National Pharmacist Day 2023: Dashawn’s Story

January 12, 2023

About Dashawn

Dashawn is a 25-year-old pharmacy technician in the business of helping others and living life to its fullest. His story begins before he was born when his parents moved to the United States from Trinidad and Tobago as teenagers with a dream. Trinidad and Tobago is a country in the Caribbean Islands that is full of a diverse and rich culture that Dashawn and his family are proud to be part of. In the mid-1990s, they began their careers and welcomed their first child, Dashawn, into the world.

Because his mother has worked for the Philadelphia International Airport since before he was born, Dashawn and his family were able to travel often – free from the burden of expensive flights. He’s traveled across the United States, and to Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Canada, and, of course, Trinidad and Tobago. The last two locations really stuck with Dashawn. Canada, from the incredible experiences he had in Toronto, and Trinidad and Tobago, for the time spent with family.

Family ranks high on Dashawn’s order. “I see my nearby family almost every day, so I would say I’m a really a family-oriented guy,” he told us. Dashawn is especially close to his grandmothers, his mother, his little brother, and his young sister in grade school. Family is what drives Dashawn toward all of his goals in life, one of those being his career.

Dashawn’s Career as a Pharmacy Technician

Dashawn’s career as a Pharmacy Technician sort of found him. He was working as a shift lead at a local drugstore, occasionally helping out with the pharmacy when they needed it. He quickly began to enjoy the work he did in the pharmacy more than his typical duties, and was eventually able to move into a permanent role there, working as a Pharmacy Technician for three years. During that time, he worked hard and eventually earned his Pharmacy Tech Certification through the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (PTCB) !

Over the course of the next three years, Dashawn has moved into the hospital setting for his work as a Pharmacy Technician. There, he finds fulfillment in the variation of his day. “I like the experience and what you do at a hospital more than what I’ve done at [drugstore pharmacies],” he explained. “Working at a hospital, I like that I can go out and deliver medications to different units around the hospital while moving boxes and cargo and other medications. It’s actually a fun experience. I like to see work like that as a fun experience for me. And, you know, I can put more kinds of experience on my resume.”

Working with an Agency as a Pharmacy Technician

Having some variation in his career is exactly what led Dashawn to seek out agency work and find us at GHR! From the jump, he and his recruiter, Kirsten W., formed a great working relationship that helped Dashawn find the right fit. Dashawn, Kirsten, and Lauren K., his staffing manager, worked together as a team to get Dashawn started at his current placement, which he says is his favorite job, yet.

“Everyone has been helping me,” he said of his current placement. “I mean things change almost every day, so I’m getting a lot of help from the pharmacists. It’s a friendly and family-oriented place.” He shared that, in some of the work he’s done in the past, he didn’t feel like he belonged – it just wasn’t the right fit. Now he goes to work with a smile on his face, ready to face the day and perform his essential duties that contribute to high-quality patient care.

Experiences like Dashawn’s are what drive us to do what we do at GHR. It really is all about helping people find the best fit for their career – where they can find fulfillment and perform their best. When people perform their best, quality patient care is delivered. Our recruiting and staffing teams find fulfillment in the relationships they build with candidates and our partners, and our partners can achieve their goals with the staffing support we provide – pharmacy technicians like Dashawn are a huge part of that. So, join us today in thanking all Pharmacy Technicians and Pharmacists for the work they do in the community – Happy National Pharmacist Day!