Fake Walgreens pharmacist handled over 700,000 prescriptions, state officials say

[Bayard]

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-fake-pharmacist-walgreens-bayarea-20190130-story.html

For more than a decade, Kim T. Le handled hundreds of thousands of prescriptions while she worked as a pharmacist at three Walgreens stores in the Bay Area. She administered vaccinations, ordered medications, counseled patients on their prescriptions and supervised pharmacy technicians, state officials said.

There was just one problem, officials said: Le wasn’t a licensed pharmacist.

State officials alleged that from November 2006 to September 2017, Le unlawfully signed off on or dispensed 745,355 prescriptions, many of which were verified electronically and remotely. More than 100,000 of those prescriptions were for controlled substances such as alprazolam, a sedative used to treat anxiety and panic disorder.

The state Board of Pharmacy will determine whether the three Walgreens stores in Fremont, San Jose and Milpitas should have their pharmacy licenses suspended or revoked.

[at140]

1. This is extremely scary for those who depend on correctly filled

prescriptions. I have seen articles where even in hospitals sometimes the wrong meds are given to patients.

[marble falls]

2. Who needs regulations and regulators anyways. Here eat this.

[blugbox]

7. Haha I was thinking something very similar.

I'm not a licensed pharmacist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night. Here, put these pills in your body.

I sincerely hope she didn't end up harming anyone seriously.

I'm assuming she just lied on her resume and nobody ended up verifying? The article says as much... but I couldn't even get an entry level job without resume inspection! How does that happen?

[getagrip_already]

3. So walgreens didn't do background checks?

It's not like professional licenses are hard to verify. You need to list your license number on every script you fill, especially controlled substances.

So if they weren't checking in multiple stores, how many other pharmacists are frauds?

They will certainly work for less.....

[marylandblue]

5. The article says he was using the number of a real pharmacist with the same name

So if they checked the license, it would still look legitimate.

[GeorgeGist]

4. Sounds like the state Board of Pharmacy fucked up ...

too. Only inspect every 10 years?

[hunter]

6. For all the education required I think pharmacists are not well respected...

... and the scope of their work is too severely limited.

It's entirely possible Kim T. Le wasn't a bad pharmacist within the strict limitations imposed upon the profession.

[LuvNewcastle]

9. That is very possible.

I've watched my pharmacists fill my prescriptions many times, and a whole lot of it is automated. There isn't much mortar and pestle use anymore. I think the time is near when machines take over most of the work that pharmacists do now. There are probably a lot of people like Kim doing that job today. I think I could do most of it without a lot of education in pharmacology.

[Staph]

11. My niece got her PharmD last spring.

Long before that happened, I relied on my local pharmacist, not just for correctly filling prescriptions. My 95 year old mother has 6 or 8 different prescriptions. Whenever her doctor recommended something new and different, we talked it over with Mike the pharmacist. He's the one who told us which pills should be taken at what times, with or without food. He told us about avoiding grapefruit and grapefruit juice, about staying out of the sun. The doctor was not and is not expected to know all of those details.

Mike has since retired, and my niece is now the on-call expert for Grandma's pills!

[Duppers]

8. Wonder how many people she harmed?

She must haved forged her documents.

[Initech]

10. Holy crap, a real life Dr. Nick!

Did she go to Hollywood Upstairs Medical College too?