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Letters to the Editor
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Registration examination
A few questions based on your job
From Miss S. Ganatra, MRPharmS
Does Farah Zaidi (PJ, 13 August, p193) realise that many of the questions
posed in the “outdated, unrealistic and irrelevant” registration
examination apply to the day-to-day practice of a pharmacist?
Does she realise that any pharmacy graduate who cannot perform simple
pharmaceutical calculations should perhaps consider how they will do
their job?
I do not mean to suggest that the registration examination is essential to
the practising pharmacist, nor that it is well set out. Nor do I wish to condemn
those who regretfully have failed it. But having read the debate in The
Journal over recent weeks with increasing interest, I feel I must express my confusion
over the issue.
I passed the examination three years ago, and I am wondering if it has changed
so much that it is suddenly such a contentious issue. I found my university
examinations far more challenging — perhaps other practising pharmacists
today can say the same? From a community pharmacist’s point of view the
questions are tricky, but anyone who has worked as a pharmacist or preregistration
trainee should be able to answer them.
I also challenge Ms Zaidi’s comment about those “whose lives have
been devastated” and “whose hard-earned degrees have been rendered
useless”. Would she, then, want to register every student who had spent
four years working for a degree only to fail their final examination? The registration
examination is simply another chance to prove your knowledge. It consists of
information that we already know. It is nerve-wracking, yes, and takes a lot
of preparation. But, then, the same would apply to any examination throughout
our five years’ training.
Perhaps the registration examination is unnecessary, and does not successfully
weed out those who cannot and should not be allowed to practise. I would hardly
call myself a model pharmacist and I constantly find gaps in my own knowledge.
But, honestly, would you be happy employing someone as a pharmacist in your
store, who cannot answer a few questions based on their job?
Sonal Ganatra
Chel Pharmacy
London W1
Irrational “three strikes” rule
From “Listening Friend”
Farah Zaidi (PJ, 13 August, p193) asks what our caring, professional
Royal Pharmaceutical Society has done to help the people whose lives
have been devastated by a third and arbitrarily final failure of the
registration examination. Well, I can tell her. Absolutely nothing.
Many of these master of science candidates are in their early 20s and
have yet to learn adequate “coping skills”. Some are more
mature, non-EU, overseas pharmacists who, having practised in their own
countries, have sought asylum here and have taken the Society’s
conversion course at Sunderland with a view to supporting themselves
and contributing to the health care of Britain, which needs their skills.
So what do they get from Lambeth? “You could try speaking to Listening
Friends” or “the Irish might take you”.
Well, sorry, but the Irish do not want to know. As for Listening Friends,
well, I am one and I have listened to far too many of these tales of
woe caused by the irrational “three strikes” rule.
I can assure Ms Zaidi that the hard earned degrees are not now rendered
useless. Their vocational cachet may be damaged but the young home-grown
aspirant candidates retain their MSc degrees, which have real value in
other fields and, as a Listening Friend, I can help these young people
to cope with facing that change of career direction.
Where I do not know how to help is with the “failed” mature
overseas pharmacist with infinitely better language skills than the European
pharmacists who are supposedly “in charge” at two pharmacies
local to me.
Any counselling service, not just Listening Friends, only hears the client’s
side of the story. From what little I have heard from a necessarily small,
self-selecting sample I would like to suggest that third-attempt candidates
(and especially those who have already been registered overseas) could
be more humanely dealt with if their performance in the previous two
attempts could be taken into consideration, if you like, on an accumulation
of “modules” basis. There will be some who, even with three
attempts, would still not accumulate enough modules and for them their
earlier failure would no longer mean deferred success.
Sadly, these “deferred success” candidates are often seen
as something of a nuisance by the few supervising employers who are prepared
to take them on for the extra months until their next examination date.
They may suffer a reduction in income (because they have “had” their
year and they are not really technicians either) and often miss out on
meaningful training or supervision. Their, often grudging, placement
may be shoe-horned into a branch shop which entails them in a lot more
travelling.
It is not just the headquarters of our caring profession that treats
them with disdain. We can all do better and, yes, the system of preregistration
training, with or without examination, needs to be reviewed.
“Listening Friend”
297/31
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal