The 4 year 5 year thing is a bit of a pain but not really a problem because our pre-reg year counts. a friend of mine got his school to send the US board a letter stating that, and then it was fine. He passed his exam but didn't go through with looking for work or a visa. I myself was contacted and asked to get my 6th form school to confirm my A-levels, which seemed bizarre. But if that's all it takes its fine by me, I just want to take that exam. This guy at the RPSGB said that every single pharmacist applying for the US has come across this issue, but all of them have managed to work something out. Which makes you wonder what it is about the americans that makes them behave like each application from the UK is the first.
The time it takes is unbelievable, I started trying to apply in October, and am still waiting for my application to go through. To be fair the main problem actually came from my school of pharmacy, SOP, it took them over a month to issue my official transcript for the application, which was free. The RPSGB was also not much better, taking them about the same amount of time to send off a letter of recommendation, and for that I paid £50. Both things probably would have only taken them 10 minutes to knock out.
The next exam will be in June 2007, as I have not made it for the exam literally just gone on the 5th Dec, and according to the author of that PJ article I may not be able to get a visa for the end of next year anyway.
I'm doing all this to be with a guy who lives in Seattle, by the time i manage to get out there it'll be lucky if we're still together at this rate!
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