including every time you renew your license. Continuing education 101 Licensing laws vary by state, but many require 20 to 30 contact hours every two years. Here is some basic but important continuing education...
Whether you’re thinking about going back to school, or paying the slightest attention to national news, you’ve surely heard that student loan debt in America has grown to gargantuan proportions. Estimates vary, with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reporting that America’s outstanding debt in private and federal student loans appears to have topped the $1 trillion mark. Sobering news—especially if you’re currently trying to figure out how you’re going to pay for school. Consumer Reports just released some helpful tips about keeping student debt in check, including: Starting out with small repayment amounts that increase every couple of years. Signing...
There’s no reason to fear the quantitative section of the GRE—not when technology’s here to help. No, we’re not talking about sneaking in a graphing calculator. The latest in study strategies is right there in your pocket or purse: your smartphone. Test prep apps are everywhere, and they’re great tools to help you prep for the test. Streamline your app hunt with a targeted search Just doing a quick search on Macworld or iTunes will bring up dozens of results, so where should you start? One tip is to look for apps from the already established test preparation companies. Another...
For students thinking about graduate school, just a mention of the GRE—the Graduate Record Examination—and faces will blanch, knuckles whiten, and stomachs turn at the thought this hurdle in the grad-school application process. There’s no need to panic, though. An unexpected source of relief for text anxiety is right at your fingertips. Study smarter with smartphone apps Forget lugging around those hefty test-prep tomes full of vocabulary words, or stacks of messy index cards. All you need is a smartphone, and you can download everything from electronic flash cards to practice tests. If you have an iPad, there are test...
Public health workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and local and state agencies throughout the country are responsible for detecting and identifying threats to health, whether localized or widespread. Here are just a handful of the biggest medical mysteries that might have gone unsolved if not for the ingenuity and persistence of those in the public health field. 1. Legionnaire’s disease The mystery: After returning from a state convention in Philadelphia in July 1976, American Legionnaires began showing pneumonia-like symptoms and fevers spiking to as high as 107 degrees. Eventually, 221 were sickened and 34 had...
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The All Allied Health Schools blog covers what you need to know about preparing for a career in health care today, whether you’re just starting to think about your new career or you’re ready to enroll in school.
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