Hi
I came across your blog as I was searching information on an Epic application analyst position. A recruiter contacted me for the said position for the hospital’s pharmacy department and I really have no idea what it is all about. I actually am a registered pharmacist, but a foreign grad with a bachelors degree. I only have experience as a tech and as an intern, but not really as a pharmacist (and still actively looking for an RPh job).
From what I have researched, you don’t really need to be a pharmacist to actually become one. I am just quite iffy if I should pursue it because recruiters have contacted me mostly for tech positions, and this position which I’m being recruited for might not actually be a pharmacist job. And the reason why I became interested about this position is because whenever I look up for hospital pharmacist positions, I would usually see epic certification as a requirement.
So my question is, would you be able to differentiate each analyst job? And if the aforementioned position is not a pharmacist job, will there be an opportunity to move up as an IT pharmacist based on my background?
I know my questions are dumb and confusing, but I hope you could help me out. I will also clarify any confusions with my recruiter before the onsite interview.
Thank you so much for the time.
Hi Crimson,
First off, there are no dumb questions. One of my main reasons for starting this site was to answer all these unanswered questions and to provide these answers from firsthand experience and an unbiased source.
Yes, you can work as an Epic Willow Analyst without being a pharmacist but what you can and will be allowed to do will be limited because non-pharmacists are typically not allowed to perform any tasks that require clinical judgment and when you are working on building out a drug dictionary based on evidence-based clinical guidelines, a pharmacy technician will not typically have the appropriate clinical training to work on such a project.
This is just one example of where not being a licensed pharmacist will be a limitation to what you can do as an Epic Willow Analyst.
Also, if you get the position but are not licensed as a pharmacist, even though you have a pharmacy degree, you will not be paid as a pharmacist (which is significantly more than a pharmacy technician) and without a license, even with Epic certification, you will not be able to get any job as an actual pharmacist.
Getting your pharmacist license is highly essential if you want any job that requires a pharmacist. Unfortunately, a degree alone, whether foreign or domestic, is not sufficient.
Here’s my take, and this is just my own humble opinion… If you have to prioritize what to do and when, I would suggest that you first focus on getting your license as a pharmacist then focus next on getting Epic certified. If you do it in that order, so many more doors and opportunities will be open to you.
Also, please note that getting Epic certification is not a requirement for getting a regular pharmacist job in a hospital pharmacy. They might ask that you have experience using the Epic software, perhaps at a previous job, but certainly not that you be Epic certified to work as a regular staff or clinical pharmacist.
I hope this has been helpful to you… I wish you the best of luck with everything!