It was different in my day...
I've literally only just taken the exam and already everything's changed! The registration was direct with NABP and now it's with a third party called ECE. I couldn't at this point comment on the veracity of their credential checking powers, but I would guess they were likely to be more stringent rather than less. And the NABP have changed the syllabus slightly, of the FPGEE exam itself. No doubt to cover broader subject areas and make the exam harder to pass.
So anything I wrote later in this blog about my experiences of the paper and pencil exam will need to be considered as out of date now!
Let me tell you about what I went through, starting with the madness I went through just to have my credentials verified!
First of all I filled out the application form for the FPGEE. What you receive is daunting. I got a lovely yellow book explaining what I had to do, plus, at the back were some sample questions to look at.
Now at this point I wasn't too concerned about getting my hands on sample questions, but let me tell you they are VERY important, as will be explained in a later blog posting.
So it appeared what I first needed to do was to get the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) to write a "letter of good standing" (which, apparently, they write a lot of) to the NABP (presumably now to the ECE) saying that I have never been naughty and am not currently under suspicion of anything.
I also had to ask my old University to send a detailed transcript of all my college results to the NABP too. Apparently they too are very familiar with this! Indeed, both the RPSGB and my University sent the paperwork directly to the NABP.
Then I had to take my Degree Certificate and RPSGB Registration certificate to a "notary public" to have them sign a photocopy (whilst seeing the originals) and put their special stamp on the corner of each, prior to putting them in an envelope, signed, sealed and stamped again on the outside, and only then could I post these documents to the USA. The only problem in the UK is we don't have an equivalent of a notary public (we have notaries, but they are different - and I may be wrong about the "public" bit, but feel free to correct me).
Anyway, the point is I needed to go to the other option offered, which was a "magistrate". So, there I was, a few days later, paying my £40 fee and having to go in front of a judge, m'lud, for a bunch of signatures and stamps.
Well, let me tell you, don't ever fall foul of the law, a magistrates court is no place to be!
But I met with the court official who explained what would happen, and about 3 hours later (coz he promptly forgot about me) I had the various forms all nicely signed and sealed and off I went on my merry way.
About a month later I got a letter thanking me for the papers I had sent, but informing me that because I hadn't done a degree of sufficient length (then 4 years, now 5 years) I was required to show additional proof of suitability. The request was for copies of my A' levels, which I duly copied and sent.
About a month later the reply came back that the photocopies were required to be notarised as the other paperwork had been. So, back I went to the stinky magistrates court - a slightly quicker effort this time as I was seen before court proceedings started - and sent the paperwork off again.
About another month later I was informed that the papers were insufficient to need, and, get this, they now wanted my secondary school headmaster to write a letter saying I had attended and that I had received the A'level results I claimed!
I finished secondary school in 1987. My school closed down in 1990. My headmaster is dead. I phoned the NABP and asked why they needed further proof of my A'levels when surely, by default, if I had a degree from a British University they must have checked my credentials already. Apparently the problem stems from the fact that my degree was too short, and that the Americans wanted to see some other proof of status and worth, so show comparable stature. Fine, I phoned the school that my school had merged with to become. They apparently destroy all the records of all their students 6 years after they leave. I spoke with the headmaster, and asked if he would write a letter of good-standing verifying my A-level results. He asked if I has proof - I rummaged around my parents house and came up with a poetry reading certificate, a piano recital commendation, and more importantly, the booklet the school produced each year showing all the students O'level and A'level results (I had one for each year I was in them) - plus of course I had all my certificates.
So, I rushed over to the school on a lovely summers day, with the roof down on my Mercedes 500SL, and drove in to my old secondary school like I was the most successful student they had ever had! I was advised by some security people on entering the grounds to put the roof up on my car or the bastards would steal things from inside it. Ho hum, nothings changed about my school then :-)
And then I met the lovely headmaster, who was about 3 years older than me, and we had a lovely chat about his Dad having to re-qualify when he moved from England to Scotland, and about my impressive piano playing and poetry reading skills, and, of course, he wrote me a lovely letter, put it in an envelope, sealed it, signed it, and stamped the envelope, and we shook hands and I thought - my God he's young to be a headmaster!
And about a month later, finally, I received a letter saying that I had met the criteria to be allowed to sit the bloody exam. My wife was of course delighted!
I can't recall exactly when I was told I was eligible to sit the December 2006 exam, but I think it was around May, and therefore much too late to sit the June exam. The letter informed me that paperwork would be posted in August explaining the procedure for "applying" to sit the December exam.
I shall discuss that total mess-up in my next blog.
Farmacyst
So anything I wrote later in this blog about my experiences of the paper and pencil exam will need to be considered as out of date now!
Let me tell you about what I went through, starting with the madness I went through just to have my credentials verified!
First of all I filled out the application form for the FPGEE. What you receive is daunting. I got a lovely yellow book explaining what I had to do, plus, at the back were some sample questions to look at.
Now at this point I wasn't too concerned about getting my hands on sample questions, but let me tell you they are VERY important, as will be explained in a later blog posting.
So it appeared what I first needed to do was to get the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) to write a "letter of good standing" (which, apparently, they write a lot of) to the NABP (presumably now to the ECE) saying that I have never been naughty and am not currently under suspicion of anything.
I also had to ask my old University to send a detailed transcript of all my college results to the NABP too. Apparently they too are very familiar with this! Indeed, both the RPSGB and my University sent the paperwork directly to the NABP.
Then I had to take my Degree Certificate and RPSGB Registration certificate to a "notary public" to have them sign a photocopy (whilst seeing the originals) and put their special stamp on the corner of each, prior to putting them in an envelope, signed, sealed and stamped again on the outside, and only then could I post these documents to the USA. The only problem in the UK is we don't have an equivalent of a notary public (we have notaries, but they are different - and I may be wrong about the "public" bit, but feel free to correct me).
Anyway, the point is I needed to go to the other option offered, which was a "magistrate". So, there I was, a few days later, paying my £40 fee and having to go in front of a judge, m'lud, for a bunch of signatures and stamps.
Well, let me tell you, don't ever fall foul of the law, a magistrates court is no place to be!
But I met with the court official who explained what would happen, and about 3 hours later (coz he promptly forgot about me) I had the various forms all nicely signed and sealed and off I went on my merry way.
About a month later I got a letter thanking me for the papers I had sent, but informing me that because I hadn't done a degree of sufficient length (then 4 years, now 5 years) I was required to show additional proof of suitability. The request was for copies of my A' levels, which I duly copied and sent.
About a month later the reply came back that the photocopies were required to be notarised as the other paperwork had been. So, back I went to the stinky magistrates court - a slightly quicker effort this time as I was seen before court proceedings started - and sent the paperwork off again.
About another month later I was informed that the papers were insufficient to need, and, get this, they now wanted my secondary school headmaster to write a letter saying I had attended and that I had received the A'level results I claimed!
I finished secondary school in 1987. My school closed down in 1990. My headmaster is dead. I phoned the NABP and asked why they needed further proof of my A'levels when surely, by default, if I had a degree from a British University they must have checked my credentials already. Apparently the problem stems from the fact that my degree was too short, and that the Americans wanted to see some other proof of status and worth, so show comparable stature. Fine, I phoned the school that my school had merged with to become. They apparently destroy all the records of all their students 6 years after they leave. I spoke with the headmaster, and asked if he would write a letter of good-standing verifying my A-level results. He asked if I has proof - I rummaged around my parents house and came up with a poetry reading certificate, a piano recital commendation, and more importantly, the booklet the school produced each year showing all the students O'level and A'level results (I had one for each year I was in them) - plus of course I had all my certificates.
So, I rushed over to the school on a lovely summers day, with the roof down on my Mercedes 500SL, and drove in to my old secondary school like I was the most successful student they had ever had! I was advised by some security people on entering the grounds to put the roof up on my car or the bastards would steal things from inside it. Ho hum, nothings changed about my school then :-)
And then I met the lovely headmaster, who was about 3 years older than me, and we had a lovely chat about his Dad having to re-qualify when he moved from England to Scotland, and about my impressive piano playing and poetry reading skills, and, of course, he wrote me a lovely letter, put it in an envelope, sealed it, signed it, and stamped the envelope, and we shook hands and I thought - my God he's young to be a headmaster!
And about a month later, finally, I received a letter saying that I had met the criteria to be allowed to sit the bloody exam. My wife was of course delighted!
I can't recall exactly when I was told I was eligible to sit the December 2006 exam, but I think it was around May, and therefore much too late to sit the June exam. The letter informed me that paperwork would be posted in August explaining the procedure for "applying" to sit the December exam.
I shall discuss that total mess-up in my next blog.
Farmacyst