How Pharmacists can be Registered in United States

Working as a pharmacist in the United States of America is a dream for many students specially from the developing countries like Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. It's because of the highly paid sallaries to the pharmacists as compared to these developing countries.
According to a news report. ''In 2018, pharmacists made a median salary of about $126,120. The best-paid 25 percent made $145,870 that year, while the lowest-paid 25 percent made $111,340''. In addition to the sallaries, there are a lot of other oppurtunities that are provided to the pharmacists in the United States of America.     

How to get registered as a Pharmacist in the U.S?

Today I will share with you the steps in order to get pharmacist license in the US after graduating from a foreign school, specifically in the Paksiatan. The reason I’m writing this blog to provide you a road map for getting registerd as a pharmacist in the United States. I think that just like anything else in life, any goal seems to be more achievable when you have the whole process leading to it laid out before you, just like I'm going to tell you in this article. 

Okay, so basically there are 5 steps that you need to do to get your pharmacist license in the US if you’re a foreign graduate.
Step No.1 is to take the FPGEE (Foreign Pharmacy Graduate Equivalency Examination) ,
Step No. 2 is to take the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign language) or IELTS (International English Language Testing System).
Step No. 3 is to do your internship,
Step No. 4 is to take the NAPLEX (North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination) ,
Step No. 5 is to take the MPJE (Multistate Pharmacy Jurisprudence Examination) or the CPJE (California Pharmacy Jurisprudence Examination) if you’rein California.

Keep in mind that some of these steps are actually interchangeable, like for example the FPGEE and the TOEFL can actually be takenin any particular order, so the TOEFL could be your Step 1 and the FPGEE, Step 2. And then also the NAPLEX and the MPJE could be reversed as well. 

STEP 1: 

 Take the FPGEE. FPGEE stands for Foreign Pharmacy Graduate Equivalency Exam. So what it is exactly is kind of like a board exam except that it doesn’t give you a pharmacist license. It’s basically just a proof that your pharmacy education is equivalent to that of a pharmacist that’s educated in the US. So it has 250 questions, in 2010, it only had multiple choice questions all throughout the test, but now they havesince modified the test to include several formats like multiple answer format, hotspot format, and ordered response. So it’s administered twice a year, once in the spring which is around April-May, and once again in the fall which is around Septemberor October. It’s offered anywhere in the continental United States.

STEP 2:

 Take the TOEFL iBT or  IELTS (International English Language Testing System). TOEFL stands for Test of English as Foreign Language Internet-Based Test. So this test is basically just a test of English but it’s quite challenging because it has a Speaking part. The test is technically divided into 4 components. It has Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing. Each component is worth 30 points, and for you to be considered by the NABP (National Association of Boards of pharmacy),  you have to score at least 22 in Reading, 21 in Listening,26 in Speaking, and 24 in Writing. One important thing to know is that the TOEFL is administered all over the world but for the NABP to accept your scores, you can only take it in the US, US territories, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Canada. So you cannot take it in the Pakistan  otherwise NABP will not accept your score.

STEP 3:

 Complete the State-Required Internship. At this point, you would have to have a visa that’s permitted for employment because internship is considered “work.” And you can’t work on just a tourist or a visitor’s visa. Every state is different when it comes to their internship requirements but for most of America it’s 1500 hours. I know that in Washington State, the number of hours corresponds to your score on the FPGEE (Foreign Pharmacy Graduate Examination Comittee). So the higher the score, the smaller the hours that you need to complete. And also in the state of New York, it’sa whole different kind of story because there you will need to take the NAPLEX first before you can do the internship. But in California, it’s 1500 hours which roughly equates to about 10 months if you’re going to be working full-time or 40 hours a week. 

What an Intern Pharmacist Can do?

 An intern pharmacist can basically do anything that a licensed pharmacist can do except final check.
These include patient counseling, administering flu shots and other vaccinations, communicating with prescribers about a prescription, and the list goes on. In California they require you to do part of your 1500 hours of internship in a community setting such as a retail chain pharmacy, and another part in an institutional setting like a hospital pharmacy, sterile compounding pharmacy,or a long term care pharmacy. And then once you’ve completed your hours you can now apply for the NAPLEX and the CPJE or MPJE.
                           

STEP 4:

 Take the NAPLEX Effective, the NAPLEX has increased the number of questions from 185 to 250 and the questions are in the same format as the FPGEE. One of the main differences between the NAPLEX and the FPGEE is that the NAPLEX is more clinically based and also the questions are more scenario-based, like you will see most of the questions presented in a patient scenario format with a patient profile alongside their medical history and several questions following it. Then you will have to use your clinical judgment to answer the questions properly. The highest scaled score you can get is 150 and the passing score is 75.

STEP 5:

Take the MPJE or the CPJE (if you’rein California). So what this is basically is the pharmacy law and regulations part of the board exam. If you’re going to be taking the MPJE, it’s going to be 120 questions long, and the passing score is 75. The highest is 100. If you’re in California, the test is goingto be called CPJE and it’s a 90-item exam, all multiple choice throughout, and the highest score you can get is 99 and the passing score is 75. Once you have passed both the NAPLEX and the MPJE or CPJE, you can now apply for your RPh license. Yay! Okay, so that ends 5 steps of how to pharmacist license in the US.

Thank you so much for reading this blog to the end. I hope you have understood the whole procedure of getting registered as a pharmacist in the US. If you have any querry about this blog, you can ask in the comment section.
Thank you again and good luck!