Job Corps pharmacy training program excels
A student in the Columbia Basin Job Corps Center’s pharmacy technician program compounds medication in the lab at Professional Pharmacy in Moses Lake Tuesday morning.
MOSES LAKE — In the lab room at Moses Lake Professional Pharmacy, Shawn Needham smiled fondly at a framed photo of a newborn baby.
Needham recalled a Sunday in 2009 when he and his wife, Janet, were called upon for assistance by a pharmacist at Walgreens. Moses Lake Professional Pharmacy, where the Needhams practice, is a compounding pharmacy, meaning it produces unique medications for patients and their specific needs.
On this particular day seven years ago, Needham said there was a young woman going into preterm labor. The pharmacist informed him that the woman needed a special medication or she may have a miscarriage.
“We came in, we made it up for the gal and we didn’t think anything of it,” Needham said. “Six or seven months later, her mom brings in this picture and says, ‘Hey, I might not have a grandson if it wasn’t for this.’”
Stories like this, Needham said, make going to work every day rewarding, and that is part of what is being passed on to pharmacy technician students from the Columbia Basin Job Corps. The Job Corps and Professional Pharmacy offer a cooperative clinical training program that has graduated more than 400 students to date in Moses Lake, most of whom have gone on to continue working in the industry.
Professional Pharmacy and the Columbia Basin Job Corps Center have been working together for some 16 years, Needham said. In addition to training and education from Job Corps, students complete 160 hours of clinical training at Professional Pharmacy and Walgreens. The value of that training, Needham said, far exceeds putting pills into prescription bottles.
“The students get specialized training here, so they get trained on how to compound medications so they can go and work in many, many different environments,” he said. “It’s not just a retail environment where they just fill prescriptions. They get a wide variety of training and that’s what they get with the network here.”
Tuesday morning, Job Corps Center Director Karl Lester and assistant pharmacy instructor David Bol paid a visit to Professional Pharmacy and Needham. While the group walked through the facility, two Job Corps pharmacy technician students compounded medications in the lab, alongside their supervisor, who happened to be a graduate of the Job Corps program and current employee at the pharmacy.
Bol, who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Sudan, also graduated from the program in 2004, and now he helps teach. He worked with Professional Pharmacy for a time before he began instructing, and in 2010, he testified before Congress regarding the Job Corps pharmacy program and how it changed his life. Bol was recently accepted to pharmacy school.
“It’s been a very, very good blessing to know him,” Needham said. “He’s touched so many lives around us.”
The program has been the subject of national attention. In 2002, just a few years after its inception, it was the recipient of the “Alpha Award” in recognition of being “one of the best Job Corps training programs in the nation,” Needham said. It achieved this status in part by having higher placement rates than many other training programs, he said.
Professional Pharmacy usually takes on between 20 and 30 students each year for training in the Job Corps cooperative program. Needham said just about all of them complete the program and most move on to jobs in the industry.
Needham is “the gatekeeper” of the clinical training side of the program, Lester said, as he signs off at the end of students’ trainings whether they are adequately prepared to move on. Sometimes students have to be retrained, but high standards set students up for success afterward, Lester said.
“The truth is without Shawn and Pro Pharmacy, we wouldn’t have the program we have,” he said.
Pharmacy technician students typically finish the program in eight to 12 months, Needham said. Students who completed the program are eligible to receive a nationally recognized certificate of completion. They are also eligible for the following certifications: National Certified Pharmacy Technician, Certified Phlebotomy Technician, AIDS/HIV and CPR/First Aid, according to Job Corps information.
For more information on the Columbia Basin Job Corps, the pharmacy technician program or other career training programs, visit columbiabasin.jobcorps.gov.