The invisible heroine: pharmacist in everyday hospital life
January 6, 2025
5 min
Tina Tabel, Team Leader Pharmaceutical Assistance at Zollikerberg Hospital, offers in-depth insights behind the scenes of the hospital pharmacy, where around 1500 medicines are currently stored. In the interview, Tina describes how these are stored, the ordering processes and the associated challenges, as well as her personal motivation for this exciting job.
Why did you decide to become a pharmaceutical assistant and what was your educational background?
I have been very interested in medicine since I was a child and wanted to work in a hospital. However, after doing a taster apprenticeship at a hospital in my home town, I realised that the nursing profession wasn't for me. At the age of 20, I then emigrated to Switzerland and came across the training programme for pharmaceutical assistants. For me, this was the perfect mix of medicine, science and my interest in working with computers. I successfully completed the 3-year training programme in 2010.
In the seven years that followed, I was able to gain a lot of experience in two other public pharmacies and then actively looked for a job in the hospital. Fortunately, it was love at first sight for me and Zollikerberg Hospital. It felt like I went through another training programme here, as many things are handled differently. For example, I learnt how to prepare cytostatics here. In the seven years I've been working here, I've learnt a lot and am constantly being challenged anew.
What should one be prepared for when choosing this profession?
You have to be very versatile in the job of a pharmaceutical assistant. You need a certain basic structure in the way you work and, above all, accuracy. In the hospital, you also need additional qualities such as efficiency and great flexibility. You also have to be very attentive so that all the different areas and activities form a stable thread. You also have to be able to memorise an incredible number of different things, such as medication names or requests. You should also be prepared for the fact that you sometimes have to cope with physically demanding work.
What do you pay attention to when storing medicines and other active ingredients correctly?
There are 3 different temperature ranges for medicines in our hospital: -25 to -15°C in the freezer, 2 to 8°C in the refrigerator and 15 to 25°C at room temperature.
Most medicines can be stored at room temperature, so there is little room for mishandling. In the case of medicines in the refrigerator, such as vaccinations and insulin, errors occur regularly and these cause a huge amount of work for us, as we then have to clarify whether the medicine can continue to be used. And for this we need detailed analyses of the temperature monitoring and correspond with pharmaceutical companies.
What does a typical working day in the hospital pharmacy look like for you?
We start our day at 8 a.m. and all meet in the office. Every day is different and holds one or two surprises. We divide up the basic tasks between us from day to day. My main task as team leader is therefore to coordinate the work to be done, prioritise the tasks and structure the day. I also support the head pharmacist in team matters.
The first thing we do is go to the wards, depending on how we are organised, and record the items that have been reordered in our Kanban system. We then prepare the box for the respective ward using a picking list. Everything that goes out has to come back in. We then unpack the boxes with deliveries from the pharmaceutical companies and book them into the system. In the meantime, we answer numerous telephone enquiries and set off on our first tours to deliver to the various wards.
Next, we prepare the disinfectants and infusions for the hospital, after which I order the medication from the relevant companies via SAP. This is not always easy, as you have to assess demand, comply with the ordering conditions and coordinate supply bottlenecks.
After the lunch break, there are still numerous boxes waiting to be delivered to the wards and we also have a lot of administrative tasks, such as approving invoices, maintaining the Kanban system and updating master data.
Our intensive, varied and extensive working day, during which the phone rings an average of 100 times, ends at 5 p.m. (grins).
How is your team organised?
Our team consists of 3 hospital pharmacists and 6 pharmaceutical assistants, almost all of whom work part-time. We all have our strengths in different areas and bring different experiences to the table, which enables us to solve even the biggest challenges efficiently and competently. You can always rely on my colleagues and what also characterises us is our mutual empathy, humanity and the fact that we can laugh a lot together.
What do you like most about your work?
I like the variety of my tasks and the fact that, unlike working in a public pharmacy, I can apply and expand my specialist knowledge in practice. I like the working environment and I find it super interesting to come into contact with all the different areas.
In February 2020, I had a very serious accident that changed my life forever in many ways. My main motivation to get out of the hospital bed and back on both feet was the thought of my work here, my colleagues at Zollikerberg and my team. Every morning when I walk through the hospital to scan the cards for repeat orders, I am glad that I fought my way through and am able to continue doing my job.
What challenges does your work present?
As there is always a human life behind a task or an enquiry, it is essential that I can react quickly and still maintain an overview at all times. This is sometimes quite stressful and requires a lot of concentration.
Can you give us some key figures about the hospital pharmacy?
We currently have around 1500 medicines in stock and around 1300 are sent to the departments every week. Every week, we book around 90 of these medicines back into our stock because they are no longer needed, too much has been ordered or the wrong medicines have been ordered. We receive between 10 and 30 different medicines from our suppliers every day, which have to be booked and stored. Every day and every week is different, but on average we issue more than 5,000 medicines a month. Direct orders are placed daily and we try to cover a three-month requirement. However, this is not always possible due to limited storage space or expensive medicines.
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