Nearly there...

August 23rd 2009 A couple of new issues have come up since my last entry worthy of a mention before I finally get to take the Naplex and California Law exam (CPJE) - so I thought I'd add them now in case I forget later. Let me start with the process I had to go through to get my hospital intern hours done. Firstly, as I have already mentioned, I had to pull a few strings to get to meet with the pharmacy manager. When I met her she was extremely helpful, partly I guess as a favor to our mutual friend, but also perhaps because she was also a foreign graduate and remembered having to get her hours done too. So don't think you can just walk in to your nearest hospital and present yourself for internship hours. Find a connection quickly, at the start of your internship, and start the ball rolling. Having got my foot in the door I then had to come back on another day and meet the HR department. This was also an extremely helpful person, who understood my needs and appreciated I just needed to do a few days in the hospital. I still had to go through all the protocols the hospital had in place, but I got the impression that for most people who wanted to volunteer, the minimum return on their workload was a lot more than the few days I was going to be there for. So although there is no minimum set hours for working in a hospital, you might find the hospital will want you to do a reasonable amount. The lady in HR took me through a work-book that described all the hospitals departments, functions, alarm codes, expectations on its volunteers and so on and so forth. It took perhaps an hour and she said she would send another load of paperwork for me to fill out later for when I came back just before I started work. I then filled out some forms about my medical history and having been offered the opportunity to bring in papers to show I had various innoculations or have blood taken, I opted to have the blood tests anyway. So I then went to the nurse who takes blood and after that I then went back upstairs and went to another nurse who jabbed me in the arm for a TB test. I was then told I had to come back later in the week to have that skin test looked at, come back early next week for a second skin-prick, and then come back again at the end of the next week to have the second skin prick looked at. Since this particular hospital was no where near where I lived, nor in the direction of where I worked, we worked out there was another hospital that was vaguely in the direction of where I worked where a nurse there could look at the result of this skin-test, and then administer and look at the results of next weeks test, and send all the paperwork back to hospital number one, which is what then happened. Finally, after all the blood tests and skin test results came back, HR told me I was ready to return the new pile of papers that they had sent through the post, and could then start my hospital hours. So I read through the pile of papers - each section had a test at the end to make sure you had read it - and finally presented myself back at HR ready to roll. We went through my responses, signed some more forms, went over to another department to have my photo taken and ID badge made, and then finally walked in to the pharmacy. I have to congratulate everyone in the hospital pharmacy where I worked. They all found the time to answer my questions and allowed me to shadow them and look over their shoulders whatever they were doing. I dressed up in disposables and worked in the laminar flow room to count cytotoxis, I went up to the wards and saw how the Dr's and nurses sent rx's down to the pharmacy and how they dispensed some items directly from the wards, I watched the techs process the rx's in the pharmacy and how the pharmacists checked them and communicated queries with the wards, I watched DVD's on preparing aseptic pharmaceuticals and chatted with the pharmacy clinicians about what formula's they used and prepared stock sheets and loads of other things that were all invaluable lessons which I would never have learnt had I not been surrounded by such helpful people. So, apart from the fact that the experience was a positive one, and possibly even helpful towards passing my forthcoming exams, the point I wanted to make to you is that you shouldn't leave this to the last minute. It can easily take MONTHS to go through the requirements to be allowed in to the pharmacy even if you have someone happy to take you on. So start the process as soon as you can, as you wouldn't want this holding up your ability to apply to sit the exams once you've completed your intern hours. So on a similar note I need to correct one comment I made in a previous blog regarding the requirement to do hospital hours. When you apply to sit the exams there are 3 parts to think about. The Naplex application is done online via the NABP wesbite, with a cost of $465. The CPJE exam is $185 and done as part of the overall application to the California Board of Pharmacy (CBP) and the third part is to once again have your fingerprint analysis done and sent to the California Board of Pharmacy. I went to the local UPS with the triplicate form I had downloaded from the CBP and paid them $71 for the analysis, including FBI and DOJ (Department of Justice) background checks. (You will need a 2x2 passport photo which is cheap to do at Costco or Walgreens, but can be done at CVS or some UPS stores, amongst other places). Because I have a slightly odd finger one or two of my prints didn't go through so well, so the girl I spoke with said if it didn't work I could come back and have it done again for free. I asked her how long it would take to come back if it didn't work and she gave me a vague answer of between three days and three months. I took this to mean she didn't really know, but my point to you readers is that this can be done at any time (as far as I know) before applying to the board ot the NABP, so you might as well do this early as well so that if any problems do arise you can hear about it in good time. The next thing I did was fill out all the paperwork for the CBP. This has 7 elements to it, not all of which are necessary depending on whether you are a foreign grad, a pharmacist registered in another state wishing to transfer, or a home grown graduate. But from our point of view, the issue I want to raise, and make a correction from my past comment, is that for one part, regarding pharmacy intern hours, there is another form that needs to be printed off from the CBP website and SIGNED BY EACH PRECEPTOR IN ALL PLACEMENTS WHERE THE INTERN HAS WORKED. So this meant that I had to get the pharmacy manager in the hospital that I did my hours their to sign this form for me as well as my own preceptor in my pharmacy, and send them both off together with the fee and all the other paperwork as required. So don't think you can get away with doing no hospital hours - you will, and you will have to get the pharmacist their to sign the affidavit stating how many hours you completed there too. And then finally, I also went online to the NABP website and paid my application fees to them too. And that's it now. I just sit back and wait to be deemed eligible, and then I should get some paperwork from the PSI (Psychological Services, Inc) to sit the CPJE and get an "Authorization to test" or ATT back from the NABP to sit the Naplex. And that's about it, bar one more fee to the PSI to pay, I hope I will get my package from the PSI any day now, and my ATT from the NABP too, and then I can schedule my tests and let you all know how it goes, or let you know what went wrong, or what I forgot to do, or anything else that crops up to delay the process. The only thing I have got checked out is that my name on my UK Passport matches my name on my Social Security Card and that they both match the name on my pharmacy intern license, my California drivers license and my birth certificate, as I have heard from a couple of people how any combination of these things that aren't identical can prove to be big problems trying to sit the tests. Also I heard from one person how she got into enormous problems trying to get her result as she moved house between sitting the exams and waiting for the results. So although I do actually want to move soon, I am not about to start messing about with addresses until I have all of this behind me. And if that isn't a good enough reason, then I also don't want to move whilst my application to extend my visa is in progress either, as the immigration need to be told of any address change, and doing that mid-application is probably too complex a procedure for them to handle! So I'm staying where I am until I'm through all of this. And that's all I want to say on this entry for now. For those of you about to head to America to begin your internships at the end of September, may I remind to read my section on Moving to America - there's a lot of very useful stuff there I had to learn the hard way. BUy a car whilst you have funds, take your driving test quickly, make sure you use your full name on that and your application for your SSN and they should both match your intern application name or in a years time you will have a real headache applying to sit for the final two exams. Be well, be healthy, and be assured it can be done! Farmacyst.