After OPRA: internship, Intern Written Exam & Intern Oral Exam

Where this sits in the pathway

By this point you've passed OPRA, received a Skills Assessment Outcome, and — as covered in our provisional registration checklist — been approved for provisional registration by the Pharmacy Board of Australia. What comes next is the part that pathway guides often skip: the supervised practice period itself, and the two exams that close it out.

The supervised practice period

Provisional registration allows you to undertake supervised practice as an intern pharmacist under requirements set by the Pharmacy Board of Australia. You will also need to meet the Board's requirements for an approved intern training program (ITP) and for the supervised practice itself.

For many overseas-qualified pharmacists, this involves completing 1,575 hours of supervised practice as part of the pathway to general registration — commonly around a year of full-time work, though arrangements can run longer part-time. Confirm the hours and arrangement that apply to your own registration against the Board's current requirements, since these can depend on your specific pathway and circumstances.

Intern Written Exam

The Intern Written Exam is sat during the internship pathway and assesses the knowledge and skills required for safe, appropriate practice in the Australian pharmacy environment — unlike OPRA, it does draw on Australian-specific practice, legislation and PBS content. It is administered by the Australian Pharmacy Council (APC), separately from the Intern Oral Exam.

Eligibility requirements, examination format and sitting arrangements can change, so confirm the current details — including any hours-completed threshold — directly on APC's Intern Written Exam page before applying. As of this article's last review, APC's own published guidance described roughly a 2-hour, 75-question format with eligibility from about 75% of required internship hours completed; treat those specific figures as a starting orientation, not a substitute for checking the current page.

This is also where several of ClinicalStem's Australian Pharmacy Practice guides — PBS, medicine scheduling, quality use of medicines, professional standards — become directly relevant, having sat outside OPRA's own scope.

Intern Oral Exam

The Intern Written Exam and Intern Oral Exam are separate assessments within the pathway, run by different bodies. The written exam is administered by APC, while the oral exam is a face-to-face assessment conducted through Ahpra on behalf of the Pharmacy Board of Australia, sat after the written exam. Application and sitting windows shift from year to year — check the current dates directly on the APC/Ahpra site rather than relying on a fixed date here.

General registration

Once you have completed the required supervised practice and passed the Intern Written and Intern Oral exams, you can apply to the Pharmacy Board of Australia for general registration, provided you have also met all other registration requirements — the point at which you can practise without the supervision provisional registration requires, for the first time in Australia.

What should I study after OPRA?

OPRA preparation and internship preparation are not identical. OPRA focuses on the knowledge and skills assessed in the overseas-pharmacist Knowledge Stream exam, whereas the internship stage — and the Intern Written Exam that follows it — introduces Australian pharmacy practice requirements you will encounter day to day and that OPRA deliberately excludes.

Once you've passed OPRA, it's worth becoming familiar with areas such as:

• PBS and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme requirements
• Australian medicine scheduling (the SUSMP)
• dispensing and prescription requirements
• professional standards, ethics and mandatory reporting
• quality use of medicines
• Australian pharmacy legislation
• calculations as used in Australian practice

Where to check the current requirements

Fees, exact sitting windows, hour thresholds and eligibility requirements are periodically updated by APC and Ahpra. Treat the figures on this page as orientation, and confirm the current numbers on the Australian Pharmacy Council's Intern Written Exam page and Ahpra's registration standards before relying on them.