Living and Working the Mission - Dorothy Lee

Dispensing Accuracy and Excellence

Dorothy Lee, RPh, is St. Joseph Hospital’s pharmacy supervisor. She knows the environment very well, having started as an intern at the Bethpage facility more than 30 years ago.

“In a hospital situation it’s much different than when you go to your local pharmacy and pick up your prescriptions,” said Dorothy. “Hospital medications are delivered to our nurses who then administer them to each inpatient. That means it’s terribly important that we work within all the right safeguards to ensure we direct the right medication, at the right strength, on the right schedule, and to the right patient. We do that every day. Catholic Health has an excellent system for ensuring accuracy and reliability across all of its hospitals and skilled nursing homes.”

As the pharmacy supervisor, Dorothy oversees a team of 25 employees, each of whom is as dedicated as she is at delivering care that is helpful and problem-free.

“We have an electronic medical record system called EPIC for processing the orders from physicians. We double and triple check the orders before the medication leaves the pharmacy,” said Dorothy. “We also do a lot of one-to-one dialogue with the nurses and doctors who administer the medications, so we’re 100% sure we’re in the safety zone.”  The Epic system also eliminates illegible handwriting and any confusion about orders. Further, it provides standard order templates for easy entries.

St. Joseph Hospital just opened its new Cardiac Catheterization Lab, which now brings the nationally recognized services of St. Francis Heart Center to the St. Joseph campus. That’s also impacting the pharmacy Dorothy supervises.

“Cardiac patients who undergo angioplasty and other minimally invasive procedures need to be prepped with certain medications,” explained Dorothy. “They also need medications as part of the recovery process. The new Cardiac Cath Lab will certainly involve our pharmacy team. We look forward to teaming up with the outstanding cardiologists of St. Francis Heart Center.”

Dorothy likes her role in large part because it is so team oriented. “We have a lot of good people here at St. Joseph and across the Catholic Health system. People who care and who go the extra mile. I love being part of  it.”

For Dorothy Lee, the Catholic Health mission is something to live and breathe every day.

Want to join the team? Apply at jobs.chsli.org

Read more Living and Working the Mission stories.