Last updated: 29 July 2025
Prepare effectively for the Australian Intern Pharmacist Oral Exam with Elite Expertise Australia’s comprehensive and targeted preparation course.
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
Oral Exam 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.
Oral Exam 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.
Oral Exam 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!
Also Read: Step-by-Step Guide to Pass The APC Pharmacy Intern Written Exam
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
