COVID-19 Update (2)

From Tuesday 17 March 2020, all examinations and assessments that are due to take place between March and August 2020 are postponed or being rescheduled.

Our aim is to ensure that medical staff and health care workers are available to help health services cope with COVID-19. A second aim is to minimize any risk, however small, of transmitting the virus to other groups. Our priority is to look after our members, staff and associates, so they can focus on protecting patients.

We will contact  current applicants to advise them of the arrangements that are being put in place to re-schedule examinations and assessments for 2020.  We apologize for any inconvenience caused but trust you understand the reasons for this.

If you wish to apply for the DPMSA, please adhere to the existing deadlines for all administrative tasks including submission of application forms and fees; and submission of dissertations.   For 2020, please submit forms, and dissertations electronically only (via email) to examoffice@apothecaries.org.  Please refer to the Guide to the DPMSA exam, and the Administrative Guidance for Candidates for further information.  The revised Guide to the DPMSA exam (v33) is now available clarifying the alternative arrangements for the written paper format.  The schedule for the written component will follow shortly. 

Established 1978
The examination is designed as a postgraduate qualification primarily for members of the healthcare professions although it is open to a number of other graduates and certain undergraduates. The Diploma was revised extensively in 1993.

The Diploma is intended to indicate familiarity with contemporary philosophy of medicine and in particular with the philosophical aspects of problems within the theory and practice of medicine and healthcare; and with selected aspects of the history of philosophy related to those problems.

Candidates for the examination must have participated in the Society's Faculty's Course in the Ethics and Philosophy of Healthcare. The aim of the course is to introduce participants to some aspects of philosophy relevant to healthcare; to give an opportunity to reflect on practice; to consider critically some concepts and arguments used in discussion of healthcare and some of its dilemmas; to articulate and to defend points of view of their own, while taking counter-arguments into account and bearing in mind the grounds and limits of argument.