Pharmacy Technician Diploma at Bow valley

Program Description

Prescription for Success. At Bow Valley College’s downtown Calgary campus, students study full-time and complete two months of practicum in hospital† and community pharmacies to obtain a Pharmacy Technician Diploma. 

The program has Full Accreditation Status with the Canadian Council for Accreditation of Pharmacy Programs (CCAPP), preparing graduates for the Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada's national certification exam. Pharmacy technicians are regulated under the Health Professions Act and register with the Alberta College of Pharmacists. 

Registered Pharmacy Technicians have an expanded scope of practice that includes responsibilities such as performing final checks on prescriptions and receiving verbal orders from prescribers. Other tasks include compounding mixtures, dispensing medications, or preparing sterile products such as eye drop compounds or intravenous mixtures. Demand is increasing and pharmacy technicians can earn up to $37/hour. 

With over 350 lab hours in a state-of-the-art facility, this program integrates cutting-edge technology and emphasizes hands-on training to produce competitive dispensary-ready graduates. Students learn to prepare sterile products in authentic certified sterile production hoods and operate a PACMED® high-speed automated medication packager. 

Facilities

The Pharmacy Technician Diploma program has a designated lab and classroom, which offers each student use of an individual laptop. The world-class lab simulates both community and hospital pharmacy practice with individual work areas equipped with computers, phones and dispensing supplies, compounding equipment, certified sterile production hoods, and a high-speed automated medication packager (PACMED®).

Program Recommendations

• A minimum keyboarding speed of 30 wpm is strongly recommended.
• Applicants are expected to have a working knowledge of personal computers including general business applications and navigating the internet.
• Applicants are expected to have basic math skills including, but not limited to: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and conversion of fractions, percentages, decimals, ratios, problem solving, linear equations and other related calculations.
• Proficient manual dexterity is essential.
• Applicants should be detail-oriented with the ability to problem-solve and multi-task.