There’s a lot to remember on the PTCE and ExCPT exams. With Kono Health’s curated notes, you can be confident you’re reviewing only what you need to know on test day – without all of the filler.
Skim each unit at your leisure, though it is suggested that they be reviewed in order. Some notes will not be provided on here but can be purchased through Etsy. YouTube review videos are placed between the notes where you’d need them.
Please, take a moment to review the format for the exam you will be taking. You can do so via clicking on either PTCE or ExCPT above.
Pharmacy technicians are responsible for compounding (custom creating), counting out, filling, and billing prescriptions. Pharmacists are there to check off on the work, look for any possible drug interactions (food, disease, or with other drugs), and counsel patients. Since pharmacy technicians do most of the actual prescription processing, they become familiar with dosage amounts for common medications. If these look out of range, or they see a possible interaction, they must report it to the pharmacist right away. They are the pharmacist’s second set of eyes and assist in catching any mistakes before they reach the patient. It takes some background knowledge to be able to spot errors, which is why a technician that went through a training program would NOT have made the mistake seen in Emily’s Law. Precise math skills, proper technique, attention to detail, and memorization ability is necessary in this line of work.
An important thing to note is that pharmacy technicians may not, under their scope of practice (what you are and are not allowed to do given your roles and responsibilities, education level, and credentials), counsel patients. This is only something a pharmacist may do. Counseling is anything from advising patients on how/when to take their medications as well as answering any medication specific questions that they may have. Even if a pharmacy technician knows the answer, they still need to get the pharmacist due to liability issues. The pharmacist is responsible for any mistake(s) made in the pharmacy, thus they need to check off on all work/advice given before it reaches a patient. Working outside of your scope of practice is considered working without a license and is illegal!
Right when a drug is thought to have been discovered, the manufacturer will get it patented (prevents generic versions for a period of time).
This patent will last 20 years, but after FDA trials, the manufacturer will usually only have about 10 years to sell it exclusively (unless an extension is granted, which we will get into later). Yes, FDA trials typically take about 10 years.
After this exclusive period of selling, generic versions can hit the market, and be substituted in place of brand name drugs, as long as the drug is both pharmaceutical and therapeutically equivalent to the brand name drug. We will get more into this in the law notes.
Generic drugs have the same active ingredients, dosage form, and work the same in the body as the brand name drug; however, they are not made by the manufacturer that worked to discover them so they’re cheaper. The are also left lower-cased, while brand name drugs are capitalized.
A common prefix/root/suffix may be contained on a generic med name to indicate the med class. Usually, this would be a common suffix, or ending.
When learning medication names, it’s really important to utilize mnemonics, which are memory tricks. For the certification test, it’s recommended to learn the top 200 medications. This is a lot of names that sound like gibberish. Using mnemonics can help make this process easier.
Let’s now review some common mnemonic techniques so you can see them in practice.
First off, we have the keyword method. This method is great for learning new words (like medication names) through connecting them to another word they sound like. This memory can be made stronger by going further and connecting this to a visual image. In the box below, I’ll provide you with a few of the examples I give my students in our drug warm-ups.
keyword examples:
If we have a word list, such as a grocery list, a suggestion for memorization would be to take the first letter of each word and create your own acronym. The list of bread, milk, cheese, tomatoes now becomes BMCT. This acronym is difficult to memorize on its own, so you may have to add another technique to it. You could chunk this (like ROY-G-BIV with colors); you could reorder the acronym (if the order doesn’t matter); or you could create an acrostic. An acrostic is when a catchy saying is created from an acronym. This is my personal favorite way to memorize. BMCT (our original acronym) now becomes Baboon Mothers Cooking’s Tasty. Now, you will think of a baboon mom cooking tasty food and it may make you think of the tasty food you plan to cook after buying the items on your grocery list!
Another option would be to chunk the words into different/smaller groups (take a whole grocery list and break it up into fruits, vegetables, meats).
You could even make a rhyme or song out of the list. Use whatever method works the best for you and what you need to remember.
Please, click on my Etsy listing to access this information.
To find the top 200 medications listed out, use Denali Rx and ClinCalc.
Please, click on my Etsy listing to access this information.
Please, click on my Etsy listing to access this information.
Please, click on my Etsy listing to access this information.
(1+3+5) +((2+4+6) 2) = verification number _ _ check the second digit against the DEA number
Example:
AP5836727
A=They’re a Dr
P= Dr’s Last name
5+3+7=15
(8+6+2) x 2=32
15+32=47
7 is the last digit in the original DEA number, so it’s valid.
I believe many of us are already familiar with roman numerals 1-10. In order to memorize 50-1000, I came up with the mnemonic “Lucky Cows Drink Milk” to represent 50, 100, 500, and 1000.
Rules: A roman numeral may not be repeated more than three times (see 1-3 then 4 below).
When repeated, the values are added (see 2 and 3 below).
Read from left to right, if in decreasing order add the values. If in increasing order, subtract the smaller from the larger amount (look at examples of 4 IV and 6 VI for this).
For numbers with more than two symbols, subtraction is preferred over adding numbers.
Example: if you come across one roman number that is less than, followed by one that is greater than, you would subtract from the second greater than. For XIX instead of just adding (10+1+10=21) we would actually add to the subtracted amount (10+(10-1)=19). For XCIV we would also break it up via adding subtracted amounts because we’re going from lower to higher and then from lower to higher amounts again. (100-10)+(5-1) = 90+4 = 94
Checking yourself: If you have a number in the hundreds you should have the roman numeral for that hundreds amount, next to that tens amount, next to that ones amount. So, 264 would be 200+60+4 or CC+LX+IV = CCLXIV