Miami Beach doctor hit with 23-count indictment

Dr. Ali Shaygan, 35, of Miami Beach was arrested Monday on charges he wrote prescriptions outside the scope of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose.

[RRM]

Dr. Shaygan is my physician, and he is an excellent doctor who always takes the time to talk with me about a health question. He never 'sold' prescriptions. This article states that 2 people arrested for drugs said that he wrote the prescriptions freely. But when the DEA went in, Dr. Shaygan did physical evaluations of the agents and sent one to have an X-ray. Dr. Shaygan was one of the few doctors who was methadone certified to treat heroin addicts (like the 29 year old that OD'd). Most doctors won't touch those kinds of cases because addicts tend to overdose...which usually results in kangaroo court investigations such as this one.

[TTOM]

A druggie who took too much of a prescription, and his brother who will make a ton of money by suing the doctor. Up goes the cost of our health insurance. Maybe Timothy should have been as vocal in getting his brother into rehab as he is in making his case to the press for a $$lawsuit.

[Haven]

Legitimate pain doctors and patients suffering from chronic pain are being subjected to with hunts by overzealous DEA agents who know absolutely nothing about medicine, much less the sub-specialty of pain medicine. As someone who has suffered from intractable pain I can attest to the absurd and useless hoops legitimate patients must jump through to keep the DEA happy. Our tax dollars would be better spent by prosecuting the heads of drug cartels who import millions of tons of illegal drugs into this country than by harassing patients suffering from bone diseases, untreatable abdominal pain and terminal cancer and the drs. who treat them!

BTW - a legitimate pain patient does not abuse his prescribed medicines - addicts do. A broken ankle is a WALK IN THE PARK compared to what most chronic pain patients suffer.

[Franco]

Throw the " prescription " at him !

[How to Find One]

Want a pusher, go to the Back Page of The New Times. Listed under Pain Magement

[Ignignokt]

Malpractice insurance costs make me wonder why anyone would be a physician these days .

[a davie resident]

I like the comments of the people who actually think that "pain managment" doctors are actually doing good for the patients. When these doctors write prescriptions for what ever they want, they are adding to the addiction.

This doctor may have asked about your health needs, but did he attempt to curb your narcotics use, i'm guessing probably not.

Pharmacuetical narcotics are this country's newest drug of choice. The prescriptions have to come from somewhere, Doctors.

Just like any other job, there are bad people, and they are the ones that give the others a bad name.

[Babs]

"rescriptions"
WTF?

[WTF]

I am probating an estate right now of a 23 year old man who died of a drug overdose prescribed by a Miami doctor. He went to see the young man, and without so much as taking blood, or doing any kinds of tests, charged the decedent $650 to come to his house and write not one, not two, but FOUR, yes folks FOUR prescriptions for powerful pain killers all because the doctor was afraid that if he didn't give the decedent the drugs he would go through withdrawal. This is documented in the police report. This doctor is a glorified pusher, nothing more nothing less, and yet he is still out there practicing medicine. These guys are crooks. They don't care about the patient, they care about the MONEY!!!

[Shelly B]

I have a friend that became addicted to prescription pills and died leaving 5 beautiful kids. It's sad because she also had a drinking problem. No one got her help even when she tried to OD one time before. Instead she got more pills. I think it's so easy for doctors to prescribe pills freely for here she had pills for depression, sleeping, seizures etc. There's too many people dying from prescription pills lately. It's easy to get them than buy illegal drugs on the street. So what is that saying????

[juju]

what in the world is a rescription??

[JKPP]

Read the article. Dr. Shaygan was prescribing Methadone, which is a drug used to treat people who are already addicted to drugs like Oxycotin or Heroin. Family members always blame the doctors, because it is too painful to blame themselves for not doing something sooner. The DEA should be going after real drug dealers, not a physician who was helping an addict. Read about how methadone works. Many addicts OD on Methadone, because it does not provide the high that the old drug did, so the addict takes more. This doctor should be applauded for trying to help an addict, not sent to jail because the addict OD'd.

[Steven]

What's a rescription?

[Joe]

That "doctor" should be applauded? The scariest part of you making that statement and believing it is that you can vote.

[a davie resident]

In case you were misinformed as the case with JKPP, doctors are now prescribing Methadone as a form of a pain reliever. He, Shaygan, was not prescribing to get addicts off of opiates, rather he was prescribing an alternative to Oxycodone.

For those of you who actually believe he was doing good, he wasn't he was actually part of the problem.

If these pain management clinics were so great then why don't other states have them. Florida has the highest percentage of these clinics, and people travel from throughout the country to receive their pills here.

These types of doctors are only getting their patients addicted to medications.

[Joe]

I cannot understand how anyone can think that a doctor selling large quantity scripts without a medical examination is a good thing. That is called a drug dealer - not a doctor. And I would beg to differ with anyone who says a doctor abusing his power for profit is not a "real" drug dealer.

Our nation's drug problem has a lot more to it than just fighting the importation of cocaine. The fight against addictive drugs is much broader than that and does involve the abuse of prescription drugs. Though obviously prescription drugs serve their purpose and help millions of people every year (when they are prescribed and used properly), they cannot allowed to be abused.

I am sure those of you who "applaud" the doctor who sold prescriptions "WITH NO MEDICAL EXAMINATION" would think differently if it were your loved-one who was lost - or had a loved one who was killed by someone under the influence behind the wheel.

It also amazes me that some people's first tendency is to assume this is the DEA's fault and that the doctor is innocent - especially with a 23-count indictment. For those not familiar with the law, 23 counts means that the DEA did their homework - this wasn't just a one-time thing.

[D JR]

Though none of your misinformed comments warrant any response from someone who actually knew Brendan, I feel since he cannot defend himself, I will in his stead. Brendan was not a "heroin addict", nor a "druggie" as posted by some of the trash that obviously read the Sun Sentinel. Some people actually do get addicted to these extremely powerful pain-killers, and are aided in their addiction by crooked doctors who will do anything to find their next dollar. Mr.(not Dr.) Shaygen was addicted to the dollar the way my cousin was addicted to drugs. So hopefully his addiction will end (by spending the rest of his miserable life surrounded by you idiots) in the beautiful sunny Florida justice system. Thank you to those of you who feel for a family that lost a fantastic person and family man and does not want, nor need, any money from a lawsuit.

[a davie resident]

to add to Joe's post, an indictment means that the facts of the case were brought to a Grand Jury (ordinary people)and they found that there was cause for his arrest. Since this was in front of one jury already what would the posibility of the doctor getting convicted. I'll tell you that the likelyhood is great that he will be convicted. The doctor will probably end up pleading the case out. The feds don't bring a case to the grand jury unless they know there will be a conviction.

I just hope that this brings a message to the doctors that are preying upon the people that believe that prescriptions will not hurt them

[DR Allison]

okay well first of you do not have the right to judge what mr brendan downey did. i am only commenting this to say what jerks all of you are. i hope you know that. how would that make you feel if one of your family members overdosed? how do you know brendan did not overdoe because of wrong directions on the perscription bottle? EXACTLY YOU DONT! so how about you shut up and keep your opinions to your self because you DONT know what went through this man minds, the doctors or the family of brendan. im sure that brendan was checked into rehab. and was doing fine until this happened. so before you go along and make comments about thing you dont know anything about you think before you write something down about a subject that does NOT intrest you. and for your information people who addicted to drugs are not called "druggies" druggies are people who sit in the back of allies injecting stuff into their system. Obviously, brendan downey was not like this because he was close to his brother timothy. So there, go make comments on other peoples stories which perhaps you know some information on.

[Bystander]

Some thoughts..
1. Nowhere in the article does it state that the doctor did not do an exam. The doctor even sent one of the DEA agents to get an xray.
2.I have moved cities numerous times for work and switched doctors, and none of the doctors wanted to see my prior medical records.
3. In the article Timothy states that his brother was addicted to pain killers since a car accident in 2005.
It is not clear, but I doubt that this doctor was his brother's only doctor during those two years.
4. If the deceased was trying to break an oxycodone addiction (the same drug that made Rush Limbaugh deaf) by moving to methadone, then the doctor was prescribing a solution.
5. Where was the family during the TWO years that this 29 year old was addicted to painkillers? I am sorry for their loss, but it really is not clear that the doctor was at fault or was making large amounts of money from treating this patient. The people who stand to make a lot of money are the lawyers and the family.