Ever since the FPGEC (Foreign Pharmacy Graduation Equivalency Committee) mandated a 5-year Pharmacy Graduation program's degree holder to be eligible to take the FPGE-examination, Pharmacists from south Asian countries having 4-year bachelor degree program have got upset and extremely concerned, and rightly so, as their non-immigrant students' status has been jeopardized due to this eligibility. Institutions, especially in some Arab countries like Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia etc. already intuitively conducting 5-year degree courses with whatever course content, especially of first academic year, have not been affected. As an immediate remedy to the above stipulation, Pakistan very smartly took the inadvisable short cut (of the long rout Pharm. D. program) by upgrading their degree to the new nomenclature of Pharm. D., and that too in all institutions of the country. Are they or, for that matter, any other country prepared to justify this drastic blanket overnight switchover, if at all, knowing the mandatory requirements of the American's Pharm. D.'s non-didactic curriculum and experiential training, leave aside the depth of its didactic part of it.
The ACPE (Accreditation Council on Pharmacy Education) in 1997 issued new guidelines for mandating Pharm. D. (Doctor of Pharmacy Degree) Program for all the US schools with effect from 2004. This Pharm. D. program stipulated 6-years + 9 months experiential training duration. Arguably with the implementation of Pharm. D. program of the above duration the FPGEC mandated a 5-year Pharmacy Graduation program as being eligible for the foreign nationals. According to this a foreign pharmacy graduate has to undertake the following examinations and training period to get the pharmacist licensure in the U.S.
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