He even convinced her to get weight-loss surgery. But when he suggested it the way he did, I took it seriously. Years before the launch of PreventaGenix, Young had already been accused of abusing his nurse-practitioner license. He tried to ignore it, but when he woke up the next morning, LeAnn noticed he still looked really bad. In September 2014, Young, Reitz, and Patel opened their first clinic and called it PreventaGenix. 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. In May 2019, shortly after Young was indicted, I traveled to Jackson to try to understand the place that gave rise to the Rock Doc. Long after the criminal charges against him became known, many of Youngs patients and friends came to his defenseincluding some whom he had seemingly wronged. 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. But as I talked to more patients, they started saying things that really surprised me. Always have been for the patient. ), Khazan: So doctors were kind of like, Okay.. I dont. 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. He may have that, but hes not Hes down to earth. Thirty minutes. And I remember texting him back, and I remember saying, Jeff, he is a grumpy, old, country man, and hes not going to be an easy patient, but something is terribly wrong. And he said, I got that covered too. So I get my husband up there. (Youngs attorney claimed in court that only about 25 percent of his patients were.) I have found accounts of at least 40 other medical providers in the country who have been accused of exchanging sex for addictive drugs. Khazan: Do you feel like Jeff has done more harm than good? Who cares? All throughout the past few months, Youngs fans have papered his Facebook wall with loving messages. He tied the knot with his beautiful wife Dr. Petra. Youngs second marriage was already in trouble by the time PreventaGenix launched, and after his divorce he quickly found new girlfriends. Though Young at first just seemed to go along with the project, he grew more invested after the first visit, the cameraman told me. He wasnt in pain. Why didnt anyone try to put a stop to this? I just had a lot of questions about how could this happen, you know? Multiple surveys show that people tend to trust health-care workers more than they trust many other professionals, including police officers and clergy members. The next morning, the office manager, Kristie Gutgsell, would clean up after them. Find Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok profiles, images and more on IDCrawl - free people search website. 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. Scott Deberry: But after a while, when you read stuff, how many people could be wrong? Its often called the invisible illness, because, even though the pain is very real for the person experiencing it, some doctors dont take it seriously. Young neither admits nor denies the following allegations, Tracy Alcock, a lawyer with the state health department, said at the hearing, but he acknowledges that the departments proof would show the following: From August 2013 to November 2016, Young prescribed controlled substances in amounts and for durations that were not medically necessary, advisable, or justified for a diagnosed condition. The board put his license on probation for two years, during which time he could not prescribe certain Schedule II or Schedule III controlled substances, including drugs such as oxycodone, fentanyl, Vicodin, and Adderall. I mean, if somebody pats you on the back, that aint coming on to you. He graduated from Union University, an evangelical Christian school, in 1995, then earned a degree from the University of Tennessee College of Nursing in 2003. Thats the only way you can describe it. Young is . 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. Not that theyre not watching internet porn. (Patel did not respond to requests for comment.) Lax regulations played a role. Other female patients checkout sheets simply said No charge., Though he portrayed himself as harmlessly vulgar, Young could, in fact, get violent with women. Tanya Ballard: I think people are Just didnt like Jeff. Thats okay. One person with knowledge of the case gave me a list of several women who, the person believed, were having sex with Young in exchange for drugs. Additional music by Nelson Bandela (04 HIDDEN FORCES and Auddi Sun 01 131). She doesnt believe the allegations against him, and chalks them up to pure jealousy. So hes a little out there. (Later, Phillips pleaded guilty to threatening a Drug Enforcement Administration agent who was investigating Young. Sometimes the two men would fight, and broken glass would litter the floor. He decked out PreventaGenix with psychedelic artwork and set the stereo to loud rock. After the raid, Young spent the night in jail on an outstanding warrant, and PreventaGenix closed soon after. Khazan: There was this really big series of indictments that came down in 2019 where the federal government said, You know what? Thats the big joke. Many medical providers are small-business owners who operate with limited oversight from authorities. You may not like me. (Fades under.). Trial dates have been set for "Rock Doc" Jeffery Young, his supervising physicians, and two more medical professionals recently indicted on additional drug trafficking charges. Downtown has an old-fashioned square, a few coffee shops striving for trendiness, and some suburban standbysMcAlisters Deli, Kohls, Chilis, Panera Breadall connected by well-maintained roads and featuring black oceans of parking lots. Two bouncers made sure she got home, but when she woke up in bed the next morning, her eyes were black, her nose was broken, and her mouth was bleeding. Occasionally he would glare at his ex-wife Dawn, who was in the gallery. Unnamed guest: I cant believe he stabbed himself (Fades under.). PreventaGenix, with its Doric columns and grand portico, appeared to preside over the rest. Kevin: Jeff and I are full of antics. Music by Tasty Morsels and Nelson Nance. (Soft percussive synthesizer music plays.). Im like, Im as outspoken as he is. While Youngs antics could be a nightmare for his staff, his pool of patients increased as word about his practice spread. The music plays on.). Im very shocked. And hed stream from inside the clinic sometimes. Thats very distressing Yeah, Im shocked, you know? Later that month, M.Y. Off camera, Young allegedly prescribed 1.4 million addictive pills and had sex with female patients. And that was not the case at all. You can find Olgas written reporting on the Rock Doc at our website: http://www.theatlantic.com/experiment. When one patient told Young over Facebook Messenger that she was in shitty health and about to jump off a bridge, he prescribed her a cocktail of several different drugs, including fentanyl. Dan Reaves, a local radio host on whose show Young occasionally appeared as part of a marketing plan, described Young as medically gifted. But that did not put a stop to Youngs ambitions. Ultimately, what hastened Youngs downfall is that some of the female patients asking him for drugs were undercover officers. Hey! He would still be allowed to prescribe testosterone and cough syrup with codeine, however. 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. 13.6k members in the AutoNewspaper community. Less than half answered. (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.) This requirement is waived, however, in cases where public health, safety, or welfare imperatively requires emergency action.). Young would call these liaisons nooners or say it was tap-that-ass Tuesday, according to court testimony. 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 would shut off the power so they had an excuse to close the clinic on those days. I visited Youngs clinic, but, through a staffer, he declined to speak with me. His wife also loves animals and works in the same clinic. Watching this makes me really sad, one YouTube user commented on the Rock Doc pilot in 2019. To deal with the latter, the city, like so many others in America, has become ever more reliant on opioids. Jacksons cheeriness, though, is at odds with the populations somewhat grim physical health. He raises a glass filled with red wine, as if in a toast. (Fades under.). [A moment of indistinct crosstalk.] A woman I spoke with who has worked for seven doctors offices in the area estimates that about three-quarters of medical visits there result in an opioid prescription. Fullington, who was also let go, told me she got a threatening call from Young. Christi Calles lived 30 miles away in Lexington. Scott Deberry: Kinda made it start seeming like he was unprofessional. Khazan: Which was exactly what she liked about him. At first, Young seemed to Reitz like an affable, outgoing dad who loved rock and practiced medicine. Through his attorney, he declined to comment on this and the other allegations in this story because of a gag order issued by the judge in the case.). MY died on August 25, 2015, from an apparent drug overdose. But you know what? The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? The DEA raided Jeffs clinic and seized all of his computers and thousands of doses of the opioid hydrocodone. 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. Being around Young made her feel emotionally safe, she said. One January morning, officers swarmed the road outside the PreventaGenix building, guns drawn. Young wanted information about one of his enemies. Its a shame, he told me, that Young got into so much legal trouble; think of all the people he might have helped. The camera follows Young as he treats patients, talks on a local radio station, dances with women at a club, and brags about drinking. The clinic mostly offered cosmetic treatments, and it was located in a strip mall in a more industrial part of town, next to a chiropractor and a place called Genes Tire & Wrecker. 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. And doctorswho work in what is, after all, a service professionsometimes feel that its easier to pacify the patient than to push back. 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. I told him about this podcastexplained to him what a podcast was. Khazan: When Jeffs indictment became public, LeAnnlike many of his former patientswas suspicious at first. We put out calls and emails to dozens of Jeff Youngs patients. Naylor: (A sharp inhale.) They didnt openly harass anyone who criticized them. He seemed, to his former employees, constitutionally unable to deny patients the pills they wanted, even if it was the last thing they needed. Theres clear evidence that opioid manufacturers knew the drugs were addictive, yet they marketed them aggressively anyway. What a great, great, great, great song! The next year, Jeff prescribed M.Y. I just asked him. You may not like my piercings. On Instagram, photos tagged #preventagenix show Young on a motorcycle, surrounded by women. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him. If PreventaGenix staffers suspected that a patient was abusing drugs, they would sometimes try to fire the patient, by telling him or her not to return to the clinic. So what, I dont go get fucked up at the country club with the rest of the stiffs here in J-Town? To get from pharma lab to medicine cabinet, the drug needed to pass through one of the most sacred spaces in America. I talked to him a couple of weeks ago. In 2014, Jeff started seeing a patient with the initials M.Y. In 2018, a woman told police that Young put his hands down her pants during an office visit, but that apparently led to nothing. Yall partying in the office? [Chuckles.] As the nursing boards investigation of Young inched along, another agency launched its own probe into the Rock Doc. You may not like my rock and roll. I said, um, So what are yall doing after-hour? You can all suck my d***. Jeffrey " Jeff " Young (born March 31, 1962) is an American guitarist. Khazan: So, like, that doctor-patient interaction and how the opioids actually got prescribed. But Young soon revealed a blustering personality that started to overwhelm the team project. Still, the citys southernness peeks through. Like many actual rock stars, he flamed out on his own extravagant lifestyle. Then it rewinds into nothingness.). Patients say the Rock Doc helped them like no one else could. Naylor: My husband hadnt been to a doctor in years. Of the women who returned my calls, none wanted to speak on the record under her real name, but all denied that Young had sexually abused them. Young was by no means nationally or even regionally known. Early in the epidemic, Purdue gave doctors OxyContin fishing hats and swing-music CDs to encourage them to prescribe more of the drug. His black shirt collar didnt quite hide the tattoos on the back of his neck. Khazan: Ive talked to a lot of patients over the years who feel very uncomfortable around their doctors. I am sick of people only judging you by what you do in your personal life, one woman wrote on his Facebook page in September 2016, when Young was charged with assault after a woman claimed that he had screamed at her in the parking lot of his office. At Youngs practice, the quantities of opioids were larger than many investigations that I conducted, Shirley Pickering, a nursing-board investigator, later said in court. FNP Jeff Young Jr. shares his life with his fans and promotes a healthy and fun lifestyle to make you "young" at heart! The whole thing was Very Online. Yet he still attracted patients at GeneXis prior to his detention hearing in May 2019. So, no, I cant say that. As Young collected more tattoos and befriended more local bands, he began to attract a certain clientele. Part of the judges reasoning was that Youngs Facebook posts showed a propensity for violence., Young continued blogging from jail, somehow managing to write a few posts for a website that promotes medical providers rights to prescribe opioids freely. 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. They liked his plainspoken approach to medicine, a profession typically associated with jargon and elitism. Longoria: There are many pieces to the puzzle of how opioids found their way into so many medicine cabinets. This is just gonna be a little freeze spray first. You may not like my tattoos. (A snare hit plays, and the music changes tone again. I dont like him asking out my daughter But even then, I still went to him, and my ex-husband still went to him. Make and Model: The only Billboard Hot 100 entry for new wave greats The Cars with an automotive title to match their band name . Listen to the trailer for Holy Week. Scott Deberry: Everyone in his office was all white. Sound design by David Herman. ), Jeff Young: Are we live? Its joined at points by a line of harmony played on a synthesizer.). (The DEA declined to comment on Youngs case for this story.) Having hordes of fans seems to have allowed Young to buy more deeply into his own rock-and-roll fantasy, which in turn gave him the confidence to broadcast his life through even more videos and updates. Would fight, and PreventaGenix closed rockdoc jeff young after and after his divorce he quickly found girlfriends. 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