An Online Pharmacy is a promising venue for consumer convenience since obtaining medications can be hassle-free and less awkward. Those who live in remote areas or those very busy individuals now have it easier in terms of purchasing drugs.

However, precaution is a must when dealing with an online pharmacy. Especially if it’s your first time to deal with the company, you should be very careful. There are online pharmacies that sell poor quality medications, as well as counterfeit pills. Here are some tips when buying medications online:

1. The online pharmacy should be requiring a valid prescription from a doctor before they could sell the medication. The prescription is a confirmation that a professional has checked the patient and that the drug to be given is the appropriate one to treat the patient.

2. Verify that the online pharmacy is licensed to operate in the state where you are.

3. Double-check the background of the pharmacy first and establish which actual drugstore or drug company the website is connected to.

4. Check the standing of the site with the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP).

5. You should not buy from a site that sells even without proper prescription.

6. Do not buy from a site that sells drugs not approved by the FDA.

7. There should be a registered pharmacist that is affiliated with the pharmacy who can be available for inquiries or questions.

8. If there are too-good-to-be-true offers for quick cure or cure-all medications sound the alarm.

9. Before taking any kind of drugs or medications, make sure you have consulted with your physician first.

It is absolutely safe to buy from online pharmacies as long as they are reputable. Be extra careful when buying online because there are vendors who endanger your health and empty you pockets with outrageous costs of their medicines.

To be sure about which one you should buy from, check with the NABP and the Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites or VIPPS. Your prescription can be forwarded by your doctor to the online pharmacy of your choice via phone, fax, or mail.

At present there are several online pharmacies that are certified by the VIPPS. You can check from these sites and start you price comparison for specific medications. You can also compare these online prices from the prices at the brick-and-mortar drugstores in your area. You should weigh your options well if you want to really make some significant savings.

The legit online pharmacies often provide convenience, privacy, and cheaper medicines. These are the pharmacies that are state-licensed and are listed in the NABP and VIPPS. If you want to take advantage of the benefits that an online pharmacy can give, you should be vigilant and also diligent in making sure you are dealing with the right site.

You don’t want to be scammed by vendors who only prioritize the profits and not the welfare of their buyers. With the market for online buyers relatively getting bigger, for sure, there will be more people who would like to abuse the technology and the trust of people so that they can earn some money.

I experienced an extremely embarrassing moment in public the other day that I hope to never experience again. It was the kind of moment that can crush a person’s confidence and send them rushing for cover mentally. It was one of those moments that makes the classic nightmare of going to school in your underwear look like a pleasant occasion.

I am a grown man and I was always taught that grown men cannot run from their problems, so when I recently discovered that I was having problems living up to my end of the bargain in bed with my wife, I had to accept that I was not the young buck I used to be many years ago. Many men over forty experience this problem and there are many solutions to it. Most of these solutions include some sort of prescription pharmaceutical drug that needs to be purchased at a pharmacy. A trip to the doctor’s office for a prescription of Viagra or Cialis followed by a trip to the pharmacy and you are on your way to feeling twenty-five again when asked to perform sex.

My doctor set me right up with a prescription and I wasted no time going to my local pharmacy to get my Viagra. I walked right up to the counter and handed over my prescription to the pharmacist, who happened to be an attractive young lady. I felt a little embarrassed revealing my sexual problem to her, but I just kept telling myself that she was a professional and would not be judgmental of me. She did her best to act professional, but I could have sworn that I detected a slight smile on her face as she told me “it will be ready in about five minutes”. I smiled back at her nervously and told her “I will wait”, and then I took a seat over on a nearby bench.

As I was waiting for my prescription of Viagra a most interesting thing happened. In walked an ex-girlfriend from college that I almost married. We had a very tumultuous relationship for three years that ended in my senior year when I finally broke up with her. For some reason she did not see it coming, and she was quite torn up emotionally about the whole thing. I guess my immaturity at that time insulated me from the emotional pain that the more mature members of the female gender endure when they experience a breakup in college. To me the breakup was no big deal, but to her it seemed like the end of the world. I guess only one of us was capable of being in love at that time.

I had not seen this woman in over twenty years, and all of a sudden there she was standing right in front of me in my neighborhood pharmacy. After an awkward meeting we began to talk a little bit. She seemed intent on asking me all sorts of questions about how my life was going, as if she had the right to know. I was quite stand-offish, and only offered basic information with a slight amount of embellishment to make me look good. Then came the question she had been waiting over twenty years to ask: “Are you married?” she inquired with an overly curious-looking grin on her face. I did not want to give her any kind of satisfaction of knowing that my marriage had been experiencing a bit of a crisis lately due to my sexual ineptness, so I told her “yes” and followed it up with “and quite happily too”. She sensed that I was not quite sincere with my answer, and that seemed to embolden her. I was clearly rattled, and wanted to get out of that conversation as soon as possible. Right at that moment the pharmacist called out to me and said that my order was ready. I broke away from my conversation with my ex-girlfriend and shuffled over to the counter where the nice young lady was waiting with my order in hand. Much to my dismay, my ex-girlfriend shuffled right up to the counter and stood right next to me as the pharmacist was ringing up my order at the register. She said to me “it was nice to see you”, and then she immediately zeroed in on my prescription bottle to see what kind of drug I was ordering. It was at that moment my whole aura of confidence was shattered. She looked back up at me and said “see ya’ around…” She then grinned from ear to ear and said “…and don’t forget to take those pills a couple hours before sex or they won’t help you at all…so I’ve heard.” A nervous laugh was all I could manage as a reply, and then I just turned and walked out of that pharmacy with my tail between my legs. It was a moment of sweet revenge for my ex-girlfriend, and a moment of extreme humiliation for me.

All of this humiliation could have been avoided if I had just decided to order my Viagra online instead of at a brick and mortar pharmacy store. Ordering online is safe, fast, and convenient. Most online pharmacies offer overnight delivery, and your prescriptions are delivered in plain packages that will not reveal to anyone that there is a product inside that deals with any highly sensitive conditions you may have. All reputable online pharmacies have secure sites that are SSL certified so that any credit card or bank information you enter is kept completely safe from hackers or phishers. They are licensed pharmacists who get the same FDA approved drugs that your neighborhood pharmacy gets. All you have to do is access one of these web sites online, order your prescription drugs with a credit card and the order will usually arrive the very next day at your front door via a courier service like UPS or FEDEX. What could be more safe, fast and convenient than that?

In most cases, buying prescription drugs online is cheaper than buying them at a traditional pharmacy. The online stores have less overhead. They do not have to pay for salaries and benefits of store employees, not to mention an expensive lease for their store. These kinds of savings are passed on to the online customers by the owners the online pharmacies and this makes for very good prices on all prescription drugs.

Whether you order Viagra, Cialis, Propecia, Zoloft, Penicillin or a prescription for hemorrhoids, no-one but you will know if you order your prescriptions at an online pharmacy. Even the FEDEX person who delivers your medications will have no idea of the contents in your packages. And if that FEDEX person just so happens to an old girlfriend who is looking to validate in her mind that it was a good thing you and her broke up, then she will be denied that satisfaction.

Copyright 2006. Michael P. Connelly

In the not so distant past when you walked into a pharmacy needing to get a prescription filled you would have, in most instances, found that your prescription was actually filled by the on duty pharmacists. However, over the past few years a change has occurred in the pharmacist arena and that change is, “a pharmacist probably no longer filling your prescriptions”. Although pharmacists are on duty wherever medications are dispensed; today in most instances, a pharmacy technician or pharmacy assistant are the ones filling prescriptions.

Pharmacy Technicians and assistants have existed for some time but their roles have evolved for a variety of reasons.

A big reason is that they help to reduce health care costs because they get paid much less than a certified pharmacist. Another important reason is that it simply makes sense. Pharmacy technicians and assistants are trained to handle routine work (fill prescriptions and customer service), which frees up the pharmacists to focus more of their time on supervisory duties, as well as patient care.

Melissa Murer, Executive Director of the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board, put it this way, “Pharmacists are becoming more focused on patient care, so pharmacy technicians are needed to perform more of the distributive functions.”

In this brief (but hopefully informative article) I attempt to demonstrate what pharmacy technician and assistants do and where they do it.

In general, they assist licensed pharmacists in providing medication and health care to patients by preparing and filling prescriptions and performing clerical tasks. Duties are similar but pharmacy technicians generally have more responsibilities. In addition, technicians and assistants are required to be closely supervised by a licensened pharmacist, although the laws defining what “being supervised” entails, varies by state.

In addition to having all of their prescriptions checked by a pharmacist, technicians and assistants must also direct all patient questions regarding drug information, health matters or prescriptions to the pharmacist.

Pharmacy Technicians

Technicians follow specific procedures when filling prescriptions. After receiving an initial prescription or refill request, they must verify that the prescription information is accurate and then count, pour, retrieve, weigh, measure and if necessary, mix the required medication for the prescription. The next step is to prepare and affix the labels to the proper container. After filling the prescription the technician will then price and file it. Another important aspect of a technician’s job is to prepare patient insurance forms and establish and maintain patient profiles.

In retail pharmacies, technicians will also stock and take inventory of medications (both prescription and over-the-counter) maintain equipment and help manage the till.

In many hospitals, technicians have the responsibility to read the doctors orders from a patients’ chart, prepare and then deliver the medication after it’s been checked by a pharmacist. They may also enter information about patients’ medical records (regarding their medications) or put together a supply (normally 24 hours) of medicine for patients, including the labeling and packaging of each dose. But just like technicians working in a retail pharmacy, each package is checked by the supervising pharmacist before being given to a patient and they also maintain inventories of medicine and other supplies.

Pharmacy Assistants

Duties are similar to pharmacy technicians and while hospitals and pharmacies employ pharmacy assistants, the number of available positions is generally less than technicians. In retail pharmacies they work as clerks or cashiers, answer phones, handle money and perform clerical duties. In hospitals they also deliver medications and assist in stocking shelves.

Pharmacy technicians and assistants work in clean well-organized areas but are required to spend most of their workday on their feet. And because more and more pharmacies are open 24-hours a day work hours can vary with technicians and assistants are often required to work odds hours (nights, evenings and weekends). Therefore, there are many opportunities to work part-time in 24-hour pharmacies. In addition, a percentage of both technicians and assistants work part time because they are studying to become pharmacists.

States have traditionally required a one-to-one ratio of pharmacist to technician but that is also expected to change. Mark Boesen, Director of Government and Student Affairs for the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, has stated that: “Many of the major employers of technicians are expanding the number of their facilities and boards of pharmacy in some States are allowing the legal ratio of technicians to pharmacists to expand. This is a very promising field to work in.”

An increasing demand for technicians with greater responsibility has prompted some States to revise their one-to-one ratio of pharmacist to technician to two or three technicians per pharmacist.

As pharmacy technicians take on more and more tasks previously performed by pharmacists, they must also learn and master new technology. A good example is the increased use (by many pharmacies) of robotic machines to dispense medicines. Technicians will be required to oversee the machine, stock bins and label containers.

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