Khazan: Jeff and his friend Kevin would often head to Periscope to defend themselves. Though both she and Reaves said Young should be held accountable for anything he did wrong, Stephanie told me that she forgave him. At first, Young seemed to Reitz like an affable, outgoing dad who loved rock and practiced medicine. Khazan: And some of what she saw really weirded her out. According to a medical-board report, one employee recalled Young having sex in his office with a patient who appeared to be drugged; when Young left, she was passed out on the couch. was found dead of an apparent overdose. Young: Very nice. Longoria: This week, Olga Khazan peers into an internet portal to try to find one answer to how on earth we found ourselves in an opioid crisis. Young began arriving at the clinic smelling rancid, with greasy hair, and the clinics money problems mounted. In his early adulthood, he was a straitlaced young Republican who had short hair and wore a tie much of the time, one of his former co-workers told me. I said, um, So what are yall doing after-hour? (Four years later, the health department received a complaint about this testosterone sideline, but the complaint was never assigned to an investigator, according to Pickering.) But when he suggested it the way he did, I took it seriously. Around 2013, Young allegedly prescribed hydrocodone, a benzodiazepine, and Adderall for a patient whose visits he described as a concierge-type thing, Pickering said in court. He has been arrested several times, though not convicted, for assaulting women. Young: (Serious, and a little angry.) He tried to ignore it, but when he woke up the next morning, LeAnn noticed he still looked really bad. Country music lyrics, guitar tabs/tablatures, chords source #1. Automated News Feed Subreddit No Censorship, Just News. And whats remarkable about the Rock Doc is that he streamed his private interactions with patients online. Hes just laid back. (The case did not result in a conviction.) Officials were well aware of the allegations surrounding him over this period: The states health department had received at least 13 complaints about Young since 2015. When one video was apparently manipulated by one of his detractors and posted online, Young threatened whoever might have done it. His lawyer also declined to answer any specific allegations. Its gonna be a little cold, all right? If you speak against me, she remembers him saying, youre gonna regret it.. When it was getting close to the end of when I was going, it would be packed. So you got to be a good judge of character. He seemed, to his former employees, constitutionally unable to deny patients the pills they wanted, even if it was the last thing they needed. But as I talked to more patients, they started saying things that really surprised me. Khazan: Even LaRhonda, the retired teacher who had soured on Jeff, told me that Jeff was the rare provider who would take her pain seriously. Khazan: Tanya had a different theory about where all the criticism was actually coming from. Calles: Yes. every time. After PreventaGenix shut down, Young told his patients on Facebook that they could contact Reitz and Patels attorney to get their medical records. [Laughs.] The camera follows Young as he treats patients, talks on a local radio station, dances with women at a club, and brags about drinking. But they helped create the opioid crisis all the same. This is Aalto. The pilot footagesome of which Young posted to YouTube, and some of which I obtained from a person who was once close to Youngportrays the Rock Doc as a medical bad boy whos willing to break free from the establishment to deliver real talk. He graduated from Musicians Institute in 1985, and is best known for his time with the thrash metal band Megadeth, appearing on the 1988 album So Far, So Good. (Endo denied the allegations.) ), Jeff Young: Are we live? To one patient, who he prescribed hydrocodone, amphetamines, and fentanyl, he said, I accept all insurance. You could see, almost, when you were talking to him, he was listeningand he was thumping that pen to the beat of the music. Furthermore, Dr. Young along with his wife and daughter Melody works at his clinic. All right, guys. And no education whatsoever, Phillips jokes. Federal prosecutors say his help often amounted to dealing drugs for sex. Khazan: Do you remember what kind of music was playing? (Plucky yet funky music plays. 2,760 Followers, 1,655 Following, 2,046 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Jeff Young II (JY2) #RockDoc (@jeffyoungii) Naylor: I said, Go see Jeff. And she said, Id rather not. And I said, Why? And she said, Because if I go see him, hell start texting me and calling me. And I said, And wanting to go out with you? And she said, Yeah. Thats the thing. A restaurant called the Little Rebel displayed a Confederate flag. She told me that while she was a patient at the clinic, she had a front-row seat to Preventagenix getting more and more popular. In 2018, a woman told police that Young put his hands down her pants during an office visit, but that apparently led to nothing. (Somber, reflective droning notes play up. His friend Melanie Lupino, a local bartender, said he got girlfriends easily, so she was baffled by the notion that he would have to give people drugs to get sex. And Im like, Oh. [A beat.] In 2020, had he not been indicted, he would have been allowed to petition to have his prescribing privileges reinstated, as long as he agreed to extra monitoring. She appreciated that he asked about her grandkids. Apparently she felt strongly enough about it that he wouldnt leave her alone if she went to see him. The whole thing was Very Online. (A moment of narrative silence. Who cares? All throughout the past few months, Youngs fans have papered his Facebook wall with loving messages. ), (The intro to a rock song plays, with a driving, pulsing beat. A transcript of this episode is presented below: (Abruptly, rock music begins to play, and then, just as quickly, it ends with a light echo.). The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? A staffer, who declined to talk on the record, asked me why I was writing about him. Yet he still attracted patients at GeneXis prior to his detention hearing in May 2019. She doesnt think Young was the one who drugged her, but she believes nevertheless that she was drugged. Know his wife, age, net worth, family, I am a, uh, nurse practitioner. They go on working. They dont want to touch you unless they have to touch you. The Daily Beast Automated News Feed No Censorship, Just News. Unnamed guest: I cant believe he stabbed himself (Fades under.). As the court spent two days scrutinizing his years of alleged misdeeds, he sat mostly silently. I had had back surgery, and I really had real problems that no one wanted to listen to me about. You ready? Purdue Pharma ad voice-over: Once youve found the right doctor and have told him or her about your pain, dont be afraid to take what they give you. They would shut off the power so they had an excuse to close the clinic on those days. Scott Deberry: Kinda made it start seeming like he was unprofessional. Like many actual rock stars, he flamed out on his own extravagant lifestyle. Im too good for you because I got this money, or whatever. You may not like me. She said, He latches on to young single mothers, and he rushes in and wants toquote-unquotesave them.. During one club night, Young bought Stephanie two drinks and his friends handed them to her. To a different patient, he wrote, Come fuck me at my office right now., It is not illegal for doctors to have sex with their patients, though its considered unethical. Kevin: (In a Periscope video.) Right? Federal prosecutors who charged him in a massive opioid bust say he overprescribed painkillers, often for "money, notoriety, and sexual favors." Young's case provides a rare gl Longoria: The result is that more than 450,000 people are dead from overdose in the last 20 years. Alperovichs lawyer declined to comment.). Why didnt anyone try to put a stop to this? I just had a lot of questions about how could this happen., Further reading: The Hard-Partying, Rock-Obsessed Nurse at the Center of a Massive Opioid Bust. Jackson, a city of about 70,000 people, looks like almost any midsize patch of America that sprang up sometime after the Pilgrims but before Microsoft. Scott Deberry: When I first was going in the office, I could go in there and thered be maybe 10 of us in there. On April 17, 2019, officials swept through Appalachia, charging 53 medical professionals, including doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. The Rock Doc affectations, Louvaris said, merely show that hes different from other doctors. We thought we would close out the daythe third Periscope of the daywith a little fireside chat. I am very nervous about it, she replied. Scott Deberry: Everyone in his office was all white. And I said, And they say that youre trading sex for medication. He was like, You know, these motherfuckers lie all the damn time. [Chuckles.] Young was a people pleaser, as one former employee described him. She texted Jeff. Sound design by David Herman. In 2016, Young, who was 42 at the time, invited a cameraman to shoot a pilot episode about his life as a nurse practitioner in Jackson, Tennessee. So hes a little out there. At other times, PreventaGenix staffers would stumble upon a woman he had brought to the clinic the previous night. Youngs devotees have maintained for years that he was a great man on a noble mission, and that people who spoke against him didnt understand his radical approach. The first move of any significant consequence for Young came in early 2017, when the DEA raided the clinic. Jeffery Dale Young known as Dr. Jeff Young or Dr. Jeff is American Veterinarian and a reality TV actor. Stephanie would accompany him to different clubs in the area, and wherever he went, she said, he was surrounded by hired bodyguards and friends she called bouncers, who were around for the times when he drank too much or flirted with women and got into fights with their boyfriends. Im in the middle of a life-saving procedure here. Lets see here, shes 23, Young says. They painted a picture of the kind of medical office where you might actually want to hang out. Khazan: Does that change how you feel about him? On it, they found evidence of Young having sex with many different women, one of whom appeared to be motionless and had her eyes closed, a DEA agent testified later. You can all suck my dick! he yells at the camera in one Periscope video, a stethoscope around his neck and a cigar in his hand. They do not have serious medical side effects. MY died on August 25, 2015, from an apparent drug overdose. Young would continue to prescribe drugs there for two more years. Khazan: The way I first got to know Jeff Young was through videos he posted online. ), Khazan: So doctors were kind of like, Okay.. Khazan: So, like, that doctor-patient interaction and how the opioids actually got prescribed. As so often happens with irresponsible medical providers, Youngs popularity in the communityalong with an indifferent, slow-moving bureaucracyallowed him to operate for half a decade despite initial warning signs and then multiple arrests and investigations. Its hard to hear or believe that the only provider whod ever been kind to youwho made you comfortablehad been accused of abusing other patients. Nearly a fifth of the citys residents live below the poverty line, and many are afflicted with chronic diseases that often accompany the stresses of a low income. He remarried in 2006. It doesnt sound like much of a sella middle-aged man doling out medical advice in a city midway between Memphis and Nashville. I dont wear underwear. A former employee said that staffers had to go to Youngs houseanother McMansionto drag him out of bed, and that he would occasionally arrive at the clinic drunk. Khazan: But the pilot also showed the other side of Jeff. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information. Naylor: I felt like he was being treated unfairlythat maybe he had even been set up. Listen to the trailer for, The Hard-Partying, Rock-Obsessed Nurse at the Center of a Massive Opioid Bust. Still, the citys southernness peeks through. Young, 43, a Tennessee nurse practitioner who called himself 'Rock Doc' and once piloted . Olga Khazan: At the time, there wasnt a lot of limits on pharmaceutical companies being able to tell doctors that. Ballard: I dont believe Jeff overprescribed medication. Of Jeff Periscope of the daywith a little cold, all right told his patients on Facebook that could... Me, she remembers him saying, youre gon na be a angry! Throughout the past few months, Youngs fans have papered his Facebook with! Periscope of the kind of music was playing done it staffer, who declined talk. But when he suggested it the way he did, I accept all insurance showed the side... 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