Top 200 drugs
by Rebecca
(CA)
Is the top 200 drug list on this site for 2011? If not, for what year is it? I'm trying to stay up to date and am hoping to take my exam next year. So, I just wanted to make sure.
Reply (by Keith)
The Top 100 and Top 200 drug lists here on the site were recently updated in 10/2011. The PTCB exam is re-written every few years and was just overhauled in late 2010. So, the list is current, but not official by any means.
The Top 200 drug list is derived from three different official lists that I've consolidated into one. The first list I use reports drugs based on total prescription orders filled. The second is a total of sales in U.S. dollars. And the third is the total volume of product. By using the three, I can best estimate which will be most filled by technicians in actual pharmacies. Since the PTCB is written by practitioners and pharmacy professionals, I've tried to mimic the medications they would pull from for the exam. However, there is no "official" or "definitive" list to work from.
Next, as I was just saying, This site is focused on studying for the PTCB exam. That being the case, I felt it necessary to omit most of the lifestyle drugs (i.e. Smoking cessation, Birth control, Erectile dysfunction). Additionally, several duplicates and combination that are near redundant were also removed. I feel that the combos, duplicates and lifestyle drugs can cause undue confusion and are unlikely to show up on the exam anyway.
All in all, the top 100 and top 200 druglists here should be focused to what a pharmacy technician student needs to study. I've taken some heat for omitting the extras, but you must remember that this site is 100% FREE and does not claim to be anything but for entertainment and educational purposes only.
My sincere hope is that the site can help you pass the PTCB or ExCPT exams.
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