Cherish your pharm techs!

One of the many weird courses I was required to teach at The Institute in 2013 was Human Physiology for the Diploma in Pharmacy Technician Studies. Such a course is perfectly fine, maybe even appropriate for that group of students (the directly relevant material was already covered in Drug Actions and Uses); the weird bit was Me teaching it. My only qualification being, at the time, that I had a body. You may have a view on whether my lack of uterus  was an additional impediment given that 95% of the students were women.

Well today, 17th Oct 2023, is World? Pharmacy Technician Day and tomorrow I'm invited to be The Voice for a table quiz in honour of the day. I had a very expensive education which has been primarily useful in winning prizes: boxes of chocolates and wine-bottles, at pub quizzes. But I've never been the MC before. It must be my penetrating voice. Worrever. I've established that a) I don't have to makee uppy the questions b) someone else will score and sum the answers at the end of each round. It remains to be seen whether I'll get to slip into a frock with a blue conservative party rosette and give out the prizes . . . I'm willing.

We were at another event all Sunday last and on the drive home The Beloved and I were comparing and confirming diaries for the week ahead. She had the brilliant idea that, as it was Pharmacy Technician Day, she would drop some flowers and/or a box of chocs into the pharmacy which has been serving her parents for the last 30+ years. She reflected that, now her aged and everlasting father, the redoubtable Pat the Salt, is effectively house-bound, the PTs never see him. But they definitely ask after his welfare every time someone goes to collect the next hamper of meds which have been prescribed for him. That's rather sweet. I've known, and taught, and graded a lot of Pharm Techs over the last ten years. 

• Some were sharp as tacks
• some never worked out where was their pancreas, 
• let alone what it does
• some spoke fluent Polish
• about half were mature students

But they were all essential cogs in the machine of medical care in Ireland. At class and about the institute was / is about the only time I encounter Pharm Techs - except when I bought a handful of hot-water bottles in the run up to each family Christmas. But then, I have been exceptionally med free these last 50 years. IF you have been down the pharmacy collecting meds with any frequency  THEN take this advice:

drop some flowers and/or a box of chocs into the pharmacy today

because PTs are the salt of the earth and ludicrously under-paid in the topsy-turvy world we all currently inhabit.