Hear From Ben Montoya, B.S., CPhT, Pharmacy Technician Lead Instructor, Pima Medical Institute
The pharmacist may be the face behind the counter, but it’s the pharmacy technician working quietly in the background to keep everything running smoothly by managing inventory, catching any errors and ensuring every medication reaches the right patient safely. In this episode of Voices of Vital Care, host Nohelani Graf sits down with Ben Montoya, B.S., CPhT, pharmacy technician lead instructor at the Pima Medical Institute in Chula Vista, California campus, to talk about what a pharmacy technician career really looks like and why he has spent nearly two decades preparing the next generation to pursue it.
Montoya brings more than 30 years of combined clinical and teaching experience to this conversion, and it shows. Before diving into the technical side of the role, he walks through where the pharmacy technician truly fits into the patient safety process, a role he says most people never think to ask about.
“Pharmacy technicians are really the backbone of the workflow in a pharmacy. We are the foundation of any pharmacy, and without the pharmacy tech, a pharmacy could not operate the way we would think it should.”
-Ben Montoya, B.S., CPhT, Pharmacy Technician Lead Instructor, Pima Medical Institute
That statement carries extra weight once Montoya explains what the job actually requires day to day. Pharmacy technicians check dosing, confirm instructions, mix medications correctly and make sure every label matches what the patient needs, all before a prescription ever reaches the customer.
One of the clearest examples Montoya gives involves a category of risk most patients have never heard of. He explains that some of the most dangerous mistakes in pharmacy come from medications that look or sound almost identical to one another.
“One of the biggest areas for potential medication errors is something we call LASA drugs [lookalike, soundalike drugs]. They look the same, they’re spelled very similarly, but they have very different uses. If you’re not trained properly, that can have a devastating effect on a patient’s health.”
-Ben Montoya, B.S., CPhT, Pharmacy Technician Lead Instructor, Pima Medical Institute
Montoya shares a real example from early in his career, when a mix-up between two similarly named drugs was caught only because he noticed the prescription did not match the patient’s history. It is the kind of moment that stays with someone for 30 years, and it is exactly why he now builds those lessons directly into his classroom every day.
In this episode you’ll learn:
- What pharmacy technicians actually do behind the scenes to keep patients safe, from checking dosages to catching lookalike, soundalike medication errors before they reach a patient
- The difference between certification, licensure and an externship, and why all three matter to prepare you for a pharmacy technician career
- How Pima Medical’s Pharmacy Technician certificate program prepares graduates for the national PTCB certification exam in as few as nine months
- Why pharmacy settings vary widely, from retail counters to hospital IV rooms to closed-door compounding pharmacies
- What a clinical externship looks like, including hands-on training split between two different pharmacy environments
- The personality traits that tend to predict success in the field, including adaptability, attention to detail and empathy
- How technology and scope of practice have transformed the pharmacy technician role, including new trends like tech check tech and technician-administered immunizations
Who this episode is for: Anyone exploring a health care career for the first time, career-changers drawn to a fast-paced and detail-oriented role and prospective students who want to understand what life behind the pharmacy counter actually looks like.
Watch Episode 16: Behind Every Prescription: The Critical Work of Pharmacy Technicians
Beyond the Episode
Demand for pharmacy technicians continues to climb as health care systems lean more heavily on trained support staff. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, pharmacy technicians earned a median annual wage of $45,750 as of May 2025, with employment projected to grow 6 percent from 2025 to 2035, faster than the average for all occupations, adding about 44,700 openings each year over the decade.*
That growth lines up with what Montoya describes in the episode: pharmacy technicians taking on more clinical responsibility, administering immunizations and stepping into tech check tech roles that were unheard of when he started his career.
Did you know that students in the program earn a sterile compounding certificate before graduation?
For someone who wants to enter healthcare without committing to years of school, it is a field with real room to grow, both in scope of practice and in career options across retail, hospital and specialty pharmacy settings.
Ready to learn more? Learn how to apply or reach out to the Pima Medical Institute admissions team to find out if the Pharmacy Technician certificate program is the right fit for you.
*Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Pharmacy Technicians, https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/pharmacy-technicians.htm (visited September 3, 2026).
