1: Work on your own. Most retail pharmacies in this country are controlled by one pharmacist who must be confident of his ability to make correctly the many decisions involved in pharmaceutical practice. The best way to build up this confidence is firmly to avoid the temptation to learn on your fellow students for help. This does not mean that discussions with other students on problems met in practice work are not valuable but it is wiser to hold them in common room. If advice is needed it should be obtained from a member of staff that thereby gets to know the difficulties of individuals and is provided with useful feedback on his teaching techniques.
2: Wear a freshly laundered overall coat. This is not primarily to protect your cloths. A well-starched or preferably, nylon coat reduces contamination of dispensed products with fibers and other particles. For this reason coat is preferable to jacket. Bear in mind that strength of profession depends upon the image it create in eyes of public and do not underestimate the importance in this connection of what may seem to be trivial matters, such as wearing a spotless overall.
3: Provide yourself with a clean glass–cloth, a duster and either a swab or sponge. The glass cloth is for polishing container before the issue to patient. It will be unsuitable for this purpose if, for example, it is for wiping the bench; this is function of the duster. Since the latter may be needed for cleansing the surfaces of the balance it must be kept dry and a swab or sponge used to mop up wet spillage.
4: Work in a clean and tidy manner. In particular, to reduce risk of errors and contamination, do not accumulate stock bottles and used equipment in the working area. Speed is sometimes cultivated at the expense of tidiness and cleanliness; it is often only a small step further to the point at which accuracy also suffers.
5: Read the prescription and make sure that it is understandable that is legally correct.
6: If necessary, find the formula of the prescription in an appropriate source of information. Copy it into your practical book.
7: Check the doses of internal preparations.
8: Find, from an appropriate source, if any ingredient is a position. If so, a member of staff should be asked to check the weight or volumes dispensed and to initial the amount in your book.
9: Confirm that there are no pharmaceutical or therapeutic incompatibilities, between the different preparations on the prescription.
10: if you’re unsure of the correct method of preparation refer to your practice notebook, which should be well indexed, or the appropriate part of this text book.
11: look up the storage condition for the preparation (if the preparation is an especial formulation not forum an official book).this information will determine the choice of the container and labels.
12: work out the calculations.
13: check the calculation.
14: collect the correct container and closure.
15: if necessary, trim the labei(s) to fit the container but don’t remove the name of the supplier.
16: write the main label and collect the main labels that are required.
17: make the preparation, pack it in the container and polish the latter.
18: check the label and fix them to the container.
19: check the finish preparations.
20: wrap the container and write the patients name and address on the wrapper.
21: make the appropriate records.
