Pharmacist

John H. Shellenberger, a former pharmacist who owned a popular Hamilton drugstore, died Thursday of heart failure at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson. He was 69 and lived in Parkville.Mr. Shellenberger, who retired because of illness in August, had been a part-time pharmacist at Kmart.The Hamilton native was a 1948 graduate of City College and earned his bachelor's degree in 1953 from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. He began working that year at Walther Pharmacy at Hamilton and Frankford avenues.

The Rev. James E. Hodges Sr. found one of his callings in the late 1940s, when he worked part-time for a Baltimore druggist while still a student at Douglass High School.Seven years later, he became the first African-American graduate of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Maryland at Baltimore, according to a school official.Mr. Hodges died of a heart attack Tuesday at his longtime home in the 1900 block of E. Belvedere Ave. He was 65.Mr. Hodges also earned a master's degree in urban planning from Morgan State University in 1975 and a doctorate in behavioral pharmacology from Union Institute in Cincinnati in 1991.

Recently a pharmacist filled my prescription for 40 mg Paxil with 40 mg Pravachol instead. I had been taking the Paxil for several months. I soon began to experience heart palpitations, trouble breathing, shakiness and insomnia. Two nights I didn't sleep at all.When I saw my doctor, my blood pressure was up, but he insisted that the mistake had nothing to do with my symptoms. He seemed more interested in defending the pharmacist than in my welfare.I don't know if my problems were due to the Pravachol or to stopping the Paxil so suddenly.

What do drugs have to do with forgery? PlentyI am responding to your editorial of March 10, "Larry's Used Cars." One paragraph of the editorial dealt with a forged prescription and its relationship to drug trafficking.As a practicing pharmacist for more than 35 years, I can state unequivocally that prescription drug abuse and trafficking are as big a problem as cocaine.On a daily basis, pharmacists are confronted with forged or altered prescriptions for narcotic drugs, central nervous depressants and central nervous stimulants.

Jerome Block, a Baltimore pharmacist and bicyclist, died of pancreatic cancer Oct. 22 at Sinai Hospital. He was 68 and lived in Owings Mills.After graduating from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in 1953, he was an Army pharmacist until 1955. He then joined Curtis Bay Pharmacy, which had been established in the early 1930s by his father, also a pharmacist.The business was sold in 1985 and he continued to work as a pharmacist at local pharmacies.Born and raised in Northwest Baltimore, he was a 1949 graduate of Forest Park High School.

The Arcade Pharmacy, a landmark in Northeast Baltimore for most of the century, closed its doors for good last Friday afternoon, and that would be ho-hum news -- small drugstore gobbled by corporate giant -- if not for Lance Berkowitz. He's the pharmacist, the man who owned the Arcade, but you demean the man if you leave the description at that."Doc," as the folks in the heart of Hamilton call him, was the Jewish angel of St. Dominic's, the Catholic school a block away from his drugstore on Harford Road.

County police arrested a Severna Park woman Tuesday on charges of prescription fraud for allegedly attempting to obtain 60 tablets of Valium under an assumed name.Lynda Keating Everett, 48, of the 800 block of W. Benfield Road was charged with two counts of possession of a controlled dangerous substance and attempting to obtain a prescription through fraud.Police said a woman went to the pharmacy of the Giant supermarket in the 500 block of Ritchie Highway about 1: 45 p.m. and handed the pharmacist a prescription from Dr. Dongzin Hur in Seabrook for a patient named Jane Woods.

No one would dream of interrupting a pilot as he brings a 757 in to land. Most people don't try to engage a bank teller in small talk as he counts their money. And if you call your doctor while she is doing surgery, her receptionist will take a message.Distractions are dangerous. Recent research showed that using a mobile phone increases the risk of a car accident. But customers often think nothing of bothering the pharmacist while he is trying to fill a prescription.According to pharmacists, distractions and increasing time pressures are leading causes of prescription errors.

Sam A. Goldstein, 87, pharmacistSam A. Goldstein, a retired pharmacist who was active in many professional associations and was honored for community service, died Tuesday at Sinai Hospital of heart failure. He was 87 and a Northwest Baltimore resident.A 1928 graduate of City College, he bought a West Baltimore drugstore, the Lincoln Pharmacy on Calhoun Street, in 1930, the year he graduated from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.Known as "Dr. Sam," he sold the business in 1968 and was a pharmacist for the old Read's chain until he retired in the early 1970s.

Howard County police are investigating the robbery of a Jessup pharmacy Thursday in which a man stole money from a cash register, a store worker's wallet and a half-dozen kinds of narcotics.About 11: 30 a.m., a brown-haired man with a mustache and beard walked into Family Care Pharmacy in the 8600 block of Washington Blvd.Implying he had a handgun, he demanded money and several drugs that are used as painkillers. The pharmacist handed him money, his wallet and the drugs. The man fled on foot.

Marvin Leonard Venick, a longtime Giant Food Inc. pharmacist and Northwest Baltimore resident, died of complications from Parkinson's disease Nov. 2 at Courtland Gardens Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. He was 76. Mr. Venick, the son of a Western Union telegrapher and homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised on North Pulaski Street. He was a 1950 graduate of City College and earned his pharmacist's degree in 1955 from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. He served in the Navy as a pharmacist's mate in Norfolk, Va., until being discharged in 1957.

Mary H. Henry, a great-granddaughter of slaves who earned a degree in pharmacy and later became a homemaker, died of a cardiac arrest Aug. 6 at a son's Ashburton home. She was 101. Mrs. Henry quietly observed her birthday on June 3, family members said. "She didn't want a party or anything. She was never one for much fanfare," said a son, Dr. Irving J. Henry, a retired Baltimore dentist. "I went over to my brother's house, fixed dinner, and the three of us sat there eating, laughing and telling jokes."

Otto Karl Boellner Jr., a retired pharmacist and woodworker, died Thursday of heart failure at his Timonium home. He was 85. Mr. Boellner, the son of a baker and homemaker, was born and raised in East Baltimore. He was a 1942 graduate of City College and earned his pharmacy degree in 1947 from the University of Maryland Pharmacy School. During World War II, Mr. Boellner enlisted in the Navy and served as a pharmacist's mate in Annapolis. He began his career in the late 1940s working at the Read Drug and Chemical Co. pharmacy in the 2100 block of East Monument St. He later worked for its successor firm, Rite-Aid, until retiring in the 1990s.

A Reisterstown pharmacist was arrested Tuesday morning on federal charges claiming he illegally sold more than 23,000 prescription pills. The amount is the equivalent of 63 kilograms of cocaine or nearly 28,000 pounds of marijuana, federal authorities said. A six-count indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ketankumar Arvind Patel, 47, used his Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy at 11813 1/2 Reisterstown Road to fill phony prescriptions for the anti-anxiety medication Xanax, along with thousands of Oxycontin and Percocet pills, both of which contain oxycodone.

The city matches 2006 homicide total - 275 The addition of two homicide victims to the number of violent deaths in Baltimore in 2007 means the city has matched its total for all of last year, police said. As of last night, the figure stood at 275. Shortly after 10 p.m. on June 8, 3-year-old Jabari Stocks, of the 900 block of E. Patapsco Ave., was having difficulty breathing and was taken was taken to Harbor Hospital, police said. An examination in the emergency room showed the child had sustained a head injury, and he died a short time later, police said.

The drugstore has long held two options for the sick: medications made available only with a doctor's prescription or less potent drugs sold over the counter. Now the Food and Drug Administration is considering a third class of drugs: "behind-the-counter" medications that would be available without a prescription, but only after consultation with a pharmacist. Birth-control pills, cholesterol-lowering medicine and weight-loss drugs, available now by prescription, might be candidates. "We're looking at improving access to safe and effective drugs," said Ilisa Bernstein, the FDA's director of pharmacy affairs.

ALFRED IRVING AARONSON, 90, passed away on August 27, 2007. He was born in Baltimore, MD on August 24, 1917, the son of Isador and Nellie Aaronson. He was a pharmacist. During WWII he enlisted in the Navy and was a pharmacist mate on a destroyer escort for convoys going across the Atlantic. After the war, he met and married his wife of 59 years, Lorraine (Libby), who survives him as do his three children; Joanne of Reston, VA, Blair of Los Angeles, and Dr. Scott (wife Sandi); grandchildren, Chase and Peyton.

Alfred L. Davis, a pharmacist-turned-restaurateur who co-owned the Pimlico Hotel, died of cardiac arrest July 14 at Sinai Hospital. The longtime resident of Old Court Road was 78. Mr. Davis was born in Baltimore and raised in Forest Park and Ferndale. He was a 1945 graduate of Glen Burnie High School and earned a pharmacy degree from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in 1949. He had worked as a pharmacist for Whelan's Drugstores in Silver Spring and later Edmondson Village.

Jerrold F. Bress, a Harford County pharmacist and former nursing home owner, died of prostate cancer yesterday at a hospital in Sharon, Pa. The Havre de Grace resident was 83. Mr. Bress was born and raised in Chester, Pa., and during World War II served as an Army supply sergeant in the Pacific. After graduating from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1950, he moved to Havre de Grace, where he owned and operated two Green's pharmacies and a convenience store before selling the businesses in 1992.

Alfred Howard Schwartzman, who was raised in his high school years by two neighborhood pharmacists and with their encouragement became one himself, died of esophageal cancer Sunday at his Pikesville home. He was 73. Born in Guilford County, N.C., and raised in Baltimore's Reservoir Hill, he attended night school at City College and worked days stocking shelves at the old Brookfield Pharmacy after his mother died and his father lived out-of-state. Its owners, Godfrey Kroopnick and Irving Freed, gave him the job, helped raise him and encouraged him to go into their profession.