Dispensary Corner

NO REGISTRATION, no-worries, is the view of some northern Californians in response to news that a fake pharmacist was dispensing prescriptions for more than decade (PD 02 Aug).

News that Kim Thien Le spent years passing herself off as a pharmacist were met with some disparaging comments about the profession, from readers of The Mercury News, one of whom said, “as long as you can count to 60, you’re a licensed pharmacist,” while another compared pharmacy to hairdressing: “This obsession with licensing is ridiculous,” Dale Holmgren said.

“Did she do her job? Could you imagine if you had your hair cut by what turned out to be your unlicensed barber? The horror!

“They do have ridiculous licensing requirements to be a barber.

“The only thing there are no qualifications for is to be a politician.”

Primrose DeVille was more supportive of pharmacists, suggesting the barber comparison was “a little bit different than someone filling prescriptions for controlled substances”.

Another reader who signed off as “frgough” said, “the take away from this story - A pharmacy license isn’t really necessary to be an excellent pharmacist.”

While Angela Hernandez suggested that given Le was a pharmacy technician, she must have had other help to secure work as a pharmacist.