Do you want to practice in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)? A professional license is a mandatory requirement to practice within a profession in UAE. To get a license you must pass the HAAD exam.
I tried to cover everything from what is the HAAD exam? what do you have to study for the exam? Who should take the exam? Tips for the Exam Test and actionable steps that you can take to pass your HAAD exam.
To make it easy, I have created a table of contents to help you navigate through our ultimate guide to prepare for the HAAD exam.
Table of Contents
- What is the HAAD Exam?
- HAAD Exam Syllabus
- What is the ESS (Examination & Evaluation System)?
- Who should take the HAAD Exam?
- Tips for Exam Day
- Exam Preparation Timeline
- Exam Day Happening
- Before the exam day
- How to Register for the HAAD exam?
- Requirements of HAAD exam
- Cost of the HAAD exam
- Recommended Books for HAAD
What is the HAAD Exam?
HAAD (Health Authority of Abu Dhabi) is a professional license exam conduct by Abu Dhabi Authority. There are different specialties of exams depending on the student’s profession. The major areas which HAAD covers include
Doctors in Abu Dhabi must obtain specific licenses from HAAD depending on whether they are interns, general practitioners, specialists, consultants or resident doctors.
Pharmacists need to take a different exam on the basis of their specialization’s, The HAAD classifies pharmacists into clinical pharmacists, community pharmacists, and pharmacy technician.
Nurses too must obtain their licenses from HAAD depending on whether they are applying to be registered nurses, registered midwives, nurse practitioners, mental health nurses, pediatric nurses, community nurse or assistant nurses.
HAAD Exam Syllabus
Pharmacist HAAD Syllabus
1. Professional and Ethical Practice Self-management
- Commitment to Quality
- Fulfills their legal and regulatory obligations as a Pharmacist and employer
- Demonstrate ongoing learning
2. Dispensing medicines
- Manage the dispensing process
- Adheres to legal and ethical requirements of UAE prescriptions
- Promote and contribute to the optimal use of medicines
- Communicate effectively Provide clinical and pharmaceutical services
- Provide medicines and health information and education
3. Manage work issues and relationships
- Manage work
- Manage problems
- Communicate effectively in the workplace
- Work effectively with others
4. Clinical competence
- Clinical governance
- Continuing professional development (CPD)
- Health and safety
- Prescribing guidelines
- Code of ethics
- Environmental protection
- Consumer and Data protection
- Evidence-based practice
- Action and uses of drugs
- Quality Assurance
- Responding to adverse drug reactions
- Triage
- Adverse effects of medicines
- Drug interactions
- Counseling requirements
- Optimizing patients’ drug therapy
- Health promotion and disease prevention
- Pharmaceutical Calculations
Nurse HAAD Syllabus
1. Management of Nursing Care
- Promotes patient optimum health and wellbeing
- Promotes an environment that maximizes patient safety
- Promotes patient physiological and psychological integrity
2. Professional and Ethical Practice
- Demonstrates professional behavior when working with people
- Upholds and contributes to the maintenance of professional nursing standards
- Actively contributes to collaborative working relationships with members of the interdisciplinary healthcare team
3. Professional Development
- Demonstrate a commitment to the development of self
- Demonstrates a commitment to the development of others
- Demonstrates a commitment to the development of the profession
4. Clinical competence:
- Geriatric medicine, most notably diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, cataracts, Alzheimers and dementia.
- First Aid and CPR
- Clinical Application of Laboratory Tests
- Pain Management
- Cardiac Dysrhythmias: Interpretation, Treatment, and Nursing Management
- Drugs of Abuse and Mental Health
- Issues Clinical Application of:
- Pharmacological Concepts Nursing
- Management of Human Resources
- Trauma/Critical Care Nursing
- Women’s Health Issues
- Computing and Nursing Informatics
- Ethical Challenges in Health Care
- Informatics
- Dying and Death
- Emergency Care and Safety
What is the ESS (Examination & Evaluation System)?
Each type of professional can apply for the fully online Examination & Evaluation System (EES), in their own country, thus reducing costs and time, all fees can even be paid electronically.
All health-care professionals including doctors, technicians, dentists, pharmacists, and traditional practitioners; especially outside the UAE can now apply online for a medical license to work in the UAE.
Who Should Take the HAAD Exam?
- Central Sterile Services Department (CSSD) – someone who performs decontamination services, mainly in a hospital setting.
- Dental technician – someone who aids a dentist performing their job.
- Dietician – someone who works with food and nutrition.
- Emergency Medical Services (EMS) – emergency care, paramedicine, medical assessment.
- GP Dentist.
- Medical imaging – this is mainly radiography.
- Medical practitioner – this is mainly a doctor.
- Medical laboratory technician – laboratory sciences, hematology.
- Nursing – similar to NCLEX Exam.
- Optometry – ophthalmology.
- Pharmacist – very similar to the NAPLEX Exam.
- Physiotherapy
Tips For Exam Day
When you arrive at the test center, there are some initial steps you will need to complete before sitting down for the exam:
- You will be required to “Check-In” at the reception desk in the Test Centre where you will present your two forms of valid, original identification.
- The test center staff will verify your appointment time, your identity, and they will take a photo of you and collect your signature on an electronic signature pad.
- The Candidate Rules that contain the terms conditions for sitting the exam will be given to you. It is your responsibility to read and understand the terms and conditions of sitting at the Health Authority of Abu Dhabi examination.
- The Test Centre Administrator will provide you with a locker and key to store all of your personal belongings after check-in.
You may not bring any personal belongings into the testing room. This includes but is not limited to the following:
- Mobile telephones
- Blue Tooth headphones
- PDAs Handbags
- Books
- Paper Drinks and food of any kind
- Medicines
- Pens, pencils, markers
Exam Preparation Timeline
- Prepare – practice makes perfect, make sure you practice from as many sources as possible. Remember you can learn from as many books as possible but the most effective way to make sure this stays in your brain is to use it, do as many HAAD Exam questions as possible.
- Dedicate – make sure you dedicate enough time to the exam, on average students take at least two months to prepare often reserving at least 15 hours per week to make sure they go through as much information as possible.
Exam Day Happening
- Once the initial checks are complete you will either be asked to wait in the reception area or you will be escorted into the testing room. You will be admitted into the test room and assigned a testing station with a computer, mouse, and keyboard. You will need to follow these steps below:
- The Test Centre Invigilator will log you into the testing station and you will be ready to start the exam. No additional material such as handheld calculators, pen and paper will be provided. The exam will have an onscreen standard function calculator available for use.
- A short tutorial on the exam interface will be available on screen before the exam begins. Breaks are permitted during the exam, however, the exam will not be stopped during the break and the exam time will continue countdown and cannot be made up.
- When you have completed the exam, you will be escorted out of the testing room and taken to the Reception desk to be checked out of the Test Centre.
- You are given your results immediately, the test center administrator will give you a printed Score Report that indicates whether you have passed or failed the exam. Please note that your exam result is one component of your HAAD licensure application process.
- Your exam results will be sent automatically to the Health Authority of Abu Dhabi.
Before the Exam Day
- If your application does not fulfill all of the required components of HAAD eligibility criteria, you will not be licensed to practice.
- Review the Systems in the Human Body.
- Do an overall review of the types of diseases affect the systems and their impact on other systems.
- Consider Nursing Responsibility as it relates to patient care.
- Review how nursing practice is developed i.e. policies, practices, guidelines.
- Review how nurses sit in their role as a member of the multidisciplinary healthcare team.
- Look at infection control practices in disease prevention
How to Register for the HAAD Exam?
The primary stage in registration for the HAAD exam is to figure out whether your professional qualification is up to the standard required by the Health Authority, this process is known as Professional Qualification Requirement (PQR) Assessment.You can download the exact requirements for each profession and specialty here:
How do I register for the HAAD Exam?
A person who do not have one of these qualifications, you will need to stop here as HAAD will not accept your application. If you are suitably qualified, you first must apply to the Data Flow and go through the Primary Source Verification (PSV), this is a system that intends to check your credentials. Once you have passed these stages you are ready to apply to take the HAAD Exam, all you need to do now is to follow the steps below.
- Visit the HAAD registration site
- Log In or register with a username and password
- Click on “e-Licensing” and select Examination
- Click on “Exam Scheduling”
- Select which date and location suits you best
- Enter your application number and click on search
- Click on the BOOK button
- Pay Exam Fees and Print your Exam Ticket (Credit Card or Cash at HAAD Customer Service Counter)
- Once you have taken the HAAD exam you will be notified of your score immediately.
You may see reference to the “old” and “new” system, this is irrelevant if you are newly registering. For more information please watch the video embedded below.
Requirements of HAAD Exam
There are certain prerequisites for any professional wishing to sit the HAAD Exam, below are listed our top three professions.
Nurses HAAD Requirements
- If you have not practiced in the past two years you will need to undergo a period of supervision, if you haven’t practiced in the past 5 years you cannot apply.
- For hospital positions, you will need at least one year of relevant experience.
- Fellowship in a relevant professional body such as the Royal College of Nursing or PRC.
- Bachelor’s degree or nursing diploma unless otherwise stated.
- Master’s Degree is required for ADON position.
- Basic Life Support Certificate is mandatory for all nursing positions.
- Required experience is no longer limited to acute care hospitals, however, it must be relevant to the area of practice.
- You will also need to prove your experience based on the position level for which you are applying.
Doctors HAAD Requirements
- A person who have not practiced in the past two years you will need to undergo a period of supervision.
- Fellowship in a relevant professional body.
- MD from a recognized university.
- Tier 1 years of experience required is 2 years.
- You will also need to prove your experience based on the position level for which you are applying.
Pharmacist HAAD Requirements
- If you have not practiced in the past two years you will need to undergo a period of supervision.
- BSc degree in Pharmacy from an accredited college of pharmacy (minimum), there is a preference for Pharm D Degree.
- Current National License.
- You will also need to prove your experience based on the position level for which you are applying.
Cost of the HAAD Exam
It varies, depending on your profession and which exam you need to take.
Nurse HAAD Exam Cost
AED 50 for the pre-registration with HAAD plus 73.57 USD collected by PearsonVue for HAAD Testing Center and 94.59 USD for International Testing Centers.
Pharmacist HAAD Exam Cost
This is similar to nurse cost, AED 100 for the pre-registration with HAAD plus 73.57 USD collected by PearsonVue for HAAD Testing Center and 94.59 USD for International Testing Centers.
Doctor (Medical Practitioner) HAAD Exam Cost
Again, this is similar to the other professions, the cost is AED 100 for the pre-registration with HAAD plus 73.57 USD collected by PearsonVue for HAAD Testing Center and 94.59 USD for International Testing Centers.
Recommended Books for Pharmacists (HAAD)
RxPrep
RxPrep offers everything you need in a NAPLEX review book. At more than 1000 pages, RxPrep is extremely comprehensive, yet easy to read. The book is broken into 73 chapters classified by disease state or pharmacy topic.
Get your copy now and start preparing
Comprehensive Pharmacy Review for NAPLEX
As the name states, Comprehensive Pharmacy Review (CPR) is without a doubt one of the most comprehensive NAPLEX review books on the market. With contributions from more than 50 pharmacists, CPR is comprised of more than 1400 pages broken up into 64 chapters. Each chapter covers a different topic ranging from disease states to special patient populations, to miscellaneous pharmacy topics.
Get this book now
The APhA Complete Review for Pharmacy
The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) produces a solid overall NAPLEX review book that is updated annually. With more than 1000 pages and 42 chapters, APhA’s review book covers all of the major pharmacy topics, including disease states, drug information, calculations, and federal pharmacy law.
Do not wait to get your copy now
I wish good luck to all those who are preparing for HAAD. If my article helps you in getting ready for HAAD do post your comment below. Share it with your friends around.