Mental Debugs

One of my youngest siblings, one because she’s the other half in a set of twins, was constantly worrying about the examination she was to take in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She kept gnawing at the notion of finally sitting in and successfully passing the examinations that it became a regular “status update” on her Facebook account. I always consoled her that, unlike the nursing board exams or any licensure examinations in the country for that matter, the one she was about to take was fairly easy because it was not as extensive, without the questions reaching the 600 mark as she may have been accustomed to when she had the local boards. The passing percentage from what I know (and this needs to be verified though) is as low as 50 percent, so the probability of passing the exam was pretty high, unless the questions were alien to her or she instantly succumbed to a mental breakdown in the process, pun intended. The examinations in question are the ones given by the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties, commonly referred to as the Saudi Council, much like the Professional Regulation Commission only centered on the medical profession. The exams can be computer- or paper-based and be anything under the sun, as far as the questions go, but still within the confines of the discipline one belongs to. And passing the Saudi Council meant, no brainer here, that you can legally practice your profession anywhere in the Kingdom. My sister, about 17 hours ago, status-updated her Facebook to read Alhamdullilah (all praise is due to Allah). That meant, no brainer here too, that 17 hours ago, she just became Saudi Council-licensed.

You’d likely wonder if I am in the position to give unsolicited advice to her. My answer to that is a resounding yes because I, too, is Saudi Council-licensed. I sat for the exams in 2009 when I landed a contractual job as a physical therapist for a tertiary hospital in the Industrial City of Jubail, situated in the southeastern part of Saudi Arabia. Like her, I, too, gnawed at the idea of sitting in and passing the exams. I had my Saudi Council licensure at our hospital’s main branch, in Dammam, about an hour from where my hospital was so I had about sixty grueling minutes on a pick-up, with an Indian driver, racking my brains up for stock knowledge on physical therapy. No matter how religiously I burn the midnight candles to prepare for it, it wasn’t enough because the examination was, as mentioned earlier, anything under the sun. Imagine the whole of  physical therapy crammed in 60 questions only!

Well, I came out of the exams alive, minus the mental breakdown. The questions were not alien to me too. Either you have the answers stocked up and Dewey decimal-ed in the crevices of your brain or not was the key to passing the Saudi Council. And all I needed was to get half of the 60 questions to a T to be able to practice physical therapy legally. My exam certificates are reminders of that rather interesting experience. Too bad I was not a Facebook addict at that time, like my sister is now, and did not status-update it for my “friends” to see and read. But I Tweeted it, about two years ago, instead.

————

Photo is of my sister, Yang, on her way to work in Al-Baha, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

A text message was sent the other day by a colleague that the National Physical Therapy Examination, the US equivalent of the local PT Boards given by the PRC, will be offered for five more testing dates by the FSBPT, the agency that “develops and administers the National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE) for both physical therapists and physical therapist assistants.” They have scrapped the NPTE-i, a modified and bi-annual examination given ONLY to PT graduates from Egypt, India, Pakistan and the Philippines, a move that sorely affected the Pinoy PT over alleged recalled questions given by some local review centers. The FSBPT, instead, will be giving what they call “fixed-date testing,” this time for all physical therapists, whether Americans or foreign-trained, who would like to get that elusive license to work in any state in the US. This decision was brought upon by a ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court.

From the FSBPT.org website:

On February 9, 2011, a Georgia Superior Court judge granted an injunction to three graduates of physical therapy programs in the Philippines against the Georgia State Board of Physical Therapy and the FSBPT. The injunction prohibits the Georgia Board and the FSBPT from enforcing in Georgia a July 2010 security measure implemented by the FSBPT that requires graduates receiving their first physical therapy degree from programs in Egypt, India, Pakistan and the Philippines to take an NPTE-i form of the National Physical Therapy Examination.

The fixed-date testing will be given five times by 2012, the information that my physical therapist friend relayed, but further details will be disclosed by the FSBPT as they are yet to determine the exact dates for these exams. What is better news is that the fixed-date testing NPTE will be give three times this year!

From the FSBPT.org website:

2011 testing dates beginning July 1, 2011
Beginning July 1, 2011, all PT NPTE candidates will be able to schedule their test on one of three dates in 2011.

• September 7, 2011 (Wednesday)
• October 20, 2011 (Thursday)
• December 5, 2011 (Monday)

I passed my application form and fees to the New Mexico PT Board early January in the hope that I could sit in for the licensure exams this May. The problem, I was not able to complete and pass other pertinent documents on time; I have set my eyes on the now-scrapped December NPTE-i instead. However, with this latest update from the FSBPT, I will be able, if God permits, to apply for the examination as early as September. That would mean I need to have a PT job asap as it is one of the requirements of my employer  for financial sponsorship and it would entail, too, burning the midnight candles reviewing for the NPTE, an endeavor I was all willing to undertake since December of last year, reason I resigned from a call center work around that time. This definitely is good news and rekindles the Pinoy PTs hope of finally living the American dream! Well, it definitely did to me!

————

For other updates on the physical therapy NPTE, please log on to FSBT.org.

Image credit ondemandpt.com.