Hey guys, I'm currently a second year MPharm student at the University of Brighton actually in the middle of exams now, and I'm from Toronto! [EDITED: I am now a registered pharmacist in the UK, and I've also moved back to Canada and done the licensing exams. The law exam and internship are what I have left to do for registration in my province of Ontario]
This is an almost direct copy-paste of my reply to another poster, but I thought I'd set it apart just so it would be easier for people to find
For those people who asked, each province in Canada has at least 1 school of pharmacy, Ontario however has 2 schools, (one at the University of Toronto, and one at the University of Waterloo (which is a co-op program i might add!))
Lately, I've been doing quite a bit of research into what is necessary to return to Ontario (specific to this province, for other provinces it might be different) to practice and here is what I've found out so far.
1) The first thing you need to do is graduate from a pharmacy program.
2) Next you have to get your documents evaluated, this includes your degree certificate, as well as identification information, and statements from schools, regulatory bodies that your are registered with etc. Many of the documents that you need to send at this stage need to be certified (by a lawyer or notary public) and will need to be sent directly from the school (for example) to the Canadian regulatory body)
3) You take the PEBC pharmacist evaluation exam. You have the option of taking this exam in London, UK for an extra fee (something like $365), so if you're thinking of registering in both the UK and in Ontario, then presumably, you can be doing your pre-registration training here while studying for both the Canadian Evaluation Exam, and the UK registration exam at the same time. This exam is kind of like a big review of everything you learned in your 4 years at pharmacy school, and is probably designed to bring you to the same level as Canadian graduates.
4) Once you've passed this Evaluation Exam, there's no time limit within which you do this next exam: the PEBC pharmacist qualifying exam. This exam is split into Part 1 and Part 2. Part 1 is an MCQ paper split over 2 days (around 3.75 hrs each). Part 2 is an OSCE (objective-structured clinical exam) which is kinda like a verbal exam kind of affair. While there's no time limit within which you have to take this exam after the Evaluation Exam, once you've done either Part1 or Part2 of the Qualifying exam, you have 3 years to do the other one.
You get a maximum of 3 attempts at the exam.
If you pass both parts of the exam on your 1st attempt, you are exempted from doing what they call a "bridging program" (which is designed to help you integrate into the Canadian pharmacy workforce, costs around 13k and probably a year of your time)
5) At this stage you can register with the OCP (Ontario College of Pharmacists) to move your application with this regulatory body along.
6) you need to do the Jurisprudence exam for Ontario.
7) you need to complete a studentship/internship, which lasts 6 months (3 months each) in Ontario, but may be shorter or longer in other provinces
8) you might need to do an english proficiency test, but you can appeal this and ask them to waive it.
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This is what I've found out so far, hope it helps.
if you have any questions about anything feel free to let me know. If it's a general question, please post it here, as others may have the same question. If it's personal, you can PM me. If you're planning to go back to Canada for work and want to form a study group a couple years down the road to study for the qualification exams, I wouldn't mind either, so this is a good time to get in touch =)
Edit: forgot to add that if want more info, you should visit the OCP website and the PEBC website. and maybe check out the IPG program at the University of Toronto as well, because I think that may be a requirement as well (once again, I think you can appeal this, the english language exam, as well as shorten the studentship depending on how much work you've done in the UK and other past experience in pharmacy)
Andrew