William A. Ward once described the “recipe” for SUCCESS this way: “Study while others are sleeping; work while others are loafing; prepare while others are playing; and dream while others are wishing.”
Sounds like a pretty good recipe to me. But for pharmacy students and pharmacists looking to pass the NAPLEX and MPJE the question remains…HOW do I best study and prepare for these tests?
When I stumbled upon www.PassRxNow.com I wanted to find out more about this resource that my fellow pharmacists might be interested in. I reached out to the founder, Dr. Noushin Maktabi, who graciously agreed to share with us a little more about her background, the concept of PassRxNow, and the features available to help you pass the NAPLEX and MPJE.
NOTE: Don’t miss the 10% COUPON offered below in the answer to question #8 for readers of The Honest Apothecary!
Thanks for reading and sharing this interview with your friends!
1) Dr. Maktabi, thanks for joining us here at The Honest Apothecary. Could you tell my readers a little background about yourself and your own career as a pharmacist? Why did you pursue a pharmacy career?
As a teenager growing up in Beirut, Lebanon I always found myself spending my summers and vacations working in the local pharmacy next to my house. I loved the pharmacy environment and the impact a community pharmacist can make and this aspired me to become one day a pharmacist. That in addition to my fascination in chemistry and biology led me to pursue a career in pharmacy.
I graduated in 2011 with a PharmD degree from the Lebanese American University in Lebanon. Being the only internationally ACPE accredited pharmacy school, our curriculum was based on American pharmacy practice and laws. This enabled me to start a pharmacy career here in Seattle, Washington. In 2014 I graduated with a Master’s in Business Administration with emphasis in health care. My research interests include oncology and advancing pharmacy practice in a community pharmacy setting.
While in business school me and my husband Jason Issa who is a computer engineer decided to merge our passion, educational backgrounds, and skills to start together www.passrxnow.com. Our main principal was to create a system that helps students achieve their full potential and pass their pharmacy board exams easily.
In addition to working at passrxnow, I am a head pharmacist at a local chain retail pharmacy in Seattle, Washington. I also volunteer as a clinical pharmacist at a local health clinic that serves the underserved, poor, and uninsured population. I strongly encourage pharmacists to volunteer in a medical related setting. The impact you can make is tremendous and the amazing feeling you get while helping people in need is priceless.
2) How did www.PassRxNow.com get started?
When I was studying for the NAPLEX and MPJE I used various book resources. The books were great but didn’t provide an exam setting similar to the real exams. Other online services were difficult to use and provided a question bank setting only. This sparked the idea to create a service that helps students practice for these exams. Our requirements were simple:
- Simulate the real exams (adaptive, timing, comprehensive topic coverage)
- Provide students with instant access to exams that can run on any type of device (no need to wait for an activation code, nothing to download)
With these simple principles my husband Jason Issa and I started www.passRXnow.com 2 years ago
3) Could you explain the services which are currently offered by www.PassRxNow.com?
www.passRXnow.com is an online service that provides students with instant online access to NAPLEX and MPJE practice exams that can be taken on any type of device (mobile, tablet, desktop). We offer:
- 2000+ questions covering MPJE and NAPLEX topics
- Each exam is adaptive – Students need to experience this to feel comfortable and better prepared
- MPJE exams for: Florida, Tennessee, Texas, New York, Ohio, Georgia, Illinois, Federal and more states coming soon!
- Similar scoring system to the real board exams
- Questions with detailed explanation
- Connect with a pharmacist and other fellow student
- Ask questions, get answers, and learn and interact with a community of students who are all preparing for the same exams
We are working hard on adding new and exciting features and services. We can share a few things we are working on:
- Compare your score to others taking the exam
- passRXnow blog
4) Obviously there are a lot of books and resources available to help pharmacy students pass the law and NAPLEX. What makes www.PassRxNow.com different?
www.passRXnow.com provides a rich learning experience for students preparing for the NAPLEX and MPJE exams. Our main differentiator is the adaptive nature of our exams and our unique exam scoring system which simulates the board tests. It is important for students to experience this before the exam day.
What is unique about passRXnow is that it provides students with an environment where they can practice, learn from the detailed explanations provided, and engage with a pharmacist and other students. Books and other resources fail to provide such a rich and interactive learning channel. In many instances students connect with our pharmacists and ask personalized pharmacy practice/law related questions that might be unique to a situation they experienced but don’t know what the correct answer might be. This is where we come in and help by providing personalized answers, guidance, and references that can then be shared with the rest of the students practicing using the www.passRXnow.com system.
5) Pharmacy law changes quite a bit from state to state. I have 4 state licenses myself, and each exam was different. What is your process when it comes to adding more state law exams? How do you ensure you are asking the right questions?
All our exams topics are based on the MPJE/NAPLEX Bulletin published by the NABP. This bulletin outlines in details the exam topics and the competencies needed to pass both NAPLEX and MPJE. We use this information as a framework while creating our exams. Each exam has the appropriate percentage of topics based on that bulletin and all questions are created carefully to reflect and cover the competency topics. We actually work with pharmacy professors who help us in developing high quality exams based on latest guidelines and laws. In addition to that we consult local pharmacists from different states to ensure that exams reflect the state laws correctly. We also regularly monitor board of pharmacy websites for any pharmacy law changes and we update our content accordingly. Every quarter we have pharmacists who recently took the board exams review our exam structure and question types and provide us feedback. This feedback mechanism is very valuable as it keeps our exam in check and up to date.
As a matter of fact, passRXnow is a great service to use if you are planning to take the MPJE in multiple states. Our framework allows you to clearly identify state law differences all in one place. This is something that you cannot easily get from books or other resources. That is an additional passRXnow advantage.
6) What has been the most rewarding part of starting www.PassRXNow.com?
The most rewarding part of starting passRXnow was the ability to help more than 2000 students pass their NAPLEX and MPJE. passRXnow started small and quickly turned into a virtual classroom where students engage with me and other students just like them nationwide. It is a very rewarding feeling to be able to see ones passion grow and help people achieve their potential with the help of our system. I constantly learn from my students and this is something I really enjoy.
7) Have you experienced any unexpected challenges?
We first started passRXnow with the intention to provide practice exams covering NAPLEX and federal pharmacy law topics. We later realized that in order to deliver a complete and rich learning experience we had to start offering state specific law exams. This was one challenging aspect as you mentioned above. We needed to find local pharmacists in various states, and work closely with them while developing our content. That was challenging at first but now we have great experience in developing state specific exams. Another challenge was on the engineering side, it is complex to develop an online educational system that delivers new delighting and exciting features to our students.
8) Where can my readers go to find out more information about www.PassrxNow.com and possibly purchase your practice exams?
Students can start with our simple to use website www.passRXnow.com . We encourage everyone to try first our FREE mini NAPLEX/MPJE exams that we offer on the site. This way students can experience the passRXnow benefit! We just re-launched the popular 2015 pharmD Grad package which includes 3 state specific MPJE exams and a FREE complete NAPLEX exam (185 questions) and a FREE exam covering “frequently dispensed medications”. We are active on facebook and twitter where you can interact with our team and learn more about NAPLEX and pharmacy law. Followers of “The Honest Apothecary” can use coupon code honestapothecary to get 10% OFF any exam practice package they purchase
Useful inks:
http://www.passrxnow.com/#pricing
https://www.facebook.com/PassRxnow
Well, I think William A. Ward was right. Success might mean that you have to study while others are sleeping. But now, with the help of www.PassRxNow.com, maybe you can get a little sleep too!
©Jason Poquette and The Honest Apothecary. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts, quotes and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jason Poquette and The Honest Apothecary with appropriate and specific links to the original content.
MPJE NAPLEX Noushin Maktabi PassRxNow Pharmacy Pharmacy Exams
Last modified: April 17, 2023
