Australian Intern Pharmacist Oral Exam | Elite Expertise

The Australian intern pharmacist oral exam is the final step to reaching your destination of becoming a fully qualified pharmacist with general registration to practice independently in Australia.

This exam has created nerve-wracking experiences for a lot of students but would be a feel-good experience for you with Elite Expertise! Yes…you would love the knowledge we share; you would love to understand and apply your clinical expertise and practice with our comprehensive continuous support and guidance!! We will make this trickiest part of the journey of your internship into a cake Walk!!

In the oral exam candidates are expected to demonstrate their pharmacotherapy knowledge and their ability to apply the knowledge in practice. Intern pharmacist oral exam will be conducted by the pharmacy board of Australia. It will be held 3 times a year in February, July, and October every year. To sit for the oral exam, the candidates must complete 75% of their approved supervised practice hours. Since October 2020 pharmacy board has reduced the supervised practice hours from 1824 to 1575 hours (due to the COVID-19 pandemic). The total duration of the Intern oral exam will be approximately 35minutes and it consists of 3 parts

1. Part A: primary healthcare

2. Part B: Legal and ethical practice

3. Part C: Problem-solving and communication

Part A: Duration 10 minutes

During this part, candidates will be presented with a case scenario related to primary healthcare. It is conducted as a role play and candidates are expected to identify patients' primary healthcare-related issues and recommend appropriate over-the-counter therapy along with lifestyle modifications. Whenever appropriate candidates should also refer the patients to a general practitioner. During this part, no reference books or materials will be permitted.

Part B: Duration 5 minutes

During this part candidates are expected to explain the legal and ethical issues about a given scenario and recommend what actions to be taken for the satisfactory outcome of the patient. A case scenario will be given to the candidates and no reference books or materials will be permitted.

Part C: Duration 20 minutes

During this part candidates are expected to solve the issues related to prescription or any patient concerns. Candidates must communicate effectively with the patient's general practitioners or any other healthcare professionals and resolve the patient's issues. Issues may be with drug doses, drug interactions, contraindications, duplication of medications, unintended change in medication or dose, drug-induced illness, and so on... candidates will also be assessed on their patient's history-taking ability. This part will be conducted as a role play and it is an open-book exam it means candidates can refer to any books or materials within the given time frame.

For a candidate to pass the exam he/she must demonstrate having satisfactory factual knowledge, can competently apply his/her knowledge to practice situations, and are proficient in decision-making throughout the examination with good communication skills.

Sounds stressful? Don’t worry!

We can help you with

• Improving your patient's history-taking skills

• Obtaining patient's medical and medication history by contacting various sources

• Reviewing patients' therapy and identifying drug-related issues

• Dealing with legal and ethical issues which arise during prescription dispensing.

• Responding to drug information queries

• Identifying issues related to a given scenario. These issues can be medication dose-related, prescription duplication, inappropriate prescribing, interactions, contraindications, legal requirements, and so on.

• Identifying primary healthcare-related problems and recommending an appropriate over-the-counter product along with some non-pharmacological measures.

• Obtaining other relevant clinical information like laboratory reports

• Using different references to find out an appropriate option for drug-related issues in part C

• Communicating effectively with healthcare professionals

• Counseling points for different medications

Highlights of our course:

In the oral exam, the examiner will assess the candidate's ability to apply knowledge to practice situations with good communication skills. So, all the teaching modules are designed to be

• Interactive- in each module candidates are encouraged to interact with each other and with our instructors.

• Delivered as role play- simulating the real-life pharmacy practice scenario.

• Peer learning- candidates in a group learn from each other along with the guidance of our instructors.

• One-to-one interaction with our instructors

• Unlimited access till you clears your exam.

Course content:

Part A:

Individual case scenarios are developed and conducted as a role-play for primary healthcare issues some of them include

• Hay fever

• Nappy rash

• Scabies

• Seborrheic dermatitis

• Oral & vaginal thrush

• Tinea

• Urinary tract infections

• Genital warts

• Threadworm infections

• Stye

• Sore throat

• Smoking cessation

• Shingles

• Pain management

• Nasal congestion

• Mouth ulcers

• Headlice

• Motion sickness

• Hemorrhoids

• Gastro-oesophageal reflux

• Eczema

• Anal fissures

• Dry eyes

• Conjunctivitis

• Diarrhea

• Constipation

• Cold sores

• Chickenpox

• Skin burns

• Acne

• Blepharitis

• Head lice

All the above topics will be conducted as role play by our instructors.

Part B:

More than 20 different case scenarios related to legal and ethical issues of prescription dispensing will be discussed. Descriptive feedback will be provided for the candidates during their mock tests.

Part C:

Candidates will be provided with a standard history-taking template. Each candidate will be involved in a role-play with around 10 case scenarios and 4 individual mock tests with descriptive feedback.

Note: The above exam-related information has been derived from the latest updates provided on the official website of the Pharmacy Board of Australia. For more information and the latest updates on pharmacist intern oral exam kindly visit the Pharmacy Board of Australia website.

Mr. Arief Mohammad is renowned for his excellent teaching skills and practice-based experience which can contribute to developing practice-based knowledge for a learner. He has been a practicing pharmacist in Australia for the last 5 years and has been a preceptor to several students and intern pharmacists.

Follow On

Arief Mohammad

ABOUT THE AUTHOR