Dr. David Procter Character Analysis

A flashy, flamboyant doctor from Canada. In the beginning of his medical career, Procter appeared legitimately interested in giving pain patients the relief they needed. Whatever sense of ethics Procter possessed at the beginning of his medical career, however, was swiftly eroded over the course of the 1980s and 1990s as opiates were normalized and as increasing numbers of patients demanded what they saw as their “right” to painlessness. Procter opened his Plaza Health Center, a pain clinic, in South Shore, Kentucky in 1979. Appointments at Procter’s clinic were quick, and as the years went on, increasingly lacked any legitimate attempts at diagnoses. Procter was an early advocate of newly destigmatized opiate painkillers, and he prescribed these addictive pills for pains of all sorts, including leg pains and arthritis. An underground business soon developed of obtaining pills from Procter and selling them for a profit. By 1996, the Plaza Health Center was considered to be America’s first pill mill. Patients from out of state drove for hours to be prescribed painkillers by Procter. His waiting room was always packed, and lines of patients regularly spilled out into the street. After a car accident rendered him unable to practice medicine, Procter hired doctors to continue running clinics throughout the region. In 2002, he pled guilty to drug trafficking and conspiracy and was incarcerated in federal prison.