Abstract
Objective:
To investigate whether the adapted model of professional expertise for pharmacy fits the opinions of pharmacists about pharmacy technicians, explore the qualities of professional expertise that pharmacists feel pharmacy technicians have, and generate ideas to encourage pharmacy technician professional expertise.
Methods:
An adapted model of professional expertise was used in this investigation of pharmacy technicians and included 4 constructs: Knowledge, Patient Assessment and Education, Reasoning and Judgment, and Virtues. Four one-on-one interviews and one focus group with 10 pharmacists were conducted. Content analysis was conducted of verbatim transcriptions of the interviews using a tree of codes that incorporated the concepts of the adapted model.
Results:
The model fit 179 (65%) of the 276 text units and included 43 concepts. The pharmacists employed narrations, stories, lists, and simple responses in the comments that the model fit.
Conclusions:
The adapted model of professional expertise for pharmacy aligned with the pharmacists' comments on pharmacy technicians. Pharmacists reported that pharmacy technicians possess many qualities of professional expertise. These qualities were used to make recommendations for encouraging pharmacy technician professional expertise.
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