Pharmacist

Abe Hailperin, 86, a retired pharmacist who operated Conroy Drugs in Moorestown for 34 years, died Saturday at West Jersey Hospital-Marlton. Mr. Hailperin had lived in Moorestown for 45 years. He was born and raised in Newark. A pharmacist for 54 years, Mr. Hailperin operated Conroy Drugs before retiring in 1986. The Moorestown landmark had been in existence for more than a half century before its closing. For Mr. Hailperin, the local pharmacy was a family business - with his wife and children working in the store - and a calling.

'Conscience," explains the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed. " And it adds: "In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right. " A law that strongly protects a person's obligation of conscience, particularly in the area of his professional work, is admirable.

Hyman "Doc" Solomon, 91, an old-fashioned pharmacist who during a nearly 60-year career made elixirs, compounds and capsules of medicine when not serving ice cream sodas, died of heart failure Monday at Albert Einstein Medical Center. He lived in Rhawnhurst. Mr. Solomon earned his nickname, like many other early druggists, because he was certified by the state to formulate his own over-the-counter prescriptions. "If you had a cough or anemia, he would make an elixir for you," son-in-law Martin Ellick said.

Maurita Robinson Brown, 85, formerly of Ridley Park, a retired pharmacist and a trailblazer, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease Saturday at the Attleboro Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Langhorne. In 1943, Mrs. Brown became the first African American woman to graduate from Temple University's School of Pharmacy, after completing her studies in three years. When Temple honored her at her class' 50th reunion, she told a reporter: "I felt right away that there were some on the faculty that wanted me to drop out, and I had to reach inside and find the courage to continue.

A drug-addicted pharmacist has admitted stealing more than $150,000 in prescription drugs from a Bucks County hospital where he worked, authorities said yesterday. Brian S. Young, 42, of Gilbertsville, Montgomery County, was fired after his arrest Monday outside Grand View Hospital in Sellersville. At the time, he carried 200 pills he had just stolen from the hospital pharmacy, District Attorney Diane E. Gibbons said. Under questioning, Young said he had swiped more than 30,000 OxyContin pills since 2003, court records say. Young told investigators he had been addicted for several years, and had stolen unknown quantities of other drugs over the past five years.

The April arrest of an illegal dealer in prescription drugs led to an undercover operation that netted a Bristol Borough pharmacist on drug charges this week. Bucks County District Attorney Alan M. Rubenstein said that the "dealer agreed to go undercover" after his arrest and that, on behalf of authorities, he bought large doses of Tylenol with codeine, percocet and placidyl on seven occasions over the last three months from James Rocco, 42, of Bristol Borough. Rocco, who operates Rocco's Pharmacy on Farragut Avenue in Bristol - where authorities said the drug buys took place, was arrested Monday and charged with dispensing to a drug-dependent person, unlawful dispensing of drugs by a practitioner, altering prescriptions and violations of the drug labeling act. After the arrest, Rocco was released on his own recognizance and his bail was set at $250,000.

Bernard Friedman, 80, founder of the Barclay Prescription Pharmacy at 18th and Spruce Streets in Rittenhouse Square, died Wednesday at Pennsylvania Hospital. Mr. Friedman, who was born in Philadelphia and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and the Temple University School of Pharmacy, opened the Barclay in 1941. In the '40s, the composer Leonard Bernstein, architect Louis Kahn and other luminaries would gather at the pharmacy's soda fountain, Mr. Friedman's son, Russell, said.

A neighborhood pharmacist was critically wounded in a shooting during a possible robbery Monday night in the city's Society Hill section, police said. Police said the shooting occurred about 9:50 p.m. on Lawrence Street north of Pine Street. The victim was transported by police to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. A resident who asked to be identified only by his first name, Rob, said he heard yelling outside his house and then a loud pop. He looked outside and saw "the victim was lying flat" on the ground and a man in a hoodie was running north on Lawrence toward Spruce Street.

Philip Grolnick, 100, a retired pharmacist and drugstore owner, died Friday at his home in Cherry Hill. In the late 1940s, Mr. Grolnick and his younger brother, Abe, opened Grolnick Drugs at Broad and Susquehanna Streets in North Philadelphia. In 1958, they moved their business to Woodbury Heights and operated Southwood Drugs until 1977. After it was sold, Mr. Grolnick continued to work at the store until he retired at 87. The Grolnick brothers had kept "profile cards" on their customers and noted when a patient had a bad reaction to a drug, years before New Jersey began requiring pharmacists to do this.

Stanley Rosenthal, who owned a pharmacy in Frankford for several months, yesterday was sentenced to up to two years in prison by a federal judge for selling more than $50,000 worth of drugs to neighborhood junkies. Rosenthal, 47, of Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery County, also was fined $75,000 by U.S. District Judge James T. Giles. Rosenthal bought the Tremont Pharmacy, 4201 Frankford Ave., on Aug. 20, 1984. The store was closed several months later by agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration because of the illegal drug sales.

Thomas C. Bernhardt, 64, of Mount Laurel, president of the New Jersey Pharmacists Association in 1989-90, died of a heart attack on Monday, May 13, at his home. Mr. Bernhardt was a faculty member of the department of pharmacy practice at the University of the Sciences, whose alumni association in 2010 gave him its honorary alumnus award. Born in Philadelphia, he grew up in Moorestown, was a 1967 graduate of Moorestown High School, and earned a bachelor's degree in pharmacy at West Virginia University in 1972.

David Harwitz, the Society Hill psychiatrist who provided first aid to the pharmacist wounded in a shooting Monday night, went to visit his impromptu patient Tuesday at the hospital. The 35-year-old victim was "very poised, very pleasant" as he received visitors at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, said Harwitz, 47, medical director for a children's behavioral health program in Camden. Harwitz described the pharmacist, whose name is being withheld by The Inquirer, as a well-liked fixture in the community.

A neighborhood pharmacist was critically wounded in a shooting during a possible robbery Monday night in the city's Society Hill section, police said. Police said the shooting occurred about 9:50 p.m. on Lawrence Street north of Pine Street. The victim was transported by police to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. A resident who asked to be identified only by his first name, Rob, said he heard yelling outside his house and then a loud pop. He looked outside and saw "the victim was lying flat" on the ground and a man in a hoodie was running north on Lawrence toward Spruce Street.

A Philadelphia pharmacist is charged with conspiring with a Norristown man to fraudulently obtain, then sell, the narcotic oxycodone. The U.S. Attorney's Office said Arlene Gerson, 46, abused her position as a pharmacist in working with Jeffrey Handy, 33, to use blank prescription pads as a way of obtaining the addictive painkiller. The FBI arrested Gerson and Handy today. Both are charged with conspiracy to distribute oxycodone. Gerson is also charged with attempted distribution of oxycodone.

Paul Seres, 86, a retired pharmacist who during World War II helped liberate a concentration camp, died of cancer Wednesday, Feb. 15, at Bryn Mawr Hospital. Mr. Seres grew up in West Philadelphia and in Wynnefield, where his immigrant parents operated a delicatessen. In 1941, at age 16, he graduated from Central High School, and in 1944, he earned a bachelor's degree from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, now the University of the Sciences. During World War II, Mr. Seres served in France and Germany with Gen. George S. Patton's Third Army.

HAVING A cross burned on your front lawn by angry segregationists when you were a vulnerable child would have to mark you in some way. But if she was scarred by the experience, Iciephene Parks Porter never let on. The family might have gotten a hint of how the experience affected her by the fact that she waited until her sons were adults before she told them about how bigots resented her father breaking a racial barrier. That and her determination never to go to the South again.

Henry "Hank" F. Rubino, 76, who operated Rubino Pharmacy in Tacony for 46 years and helped establish PACE, Pennsylvania's prescription program for seniors, died of complications from kidney failure Sunday, Dec. 4, at John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Atlantis, Fla. Mr. Rubino was an active member and past president of the Philadelphia Association of Retail Druggists. In the early 1980s, he and 10 other pharmacists helped State Sen. James R. Lloyd Jr. craft a program to fund prescriptions for low-income seniors.

A hunch led a Delaware County woman to comb through the statements from her family's prescription-drug plan, landing her local pharmacist in legal trouble - again. Thomas James Fortunato, owner of Squire Drugs in the 1100 block of Baltimore Pike in Springfield Township, was charged Thursday with 213 counts of filing false insurance claims, theft, and related crimes. He allegedly billed Blue Cross more than $338,000 in fraudulent claims, according to the Delaware County District Attorney's Office.

When Chuck Kohlerman was growing up in the 1980s, his first after-school job was sweeping his father's drugstore in Malvern. Later, he worked behind the counter and delivered prescriptions. Eventually, he decided to become a pharmacist himself, as did his sister. Now 42, Kohlerman owns and operates Kohlerman's Pharmacy, a business that has been in the family since 1966 and is in a small strip shopping center on King Street. The challenges of running an independent pharmacy are different today.

Anthony P. Sorrentino, 73, of Drexel Hill, a hospital pharmacist and educator, died of pneumonia Saturday, Sept. 24, at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. From 1978 until retiring in 1996, Dr. Sorrentino was assistant director for outpatient pharmacy services and manager of the Jefferson Apothecary at Jefferson hospital. Not only was he valued for his care of hospital patients, but his colleagues in administration, research, medicine, and nursing all considered him their pharmacist, his son, Tony, said.