e-Profile Login and ID Quick Search
North Carolina News: Item 2173 - Importance of Confirming Pharmacists' Identity and Credentials
Reprinted from the October 2008 North Carolina Board of Pharmacy Newsletter.
Making sure that the person you are contemplating employing as a pharmacist is, in fact, who they claim to be and a licensed pharmacist should strike most as obvious. A handful of recent incidents in North Carolina serve as a stark reminder, however, of the importance of this seemingly simple task.
In 2006, Board staff received information that a pharmacy technician was representing herself as a graduate of a foreign pharmacy school who had completed all Foreign Pharmacy Graduate Examination Committee™ (FPGEC®) requirements and was simply awaiting licensure in North Carolina. Board staff believes that this person told the story to get hired as a pharmacy intern at significantly higher pay than is typically available to a pharmacy technician. Board staff confirmed through the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy® that this person’s foreign pharmacy school credentials were forged and that she had never completed any of the FPGEC requirements for licensure, much less all of them.
Earlier this year, a person represented to a hospital pharmacy that she was a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Pharmacy (UNC) and was awaiting issuance of her license by North Carolina. Alert personnel at the hospital questioned this representation and Board staff confirmed that this person had never been a student at UNC, or any other school of pharmacy.
Most recently, a person appears to have stolen the identity of a North Carolina licensed pharmacist – including college transcripts and license renewal papers – and passed himself off as that pharmacist in an attempt to obtain employment at no fewer than two hospital pharmacies in western North Carolina. Once again, alert hospital personnel raised suspicions, allowing Board staff to confirm not only that the person was not who he represented himself to be, but also that he had served time in prison for prescription forgery. This person has since been arrested by law enforcement and charged with a number of crimes.
In this most recent case, the identity thief came to the attention of potential employers via a recruiting (or “headhunting”) service.
Board staff spoke with the recruiting service (and, in a handful of prior disciplinary matters, have had similar discussions with otherservices). To put it bluntly, Board staff was shocked with how lax the recruiting services it spoke with are when it comes to conducting even the most minimal verification of their clients’ purported credentials. Indeed, it is probably far more accurate to call these verification procedures nonexistent. Accordingly, employers should not, and must not, accept at face value representations made by a candidate for employment or his or her recruiting service about the candidate’s credentials.
Each pharmacist manager is reminded that he or she is the “person who accepts responsibility for the operation of a pharmacy in conformance with all statutes and regulations pertinent to the practice of pharmacy and distribution of drugs by signing the permit application, its renewal or addenda thereto.” 21 NCAC 46.1317(25). Among those responsibilities is ensuring that properly trained and credentialed staff work in the pharmacy. Vigilance in the recruiting and hiring process is a must.
