My name is David Shedd, CPhT.
I developed an interest in the medical field in high school and decided to pursue a degree medicine. Fresh out of high school, I decided to enter an out of state college full-time majoring in Pre-Med. I realized pretty soon that the coursework was very demanding. I got very discouraged with it all and after a year, I wasn’t sure what I wanted.
I came home. Eventually, after a few months I took a job sorting packages with the Postal Service. The job gave me a lot of time to think about my life and I decided to start taking college courses again. I started by taking an evening class at the local community college. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted, but I knew that I wanted something in the medical field.
After about 1 & ½ years I was taking a medical class at the community college and the student sitting next to me mentioned that her company was hiring. I filled out an application and got an interview. Later I was hired.
This pharmacy serviced the long-term-care market in NH and VT. Basically, they were a “closed-door” pharmacy that provided medications to residents in nursing homes in NH & VT. This was my very first job working in the pharmacy field. The work was like working in a production environment. Each tech had their section of the alphabet of medications. Letters A-E was covered by one tech, F-K was one more, and so on.
The drugs were arranged alphabetically and the medication containers came on trays. Metal rollers were arranged around the room for the trays to roll from one section to the next. We filled all the drugs in our section and then slid the tray on to the next section.