NPTA Award Finalist Discusses Being a Pharmacy Technician

James Barnes, CPhT, never set out to work in a pharmacy. When he took a part-time job to help pay his way through an online bachelor's degree program, the counter wasn't part of the plan.

"I actually didn't really have any inkling towards pharmacy at all at that time," Barnes, a pharmacy technician at Avita Pharmacy, said. "My whole goal was to get a part-time job so I could actually go through college."

The pivot came when a colleague he had met at new-hire orientation mentioned an opening in the pharmacy and thought he might be a fit.

"They said, 'Hey, we have a position open at the pharmacy, and you seem like you would be okay at it. Do you want to give it a shot?' And so I actually said, 'Sure, I'll try it,'" Barnes recalled. "It turns out I just had sort of a knack for it. Like, I gravitated towards it quite easily. So that actually is what started this whole process in pharmacy—just by chance, actually."

Years later, that chance opening has led to national recognition. Barnes is one of the finalists selected for a National Pharmacy Technician Association (NPTA) award, with the winner set to be announced on September 20.

"It's incredibly humbling," he said. "I never imagined that something like this would happen, but it was incredible to actually receive that honor. It definitely gave a more solid view of what I do on a daily basis, and it makes me feel that the work that I have done is actually being recognized—even on this type of scale."

Being evaluated in front of an audience is not new to him. Before pharmacy, Barnes served in the military, where formal review boards were routine.

"When I was in the military, I was actually used to being sort of judged in front of multiple different, not only peers but higher-ranking individuals," he said. "We would have promotion points where we would sit in front of a whole bunch of people, and we would be asked a whole bunch of questions to be judged on our work—how well we do on a daily basis, how good of a soldier we are."

The difference now, he said, is the size of the audience and the chance to make the technician's role visible. "Being judged by everyone in the community on a larger scale as this—it is incredible to have people see what I do," Barnes said. "I want to be able to bring that to light for all these people, especially those in the pharmacy community that don't normally see that work on a daily basis."

Rethinking What It Means to Respect Time

Ask Barnes what defines good technician practice, and the answer is immediate: respect. But his definition of it has changed.

"I used to believe that getting done as quickly as possible is actually respecting the time, because some patients just want to pick up their prescription, go on about their day," he said. "But I then started to realize that it's what you do with that time. It is what makes the patients feel a little bit better—respecting their time by giving them something to actually think about, instead of just being like, 'Hey, here's your prescription, have a good day.'"

In practice, that means conversation. Barnes makes a habit of asking patients how their day is going or what they did over the weekend—and paying attention to the answer.

"Basically, if a patient is coming in and they're having an extremely bad day, you can tell. Don't just try to force them out," he said. "You need to talk with them and encourage them to feel a little bit better, rather than letting them leave with a terrible outlook, a terrible feeling. You want to make them feel like they're welcome."

That kind of work, he argues, too often goes unseen—which is why he believes awards like the NPTA's matter.

"The pharmacy community as a whole, in my opinion, doesn't have a lot of options like this award or doesn't get a lot of recognition and deserves their work to be displayed more often," Barnes said. "It's great what the NPTA is doing with allowing technicians all across the world to be recognized for the work that they are doing. And that is one thing that needs to happen more often."

He also took the time to congratulate his fellow finalists.

"It's a great honor being one of the finalists that were actually chosen for this, and I'm looking forward to the 20th when we get to see the announcement for everybody,” he said.