Member feedback indicates some confusion may exist around which Endorsement for Scheduled Medicines (ESM) pathway is available to pursue. To help clarify this issue, we have put together some Q+As to bear in mind.
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) website says:
Registration standard: Endorsement for scheduled medicines – Effective 1 August 2018
To meet the requirements for this pathway you must provide evidence that you hold one of the following qualifications:
If we look at option 1 above, just what does an ‘approved qualification’ mean in this context?
The Podiatry Board states that an approved qualification is “obtained by completing a podiatry program of study that has been accredited by the accreditation authority for the podiatry profession, and subsequently approved by the Board as providing a qualification for the purpose of endorsement for scheduled medicines under Pathway A of the Registration standard: Endorsement for scheduled medicines.”
You can learn more background from the Podiatry Board of Australia.
As a recent graduate it is likely that part of your undergraduate studies meets the Podiatry Board of Australia’s ‘approved qualifications’ requirement for you to start pathway B. University courses are not yet designed to meet the pathway A requirement.
Head to this Frequently Asked Questions page, which contains more relevant information on Pathway A. Or check out this explainer video, which contains information on Pathway B.
Dr Kristin Graham from the University of South Australia wrote an article – which was published here in the Journal of Foot and Ankle Research. It maps out the endorsement for scheduled medicines process for podiatrists.
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