Most of these doctors werent like Jeff. She doesnt think Young was the one who drugged her, but she believes nevertheless that she was drugged. Meanwhile, LeAnn Naylor, the secretary of Jacksons former mayor, first told me over email that she stood by Young after his hearing, but then recently said shed started having doubts because Young would frequently hit on her adult daughter. The trial for "Rock Doc" Jeffrey Young, the infamous nurse practitioner from Jackson who was indicted in 2019 on drug trafficking charges and accused of . Young grew up in Bethel Springs, a 700-person village near Jackson. Young wanted information about one of his enemies. In his frequent social-media updates, he would drink and flip off the camera. Yeah, thats prettythats very distressing. Naylor: They would look at me and say [Dismissively. Theres clear evidence that opioid manufacturers knew the drugs were addictive, yet they marketed them aggressively anyway. (Court records do not contain the names of Youngs alleged victims.) (Lo-fi synthesizer music plays up. Young, 43, a Tennessee nurse practitioner who called himself 'Rock Doc' and once piloted . Lax regulations played a role. Im too good for you because I got this money, or whatever. Know his wife, age, net worth, family, You can all suck my d***. Otherwise, fledgling practices, in particular, risk losing patients. And the word that kept coming up when people described Jeff is comfortable. (Laughs heartily.). Others accused me of seeking to discredit Young and slander his name. It moved so slowly in punishing drug-addicted nurses that some were able to get new jobs and steal narcotics while under investigation, an eastern Tennessee news station, WJHL, found in 2016. 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. Khazan: He worked in the timber industry, and one day at work, he got overheated and disoriented. Scott Deberry: Kinda made it start seeming like he was unprofessional. Young was late to the office almost every day. In another, he totters around with an empty bottle of bourbon and pans the camera over to Phillips, who is asleep on the couch. Branding himself as the "Rock Doc," he flooded his social media accounts with images of a party-loving lifestyle, vitriol for his "haters" and even a pilot episode for a reality TV show . I am very nervous about it, she replied. Still, the citys southernness peeks through. In 2018, a woman told police that Young put his hands down her pants during an office visit, but that apparently led to nothing. Khazan: So Ive written a million stories about this. [Laughs lightly.] Heres what I can tell you about the JY2, all right? He would sometimes brag about having sex on his lunch break, sharing with his staff pictures of his conquests, three employees said. Music by Tasty Morsels and Nelson Nance. But tonally, much of the footage betrays him. As the court spent two days scrutinizing his years of alleged misdeeds, he sat mostly silently. The music plays on.). One admitted that Young had flirted with her. But that did not put a stop to Youngs ambitions. The allegations against Young seemed to take a toll on him, though. As the nursing boards investigation of Young inched along, another agency launched its own probe into the Rock Doc. I dont wear underwear. Some people from the area said they had been harassed by Jeff and were afraid to speak out. (A moment of narrative silence. LeAnn said that Jeff stayed for hours, changing IV bags and chatting with him. His case before the nursing board stalled for two more years. Khazan: There was this really big series of indictments that came down in 2019 where the federal government said, You know what? Jeff refilled M.Y.s prescriptions for Percocet and Valium and gave him a new one for hydrocodone. I dont I dont even know what to say. Youngs story raises the question of where care crosses into harm. In recent years, the Justice Department has started coming for unscrupulous doctors and pharmacists, too. And if you want to help other people discover the show, share it online with the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. ], Oh, you look fine to me.. Some sought counseling, slept under their beds, or carried guns. Angele Latham. Young became known for putting drugs into the hands of almost anyone who asked. The nurse practitioner Jeffrey Young produced a reality-TV pilot in which he branded himself "the Rock Doc., The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? He remarried in 2006. Employees I spoke with said he eventually was seeing 50 to 85 patients a day, compared with about 20 for the average doctor, and most of them seemed to be on opioids. (Ringing leads into a soft, humming organ song.). Young would continue to prescribe drugs there for two more years. Shed come to see Jeff for a range of health issues, from diabetes to cystitis, and she just didnt buy the things people were saying about him. In 2012, Young was working at a cardiology practice in Jackson when, with a consultant named Rich Reitz and cardiologist named Dharmesh Patel, he set up a side business giving talks to doctors about treating heart attacks and strokes. (A long beat of music. Many medical providers are small-business owners who operate with limited oversight from authorities. But I was willing to overlook all that, you know? Purdue voice-over: Some patients may be afraid of taking opioids because theyre perceived as too strong or addictive but that is far from actual fact. And you can kind of look at it like locker-room talk . Federal prosecutors say his help often amounted to dealing drugs for sex. Even when they do, the boards are mainly composed of doctors and nurses peers, who can be reluctant to throw the book at one of their own, says Rebecca Haw Allensworth, a Vanderbilt University law professor who has studied medical boards. Christi Calles: His doctors office was just rocked out. She was referred to Jeff by one of her friends. I asked to speak with him for this story, but because of a gag order on the case, his lawyer declined interviews with me. Actually very nice, yeah. Thats the only way you can describe it. When the local news station, WBBJ, posted a story about Youngs case on Facebook, the usual chorus of defenders raised their voices. I had had back surgery, and I really had real problems that no one wanted to listen to me about. But maybe, just maybe, he showed too much. And hed stream from inside the clinic sometimes. Similarly, Young appeared to get the benefit of the doubt from virtually everyone. (A shudder, a gasp, then clapping and bubbling evolve into a background track.). 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. It really meant a lot to me. (Fades under.). Listen to the trailer for Holy Week. Other doctors dont post pictures of themselves with motorcycles and scantily clad women, either. (Green, who has since cut ties with Young, would not comment on this when I reached him, but he told the Sun that he asked another officer to look up the information.). Khazan: LaRhonda didnt know anything about all of thisthe nursing board didnt make their investigation publicbut she was following him on social media. Young: So Im gonna not have a cigar. Hes a great doctor and never has he acted any way towards me but professional! one woman wrote. This ingratiating tendency allegedly extended to handing out prescriptions. Khazan: And he posted dozens of videos there. Find Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok profiles, images and more on IDCrawl - free people search website. She would wake up to find that all her car doors had been opened overnight. Purdue voice-over: Often, it will be an opioid medication. Once his colleagues were out of the business, Young began crafting a persona based around rock music and hard living. It wasnt like any medical office Id ever been to. The camera follows Young as he treats patients, talks on a local radio station, dances with women at a club, and brags about drinking. In one post, tagged with American holocaust, he writes, I have always been a survivor and have scars of significance to symbolize thus, and this is where they have underestimated me and my resolve., In March 2020, after the coronavirus pandemic broke out, Young petitioned the court to be released to house arrest because he was on immunosuppressive drugs for a kidney transplant he had years ago and was concerned about the risk of complications from COVID-19. So, no, I cant say that. Its gonna be a little cold, all right? ), Jeff Young: Are we live? Khazan: Like, for example, here he is sniffing a pair of womens underwear with his sidekick, a friend named Kevin. Dang, Jeff What happened? Helena Louvaris and Melanie Lupino, two of Youngs staunch defenders, both declined to speak with me when I called them back to see if they still supported him after he was jailed. (The DEA declined to comment on Youngs case for this story.) Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, or write to us at theexperiment@theatlantic.com. I mean, if somebody pats you on the back, that aint coming on to you. Rachel Fullington, an early employee of Youngs, told me Young wanted the clinics atmosphere to be loose and fun, while the others wanted it to be more buttoned-up. 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 They didnt openly harass anyone who criticized them. Longoria: And one of those worst of the worst providers stood out from the others. We thought we would close out the daythe third Periscope of the daywith a little fireside chat. Do you feel safe with Mr. Young being out there? a prosecutor on the case, Andrew Pennebaker, asked Pickering in court. And were gonna send a message. They called it the single largest crackdown on prescription opioids in history. The manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioids have been sued by dozens of states and municipalities for the damage theyve allegedly caused. So what? They liked his plainspoken approach to medicine, a profession typically associated with jargon and elitism. She became his patient around 2016. Who cares? All throughout the past few months, Youngs fans have papered his Facebook wall with loving messages. So, uh, here we are, sitting by the pool. The entire epidemic has been an unending story of doctors, pharmaceutical executives, and public officials blithely ignoring signs of danger. His case offers a unique look at the opioid crisis. In one scene, he and his best friend, a pharmaceutical representative named John Kevin Phillips, broadcast themselves on the video-streaming app Periscope. Its heavy, and it loops. A staffer, who declined to talk on the record, asked me why I was writing about him. (The music crescendos before playing out into the break. The Tennessee Department of Health will not release audio recordings from a state investigation of "Rock Doc" Jeffrey W. Young II, a nurse practitioner who was allowed to stay in business . Naylor: They just immediately hit it off. I am a, uh, nurse practitioner. Jeffery Dale Young known as Dr. Jeff Young or Dr. Jeff is American Veterinarian and a reality TV actor. Though criminal cases against doctors and nurse practitioners like Young are still relatively rare, they are growing more common. And Jeff, sitting at the center of it, covered in tattooshe had a sort of unlikely charisma too. She said, He latches on to young single mothers, and he rushes in and wants toquote-unquotesave them.. Doctors offices make money by billing insurance companies for the services the providers perform, but it was hard to do this at PreventaGenix because the documentation for Youngs visits was so shoddy. And even then, I didnt want to hear it. I told him about this podcastexplained to him what a podcast was. Jeffrey Young was one of those people. The resulting addictions were blamed on reckless patients, rather than the fundamental chemistry of the opioids themselves. At least 50 women are thought to have come to the clinic to have sex with Young, some of them allegedly doing so in exchange for drugs, according to court testimony. Young was among them. Young: (Just after another person laughs.) She appreciated that he asked about her grandkids. Calles: I dont know. Khazan: The Rock Doc, Jeff Young, has been in jail for almost two years, awaiting trial. Automated News Feed Subreddit No Censorship, Just News. As many as three women a day allegedly came to his office for sex, though one former employee said Young might have had sex with more women after hours. In March 2019, the health department received a complaint that Young had inappropriate sexual contact with patients, and sent him a letter of warning without disciplining him. I dont. Thank you for listening. 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. 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. He seemed, to his former employees, constitutionally unable to deny patients the pills they wanted, even if it was the last thing they needed. Khazan: LaRhonda Scott Deberry is a 54-year-old former teacher who lives in Memphis. To get from pharma lab to medicine cabinet, the drug needed to pass through one of the most sacred spaces in America. In an attempt to understand how Young got away with so much for so long, Ive spent more than a year tracking his story, reading court documents, and examining his extensive digital footprint. He helped her a lot with her pain. (The drugmaker that is most often blamed for the epidemic doesnt agree with this assessment: Suggesting that activities that last occurred more than 16 years ago are responsible for todays complex and multifaceted opioid crisis is deeply flawed, a Purdue Pharma spokesperson, Robert Josephson, said in a statement to The New York Times for a story on this issue.). But as I talked to more patients, they started saying things that really surprised me. 0:04. The cause of death, according to the letter, was a probable cardiac event due to polypharmacy, or the simultaneous use of multiple drugs.. Not all of them were into the whole edgy hard-rock thing at first. How far can medical providers go in giving patients what they want? The self-proclaimed "Rock Doc" is accused of trading powerful . Pharmacists began to refuse to fill his prescriptions. On April 17, 2019, officials swept through Appalachia, charging 53 medical professionals, including doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. Several others dismissed the notion that Young could be sexually coercive. (Somber, reflective droning notes play up. He was found in his bedroom, where the ambulance service discovered an empty syringe under his pillow and empty pill bottles on his bedside table that had been filled that month. Khazan: Looking at all the allegations, I mean, its overprescribingoverprescribing to someone whose pill bottles had his name on them and who died of a drug overdose. He decked out PreventaGenix with psychedelic artwork and set the stereo to loud rock. In February 2016, he texted one of his opioid patients, a police officer named Jay Green. Jackson Sun. Scott Deberry: You go to the doctor, and you tell them whats wrong with you, and they look at you like, Oh, its nothing. Many of the people I interviewedincluding some of Youngs former patients and employeesasked to remain anonymous, often because they feared retribution at the hands of Young and his friends. Khazan: The way I first got to know Jeff Young was through videos he posted online. Whats up kids? I mean, I worked at a bank for 15 years, and when youve worked at a bank and youve cashed checks, you have to judge people in two seconds. But she also told me the story of her ex-husband. 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. Country music lyrics, guitar tabs/tablatures, chords source #1. (A snare hit plays, and the music changes tone again. Youre just probably not feeling good. But they never believed us. Nurses are consistently rated higher in honesty and ethics than all other professions that Gallup asks about, by a wide margin, the polling firm said in a January 2020 survey. Hes just laid back. Stephanie had been in an abusive relationship and dealt with a slew of other traumas.
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