Customer Reviews

The Pharmacy Technician: A Comprehensive Approach

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I purchased several pharmacy technician books earlier this year in order to pass the PTCB Exam through self study. This book by Moini, and its companion book, were the first sources I turned to for information. The subtitle says "A Comprehensive Approach", and the book certainly is that. That's the problem - it contains much more than you need to know to pass the Exam. Another problem is that a good editor or cowriter is sorely needed, for there are way too many errors in the answer keys for a person trying to learn the trade to deal with. These errors were so troublesome that I had absolutely no confidence in any of the answers, so I was forced to look them up in the chapter and record them in my own key. I had to do this for every chapter. This series is too expensive to put up with such a gross display of sloppy workmanship. It's odd, too, because the text itself is well-written and thoroughly edited. Now that I've passed the Exam, I'm using the book to help review for job interviews, and its completeness is good for that. It has a lot of good information on hospital pharmacy, laminar flow hoods, and drug classifications. If they could fix the answer key problem, I'd up this rating to 4 stars. As far as acquiring a book as a tool to pass the PTCB Exam, you're better off going with Moini's companion book, plus getting at least 3 other books from different authors.

While it's true that this book covers quite a bit of material, has nice pictures and is reasonably well organized, the publishers should immediately fire whoever it was that claims to have proofread this mess! And this textbook is indeed a mess.
Just for starters - the math portions of the book are laughably wrong (e.g., "500/200 = 2"), the answers at the back don't address all the questions they are supposed to, some of the answers make no sense, and the misspelling of the drugs (for instance, "Demero" for "Demerol")is just plain irresponsible. Just as a previous reviewer said, it doesn't take much to lose complete confidence in both the text and the problem sets, so you can't use it reliably either in a classroom or as a self-study guide.
Because of this, there is no good reason to spend money on this particular book. Ship it back to the publisher and author, and tell them to get their respective acts together!

I taught a certification review class at a local community college using this text and its companion exam review guide. The material is flawed, the two books often give differing information, and there is more information than is needed for an examination review. In my opinion, the texts were not proofread well. There are numerous misspellings, drugs placed in the wrong classes, and the answer keys to the review questions had mistakes in nearly every chapter. The review questions and accompanying CD-Rom are way too advanced and inapplicable to the national exam. The book was also very lean on the review of pharmaceutical calculations. Pharmacy math is a huge portion of the exam and I feel this book should have had more than three brief chapters. Upon first glance, this looks like a thorough textbook, but once you get into it, it is difficult to follow and inaccurate. It's difficult to teach a course (and probably take a course), when the instructor has to edit and revise the text as s/he goes along. I do not recommend this text at all, unless you enjoy researching every point the author makes, to determine what information is true, and what is false.

How many mls in a teaspoon? 4mls if you ask Jahangir Moini. I also suppose the female and male signs got switched when we wern't looking. Oh let me count the mistakes. I guess the proofreaders were on vacation that day. Don't use this book. Get the APhA Basic Pharmacy & Pharmacology Series instead. ISBN 0-89582-736-0 by morton publishing.

I had the unfortunate experience to use this book as part of a structured course through a local community college. I am used to errors in college level textbooks, but this particular book is unusually bad. You will find the worst of the errors in Chapter 18, "Calculation of Dosages", in examples on page 215 and page 219. This is a critical chapter in the book and the examples that you are supposed to be learning from aren't correct. Each of the chapter review questions had incorrect answers listed in the back of the book, to the point where we didn't even bother using the answer guide in the back anymore. The kicker - we were supposed to memorize this list of brand/generics in Chapter 4, and there is a drug in there called Hismanal, which was withdrawn from the market in 1999. If the book was published in 2005, why was this drug even in there?
My impression of this book was that it was slapped together by a bunch of people who pulled old books together and tried to make it look nice. The copy editor who went through this book knew nothing of the field, and it shows. In the longer drug chapters, you can actually see where one writer stops and another writer starts. An example of this could be found in Chapter 20, antimicrobial agents, where the outline structure changes between "antifungal agents" and "antiprotozoal drugs" on page 265. It looked like to me that the writer either got tired and schlepped everything on the end, or they used another writer.
I could go on and on with specific examples. The most unanimous comment from my class was that this book was full of way too many errors. If you find this book in your Pharmacy Tech classroom, your experience will be a little bumpy.

I thought this book is very good with details and thoroughly written. It has everything you need to know for pharmacy work. I enjoyed it very much. It is especially interesting with its color and photos.

In my experience this was a great book that I was sad to have lost. It is a great book to quickly familiarize oneself with pharmacy practice. As far as using it to pass the PTCB?...If you work in a pharmacy for any significant length of time, you can pass the PTCB.(Note: Passing the PTCB doen't mean you're a good technician) This book offers a great intro to the background information that will help you quickly adapt and excel at your job.
I bought this book when I first started working in a retail pharmacy. I used this book as a self-study, learning to read prescriptions and basic pharmacy practice expectations.
It covers quite a bit of information, not all of which is entirely useful depending on your desired pharmacy practice setting.
Still, I would recommend this book if you're looking to quickly familiarize yourself with the basic concepts of pharmacy practice. It's overview of different physiological systems is basic and suits the purpose of introducing drug classes.
If it is of any import, I am now in a Doctor of Pharmacy program, I've been in several pharmacy practice settings and I can say that if an individual actively utilized this book they would have more than enough background knowledge to (on-the-job training aside) be pharmacy literate.
I too noticed math errors in the book. However, it does provide a good idea of what types of math one needs to utilize as a pharmacy technician. With regard to the PTCB test's math section?...I'd skip books altogether on that and get comfortable with dimensional analysis (setting up the math problem so when you multiply you cancel out all units except what you're looking for). The rest of the PTCB can be passed quite easily with knowledge accrued from this book and work experience.
In sum, I'd say, this book is a great intro to learning ABOUT your job. I couldn't recommend a book for "passing the PTCB", because as you may have gleened already, I think all you need to do that is learn FROM your job.

I have purchased a few books for pharmacy tech and find this to be the most successful. The author states facts clearly. It is easy to understand and is full of useful information. I strongly recommend it to all in the pharmacy field. It helped me understand it all and the tests were a great review. It is definetly worth your time and money. It really is an excellent choice! Thanks to the author.

This was an extremely helpful text. It provided insight into all aspects of pharmacy. I found this book to be a great comprehensive approach to the world of pharmacy. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this career path.

I have had the pleasure of being a student of Dr. Moini's. He is very interesting and informative on the pharmacy tech program. His book is laid out so that you can follow and understand each subject. I recommend this book for anyone wanting to be a pharmacy tech.