Business offers pharmacy technician training
Published 8:45 am Wednesday, December 12, 2012
BY STEPHEN H. COWLES/CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Playback58@gmail.com
SUFFOLK—Monchelle Whitfield will have two reasons to celebrate her 23rd birthday on Dec. 15. That’s also when the Boykins resident will graduate from pharmacy technician training.
Whitfield and friends Tina Wilkerson and Tonisha Dawson, both also of Boykins, will complete the program offered by Medical Training of Virginia LLC. Dr. Lakeisha Goode operates the program through her relatively new business in Suffolk.
Goode got into the field after receiving a full scholarship to Virginia Union University and earning her doctorate from Hampton University in 2002.
“I’ve always loved to teach,” said Goode, who opened her business after funding for the same program at the former STOP Organization was cut.
Whitfield, Wilkerson and Dawson have a strong interest in health care and want to become pharmacists. After finishing the program, they hope to find work.
“I’ll take whatever comes up,” said Wilkerson, 34.
Traveling or moving is not out of the question.
“There’s no jobs around here,” said Dawson, 25.
The women’s first steps to becoming pharmacy technicians began when they each saw an advertisement in The Tidewater News for the course.
“I saw it and jumped on it, and I called Dr. Goode,” said Wilkerson, a mother of two, who works as a site attendant at the Southampton Transfer Station.
“I decided I wanted to try something new,” added Dawson, a former personal care assistant who works at Burger King and has one child.
Whitfield also had been a personal care assistant and wanted to do more in the medical field.
While taking the classes, which lasted from Sept. 10 to Dec. 10, they were challenged by the material. Learning new math and the different brand and generic drugs could be difficult.
Meanwhile, they and the other nine students must prepare for the national boards on Dec. 29.