50 years ago this month, after 5 yrs and 168 academic hours and 2000 hrs of working in a pharmacy… I headed off to Frankfort Kentucky to take my first “boards”. 1970 was the first year of “national pharmacy boards”, before this year the Pharmacy boards in the various states designed their own tests that had to be passed in order to be licensed in the state. Kentucky was one of the first… if not the first to use this national board testing. I had graduated from Butler University Pharmacy school just abt 5 weeks earlier.
There was no tutorial books to prepare for this test, there was no one who had taken the board the year before to ask about what was on it.. I was one of the “guinea pig” recent pharmacy graduates that was the first to take this national test. NO PRESSURE HERE !
The first day – a Monday – started very early and I remember having to compound some meds and the day ended late that night with the “orals” portion of the test… the pharmacy board members individually questioned us about our knowledge of pharmacy. The next day started early and we were given either 4 different written tests or 6 different written tests… totally 6 hrs… no restroom break, no meal break… and you got done around 2 PM… and drove back to our home in Southern Indiana.
It did not take them long to grade the tests… by the end of the same week, you were suppose to get a letter from the KY Board of Pharmacy… One thing that everyone knew was that when you got that letter out of your mailbox.. and if your name on the envelope did not have R.Ph. (Registered Pharmacy) behind your name… you didn’t have to even have to open the envelope…. because you knew that you didn’t pass. Luckily mine had those initials on the envelope and I had achieved a passing grade of 87 !!! I could exhale !!
I had just went from $2.00/hr working as a pharmacy student to $235.00/wk…. working as a Pharmacist. My income had just about TRIPLED !!! I had a job lined up at a small regional chain that I had been working summers since after my second year in pharmacy school.
Filed under: General Problems
Congratulations!!!!!
Congratulations Pharmacist Steve on 50 Years!