How To Pass the NAPLEX
Once you get through four tough years of pharmacy school you then get the opportunity to pass a tough exam before you can officially call yourself a ‘licensed’ pharmacist.
The NAPLEX (North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination) is a nationwide exam all aspiring pharmacists must take and pass before they will be licensed to dispense medications in any state.
You’ll also be required to pass a law exam for whichever state you plan on practicing in.
While this chapter focuses more on the NAPLEX you and I will talk a bit also about the law exam.
Universal
The reason I want to focus on the NAPLEX here is because it’s a universal test. That means, while the questions rotate and vary from test to test and applicant to applicant – the test and the format remain the same state to state.
Whereas the law exam is different both in format and questions and emphasis from state to state.
This actually works to your advantage because the study guides available on the market are actually very helpful.
Preparation
As you’ve learned in this book each class in pharmacy sets a foundation. The next class builds upon that foundation.
That’s good.
But, by the time you are 4 years into your education you may have forgotten some details about pharmacy calculations.
For example, do you remember the exact steps to perform a conversion from millimoles to milliequivalents? How about converting fluid drams to fluid ounces?
I didn’t either…so don’t feel bad. That’s why it’s called a review. It’s in their somewhere you just need to dust off the cobwebs and prepare yourself.
And, just in case, don’t laugh at the examples I’m giving you.
Do you think I expected to see my test heavily populated with questions about over-the-counter products of all things?
Me neither. But I did cover a bit of it in my review sessions so I got through it. The point is – unlike the PCAT – the NAPLEX is a test that can literally throw anything at you. And often it does.
Out of curiosity I asked some of my classmates and fellow pharmacists what they encountered on the NAPLEX and their answers were all over the board: oncology, calculations, diabetes or a little bit of everything.
The point is unlike the PCAT I recommend that you do a very thorough review for the NAPLEX prior to taking it.
Here is what I did. If I had the chance I’d probably do the same thing again.
NAPLEX Review
When I got done with my third year of pharmacy school I was ready to go do my ‘rotations’. Rotations are where you go ‘on site’ and work under licensed pharmacists. Your still writing papers and so forth for school assignments but the idea is to meld that didactic work with some practical work.
Well, when my classes finished instead of taking the summer off as I normally would I immediately cleaned out my rental house and got back to my parents house to spend the next eight months. My first rotation started the next Monday morning. This is called ‘fast tracking’.
So, by that December I was finishing up my last rotation and – ready to take the NAPLEX.
During this time I had already secured my first job which was not scheduled to start until February.
So, I basically used the month of January to review for my NAPLEX.
I guess you could call it a combination of review and much-needed relaxation. After years of intense studying and testing I was ready for a bit of a break.
That month I set a schedule to review/study for at least two hours a day. While that doesn’t sound like much over the course of thirty days it was 60+ hours of intense, focused review.
Not to mention that even after I started my first job I used my nights (as well as the practical experience I was gaining) as a review.
And no, I was not licensed to dispense media-tions. Until mid-March (my NAPLEX test date) I was essentially working at half-rate as a ‘pharmacist-in-training’. All my work had to be checked by a licensed pharmacist.
To make a long story short – those intense, but short, review sessions were just what the doctor ordered. But, remember, I wasn’t a ‘crammer’. I hardly ever studied the night before. And that is exactly how I wanted to handle the NAPLEX.
I wanted to be more than prepared for anything they could throw at me and studying the night before for an exam that literally covered six years of education was enough to send even the coolest pharmacist to their doctor for Ativan before the test.
No Tricks
As I had said above, there are no tricks or secrets to passing the PCAT, NAPLEX or law exams. You simply have to know the material. Particularly so with the NAPLEX because it covers such a broad and all-encompassing area. So you really should be prepared for anything.
“Sorry…”
When I say you have to be prepared for anything I really mean that.
When my wife and I moved to Washington State I had to take their law exam. A notoriously difficult exam. In fact, the states pharmacy law book was at least twice the size of my Montana law book. Not to mention I had known some pretty sharp students who failed their exam.
I borrowed a coworkers Washington State Law Book and began studying (I was working at the time as a licensed pharmacist because Washington State had a temporary pharmacist license program for pharmacists who had passed the NAPLEX and had practiced in other states but were waiting to take their law exam).
On the day of the exam I drove to the testing facility and began taking the exam. I can’t remember exactly how long I was permitted for the exam – it seems like two to three hours – but I was into it over an hour when all of the sudden my computer screen that was doling out the questions went blank.
Actually, the other students in the room (I don’t know if they were taking the law exam – they could have been taking a driving exam for all I know) screens also went blank.
Suddenly, there we were. Five or six test takers all staring at each other wondering what was going on. Then, the proctor walked in the room and started trying to figure out what was going on. She exited the room and about ten minutes later came back and said, “I’m sorry…it appears as though we’ve had a computer glich and all of your tests and results have been lost.”
Uuuummmmm….OK.
So, first and ten, let’s do it again. I started taking my second exam. All in all I took Washington States law exam twice for over three hours.
I felt like I was doing well up to that point too. So I was a little distressed that I had to start over. But I did.
I’m sure if I hadn’t passed I could have appealed the decision. But, thankfully, I passed easily. But again, the point is to be prepared for any subject – and situation – you might encounter.
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