U of Kentucky Psychiatrist Robert E. Simon Dismissed from Juvenile Justice Position over Drug Incident

March 21, 2023

A psychiatrist who worked with youths in custody at the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) was relieved of his duties in January after he was caught on video pouring the contents of an Adderall capsule into his mouth and then going to sleep in the Breathitt Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Jackson, according to state records.

Dr. Robert E. Simon, 54, was part of the medical team provided to DJJ through the agency’s two-year, $382,655 contract with University of Kentucky HealthCare. Simon is paid $205,000 a year as an associate professor of psychiatry at the UK College of Medicine, with a practice area of child and adolescent psychiatry. He did not respond this week to a request seeking comment for this story.

On Jan. 5, DJJ Commissioner Vicki Reed sent an email to UK HealthCare to report an “incident with Dr. Simon,” according to state records obtained by the Herald-Leader. “The nurse at DJJ’s Breathitt RJDC found an empty pill capsule on the floor and used a pill identifier to determine it was an Adderall,” Reed said.

Adderall, which contains amphetamines, is a prescription drug used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and narcolepsy.

“My understanding is when Dr. Simon was informed of the pill capsule, he stated he had picked up his daughter’s prescription and must have dropped one,” Reed wrote. “Staff viewed the video and reported Dr. Simon can be seen tearing a capsule in half and pouring it into his mouth. He then goes asleep.”

“They believe after he took it, he tried to put the capsule in his pocket and missed, which is how it was found to be on the floor,” Reed wrote.

Reed said the episode would be referred to internal investigators at the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, which oversees DJJ.

In the meantime, Simon’s psychiatric services no longer are needed, Reed told UK HealthCare. His ties with DJJ remained severed as of this week, an agency spokeswoman said Tuesday. Simon continues to be a licensed doctor in Kentucky and on the faculty at UK, according to state records.

“UK HealthCare did not investigate this matter,” UK spokeswoman Kristi Willett said. Instead, it was referred to the Kentucky Physicians Health Foundation, “which reviewed and acted accordingly,” Willett said.

The Kentucky Physicians Health Foundation provides professional treatment for doctors impaired by drug or alcohol addiction or mental health, cognitive or medical issues. The Herald-Leader also obtained several hundred pages of Simon’s DJJ emails from 2022 as he was treating mentally ill youths held in detention around Kentucky.

In his emails, Simon sounds sympathetic toward his patients and frustrated by the deteriorating living conditions inside the under-staffed DJJ facilities, where violence and neglect had become commonplace. Teen-aged boys and girls kept in isolation for extended periods acted bizarrely — undressing, attacking the bed and walls in their cells, talking to imaginary people and soiling themselves.

“I had to remove his mattress again because he was fighting with it. When I asked him why he doing that, he told me it was ‘Gavin and ‘He won’t leave me alone,’” one youth worker wrote to Simon in October about a teen-aged boy held in isolation for several days.

“I have noticed that I haven’t seen him blink his eyelids at all,” the youth worker continued. “At times he has a very glossed over stare and his pupils will dilate at a random time.”

In a July 27 email to a juvenile detention center superintendent, Simon said some of the youths with “significant psychosis” need to be admitted to hospitals, but “hospitals in our state more often than not will not accept our youth who have any history of violent behavior.”

When medications were withheld from youths, Simon protested. The guardian for one youth already had pressed an emergency contempt citation against DJJ in Harrison County because of the agency’s failure to provide medical care while in custody, Simon noted.

“This is a medication that should NOT be started and stopped,” Simon wrote Nov. 16 to DJJ nurse administrator Deborah Curry after chaos at the DJJ facility in Adair County, including a riot, led to a breakdown in services.

“I totally understand it’s not your fault and you are doing the best you can with what is taking place there,” Simon told Curry. Referring to a particular youth, Simon added, “I would be concerned once his lawyer hears about it, they could possibly try to file contempt charges again.”

In October, Simon repeatedly wrote to a UK HealthCare colleague, Dr. William Heffron, who was chief of mental health services for DJJ, to say he felt overwhelmed by his DJJ duties, especially with a decline in the availability of medical residents to assist.

At least five youths at the newly reopened juvenile detention center in Campbell County had been in custody for over 30 days without being seen by a medical professional, making it “out of compliance,” Simon wrote.

“I am very swamped myself,” Simon wrote.

“I think I now have set an all-time record for number of youths at Lake Cumberland on [redacted] meds,” he told Heffron. “And last week they referred me EIGHT new kids.”

“Wow!” Heffron replied.

Source: John Cheves, “Doctor removed from KY juvenile justice agency after video shows ‘incident’ with pill,” Lexington Herald-Leader, Mar. 13, 2023, URL: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article272885135.html