Alana Watson never imagined that a job she was only supposed to do temporarily, she would fall in love with. Watson is the Pharmacy Technician teacher at Cape Coral High School, she works hard to guarantee that the students in the pharmacy program end with success.
When Watson was notified that Cape High wanted to interview her, she decided that she might like to teach high school students. However, before becoming a high school teacher, she worked for the government as a part of the Florida Medicaid system.
“I helped families and physicians who were medically needy, and needed supplies, equipment, or food. I would help them get that with their insurance and providers. I would help them with their billing, or if they had questions about how to help a patient,” explained Watson.
When Watson was in high school, she wanted to be a psychiatrist. While this did not end up happening,she still participates in a job rooted in helping people. Watson further explained this ideology when stating “I was a happy kid, I just always used to like having friends and like having my friends tell me this is what’s happening in their life, and then me being like, ‘yes, I can help you.’ So, I think that was mainly one of the reasons why I wanted to be a psychiatrist, just being able to have that relationship with my peers and being a confidant.”
Watson is a licensed pharmacy technician, and has held this title for about 20 years. She started working in a pharmacy as one of her first jobs after graduating high school. Despite a career in the pharmaceutical industry not being what she originally planned, she fell in love with it and decided to proceed further on that path.
“If any student is wanting to do anything medical related, pharmacy is a good program to help get their foot in the door. It looks good on college applications, because you already show that you’re in a four year program, that you’re dedicated, and this is what you want to do. So you already have something when you graduate that will help you with a nice, paying job. A lot of places don’t have this particular program, there’s only three in the state of Florida,” Watson explained.
Watson is also the Program Advisor for the HOSA (Health Occupation Students of America) club at Cape High. HOSA is a club made for students who are interested in going into the medical field in the future.
“The first part [of HOSA] is trying to figure out who is joining. The affiliated members have the option to compete. When they compete, their name goes in the book, so the state sees it. And then once they pick a subject, they study it, and then they will have to do some type of skill set. And then once they do that skill set, they are graded,” Watson stated.
Watson said “Depending on if they’re first, second or third place, then they may be placed in states. Which we will be going to in Orlando, like we have about seven students that are going to Orlando this year. We have more students that wanted to participate in affiliating and the actual competition this year than we did last year, which is great.”
Watson’s students are very fond of her, and would describe her as a very optimistic, and compassionate person. They often look to her for advice, and feel comfortable asking for help.
“Miss Watson’s very understanding of, like, every individual student’s personal situation. If you don’t understand something, you can just go up to her and she’ll help you out. If you have anything going on, whether it’s in your personal life or your academic life, you just go up to her and she’ll try to do as much as she can.” expressed by junior Ana Luiza Guimaraes.
Guimaraes has been in the pharmacy program all three of her years of high school. She plans to be a pediatric nurse in the future utilizing her development in the class.
“I’ve always been interested in the medical field, so I try to do a lot of things that, like, correlate with my interest and stuff. And I think HOSA is a pretty good way of, like, learning, like, more about the medical field, even if you’re not within the pharmacy class, like, if you have any sort of questions regarding, like a medical field, or like CPR, or anything like, I just direct them to Miss Watson, even if it’s not pharmacy related, she usually is able to help me out,” said Guimaraes.
Sophomore Gisselin Rodriguez, is in the IB program and is currently taking both pharmacy two, and three. She plans to be a dentist, and is taking pharmacy classes to help further her future career.
Rodriguez voiced “I think that I do like this class a lot more because Miss Watson is teaching it. Because if we had a different teacher that was less understanding or less patient with us, it would be harder, because this is a very hard class to take. Although you learn a lot, it’s a lot of information to obtain in one single year.”
Not only do Watson’s students feel strongly about her, but the feeling is mutual. Watson enjoys teaching, and thinks highly of the students in her classes.
“I just feel like everybody that is upperclassmen in the pharmacy technician program, they tend to, like, stay focused, you know? I mean, like they have a plan, they stick to it, and then they follow through with it,” expressed Watson.
Watson is elated that, “The kids that I work with feel comfortable enough to come to me with problems, or, you know, if they have questions about the material and they want to go over it, we could do that, because I want them to get it to feel like they don’t know what they’re doing when it comes four years down the road and they have to go and certify.”
Watson is known all around Cape High for her sweet personality, and how much she puts into the school. She loves her job, and the kids that she teaches very much, and is overjoyed with who she has become.
Rodriguez shared that “She’s very patient with her students, very caring, very sweet. She’s never really mad or upset. And when she is, she doesn’t say anything rude to anybody, she’s always kind. She tries to handle things the good way.”
