Disgraced pharmacist on the hook for $300,000 in costs and fine loses bid to sue medical lab for $273,000

A disgraced Alberta pharmacist who was stripped of his licence last year after being found guilty of risky prescribing practices has lost one more thing: his attempt to sue a major medical laboratory to the tune of $273,000. Pierre Rizk, who had practised in Edmonton, was told by an Alberta Court in December that he had not done enough to advance his 2018 lawsuit, which accused staff at DynaLife Medical Labs of “slandering” him to patients. The court dismissed Rizk’s claim against DynaLife and ordered him to pay a portion of the company’s legal costs, according to a report in the Edmonton Journal. In its statement of defence, DynaLife claimed that Rizk had filed his suit in retaliation after the company had complained about him to the Alberta College of Pharmacy “over the plaintiff’s interactions with the defendant’s employees.” None of the two parties’ allegations were tested in court. Read: Calgary pharmacist suspended for diverting meds for personal use Rizk—who was barred from practice last February and ordered to pay hearing costs of almost $250,000 on top of a $50,000 fine—stated in his claim that DynaLife staff “were throwing derogatory and slanderous” comments about his qualifications and practice methods, and referred to him in front of patients as “that weird pharmacist.’ These comments made patients doubt him and drove them to seek treatment elsewhere, Rizk claimed. In its decision document, the college tribunal described Rizk as “a danger to the public, a discredit to the profession of pharmacy, and has shown that he is incapable of reforming his ways.” The proven allegations against Rizk were, according to the decision document, “alarming, frightening, and serious and must be managed accordingly.” Rizk was found guilty by the college of four charges under the Health Professions Act, based on a number of actions that included prescribing untested and unapproved “cocktails” of drugs to patients, some with multiple chronic conditions. One patient who needed help with weight loss received prescriptions for five different medications, including three not indicated for such use by Health Canada. Rizk kept increasing the dosages–exposing the patient to cardiac risks and blurred vision–without consulting the patient’s care team. Another patient, was also prescribed a statin drug without consulting with her physician–an act that put the patient at risk of rhabdomylosis, a potentially life-threatening condition she was predisposed to that results from a breakdown of skeletal muscle fibers and leakage of muscle contents into the circulatory system. Rizk also gave the same patient, who is diabetic, oral steroid therapy for pain control. This caused a dangerous spike in her average blood sugar levels. The college concluded that Rizk believed his qualifications “were somehow superior to all others including his patients’ physicians.” The college also accepted a proposal from its complaints director to prohibit Rizk, should he re-register as a pharmacist in the future, from serving as a pharmacy licensee proprietor or owner of a pharmacy for 10 years from the date of registration. Rizk “was a maverick whose only goal was to prescribe drugs, and in many cases, he prescribed cascades of drugs while lacking the clinical skills to manage the therapies or the unwanted effects caused by the cocktail of medicines he prescribed,” wrote the tribunal, stating further that Rizk had abused the additional prescribing authority granted to Alberta pharmacists. Read: ACP identifies common ethical issues

Disgraced pharmacist on the hook for $300,000 in costs and fine loses bid to sue medical lab for $273,000

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