Pharmacist penalized for giving information about officer

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Friday, July 27, 2001 | 11 a.m.

What could have been a success story for a state task force set up to track prescription drug abuse instead became a cautionary tale for pharmacists and doctors who have access to sensitive information about their patients.

Scott Larsen was fined $1,000 and given a seven-day paid suspension by the state Board of Pharmacy for giving the North Las Vegas police confidential details of one police officer's use of prescription narcotics. The decision came after a hearing in Las Vegas on Thursday.

Larsen's suspension was stayed, which means the decision goes on his record as an ethics violation, but he doesn't have to miss work. He must also re-take and pass the law portion of the state licensing exam within 60 days.

Larsen, who has been a licensed pharmacist since 1997, also gave police a printout from the task force that details the numerous doctors and pharmacies the woman had visited and the prescriptions that had been filled. It is a felony to seek prescriptions for controlled substances from different doctors without informing them of other treating physicians.

The police officer, Gina Carmody, was later fired. Her case was turned over to the state for investigation, but no criminal charges were filed. She has protested her termination with the city of North Las Vegas, and the matter is currently being reviewed by an independent arbitrator.

The patient profiles are supposed to be used for intervention -- not punishment, said a representative of the task force. A computer program searches a database for signs of "doctor shopping," -- frequent prescriptions written by different doctors and filled at numerous pharmacies.

A cover letter urges pharmacists and doctors to talk with the patient and warns that the information isn't to be shared with anyone not included in the profile.

"This data was never intended to cause this kind of harm," said the board's attorney, Louis Ling. "Miss Carmody shouldn't have to be here telling the intimate details of her drug addiction. Mr. Larsen made it the public's business."

Members of the state board said Thursday that Larsen's case was difficult to decide. Too often pharmacists don't pay enough attention to their customers and to patient records, said Larry Pinson, chair of the state board. In Larsen's case the pharmacist's diligence was misdirected, Pinson said.

"We know you didn't have a personal vendetta against Miss Carmody," Pinson told Larsen. "But you had a chance to intervene, and you missed it."

Larsen said he was acting in the interest of public safety and only wanted to help Carmody. He called the North Las Vegas police not because they were the woman's employer but because they had jurisdiction over the Walgreens on Las Vegas Boulevard North.

Larsen said he was concerned about Carmody's possible addiction as early as July of 2000, but he never mentioned his concerns to Carmody or to her physicians -- two options recommended by the state board.

His concerns were based on what he saw as signs of drug abuse -- refilling prescriptions on the first day allowed and anxious phone calls asking how quickly orders would be ready. Carmody also came into the pharmacy in uniform and occasionally went to the drive-through window in her police car.

"His rationale was a whole pile of unsupported assumptions," Ling said.

Larsen said he didn't know that he should have called the Nevada Department of Investigation or the task force. He handed over the profile because the investigator asked for it. Larsen said he now knows the police needed a court order.

The laws are vague when it comes to questions of when public safety overrides privacy rights, said Larsen's attorney, Robert Graham. Larsen's actions may have been a technical violation of the law, but his intentions were good, he said.

"Mr. Larsen probably saved (Carmody's) life," Graham said. "And he may have saved some other lives as well."

Carmody said Thursday she was satisfied with Larsen's punishment, although it doesn't undo her ordeal. She has been drug-free for 11 months.

She began taking pain killers in 1999 for treatment of a sore shoulder, a recurring problem that had plagued her since her early teens. Carmody said she never took controlled substances while on duty and limited herself to 800-milligram tablets of ibuprofren. She also says her supervisors knew that she was trying to wean herself from the stronger narcotics she took during her off-duty hours.

A secretary for one of the doctors Carmody visited called the former officer in mid-August and informed her that she had been flagged by the task force and a profile had been sent out.

The news forced her to tell her family, which had been unaware of the severity of her addiction. Accompanied by her husband, Carmody went to Monte Vista Hospital in Las Vegas Aug. 18 and checked herself in for five days of treatment.

On Aug. 22 she went to Larsen's pharmacy to fill a prescription for hydrocodone, a powerful pain killer. A day later the pharmacist contacted police.

Carmody was in a training seminar when she was called to a supervisor's office Aug. 23.

A sergeant took her to South West Medical Center for a drug test and then back to an interrogation room at the station. It was there that she was confronted by a supervisor, who had the task force's profile. Even from across the table the block letters along the margins that spelled "Confidential" were visible.

"It was horrible," said Carmody, her voice breaking as she recounted the confrontation for the board members.

Carmody said she has wanted to be a cop since childhood and at 15 joined the North Las Vegas Police troop of the Young Explorers.

At 18 she was hired by the department as a civilian employee and became a sworn police officer at 22. She said Thursday she still hopes to return to work with the department.