Supportive personnel training program based at a technical college

A supportive personnel training program based at a technical college is described. During the nine-month curriculum, the students spend time in the classroom and in a laboratory on the college campus. Part of the program is taught by the college faculty, providing the students with courses on basic chemistry, anatomy and physiology, medical vocabulary, typing, and math fundamentals. The other part of the curriculum is taught by pharmacists, including courses on hospital pharmacy, pharmacology, and pharmacy mathematics. The students' first experiences with unit-dose and i.v.-admixture programs are in an artificial laboratory under controlled conditions. Later in the program, the students rotate through each of the participating hospitals for thorough on-the-job training. By combining the resources of a local technical college and the area hospitals, a uniform program of training supportive personnel has been implemented that produces enough technical support for all the participating hospital pharmacies.