RICH

Disciplinary Action against Joseph Rich, M.D.

The Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners has suspended the license of Joseph E. Rich, M.D. for at least one year beginning in February 2008. Rich, who acquired his Tennessee license in 1995, did business as the Center for Environmental and Integrative Medicine in Knoxville. In 1999, he was disciplined after a finding that in 1997 he had taken a ten-day Canadian vacation, leaving pre-signed prescriptions with an 18-year-old receptionist who filled out at least eleven prescriptions for patients seeking the weight-loss drugs Fenfluromine and Phenterine. He was assessed $1,100, placed on two years’ probation, and ordered to have a psychiatric evaluation and be followed by the Tennessee Medical Foundation Impaired Physician Program (TMF). In 2002, the board concluded that Rich had violated the 1999 order …