From Mr R. Mahomood
SIR,—The other day, I was invited to be present at a wedding reception. At the hotel reception desk, I bumped into a friend, whom I thought initially, like me, was also a guest. He was not.
He embarrassingly told me that he was earning his living by plying minicabs and was at the hotel that evening to pick up a passenger. My heart bled for him. As an overseas qualified pharmacist, he had completed the necessary academic course at Sunderland university. Subsequently, he had exhausted his attempts at the registration examination. Having not been successful, he had to earn a livelihood to survive and to feed his wife and children. Reluctantly, he had become a minicab driver.
It is rather sad that a person who spends four years to get the basic pharmacy degree and having done professional work successfully has to resort to this measure.
No doubt, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, as an autonomous body, has the power to form its own rules and regulations, but it is thought that it would follow other professional bodies. To elucidate, an MBBS degree is obtained to become a doctor or a BDS to become a dentist. In actual fact, the other professional bodies are currently relaxing their rules - the Royal College of Physicians has done away with the number of attempts and a medical doctor is now allowed unlimited attempts before he or she becomes a member. Thus, there is no justification in imposing unwanted blocks in the examination and career structure of pharmacy graduates. Ironically, doctors, mostly in rural areas, are allowed to dispense drugs without passing the examination or training in pharmacy and no restriction is imposed upon European Union pharmacists for whom the use of English is not their first language.
The Society's dictatorial restrictions are uncalled for and thwart the freedom of practice of one's chosen profession, especially after spending many years to become a pharmacy graduate.
Rashid Mahomood
Hounslow, Middlesex
Mr M. L. McConochie of the Society's Professional Standards Directorate replies: The pharmacy degree exists as a biomedical science degree in its own right and so is not geared solely towards preparation for pharmacy practice. It is to be expected therefore that new knowledge will be gained during the preregistration year, much of it through learning by experience. The preregistration examination by assessing knowledge, the application of knowledge and cognitive skills, exists to ensure that preregistration trainees have gained a sufficient level of this practice based knowledge before they are registered.
Overseas pharmacists who are required to pass the registration examination as a prerequisite to their passage onto the register are being tested to the same standard as graduates from the United Kingdom. This ensures that all pharmacists have the vital requisite skills necessary for practice.
In common with other professional bodies, the Society is obliged to comply with certain requirements laid down in European law which concern the registration of applicants who are pharmacists from member states within the European Community.
Making it a requirement to pass the registration examination for those pharmacists who comply with the European Directives concerning the mutual recognition of professional qualifications, would be contrary to those obligations.
The Society has no jurisdiction over dispensing doctors.