Man Charged With Practicing Psychiatry Without License

An Encino man who has for years treated a psychiatric patient for schizophrenia and prescribed drugs after his license to do so had lapsed was charged this week with eight misdemeanor violations of state laws, authorities said Friday.

Thomas Kern, 60, who lives and works in a Ventura Boulevard office suite, was charged by the city attorney’s office with six counts of illegally writing a prescription, and one count each of practicing medicine without a license and illegally misrepresenting himself as a doctor. Each charge is punishable by up to six months in jail, a $1,000 fine, or both, said Mike Qualls, spokesman for the city attorney.

A spokeswoman for the Medical Board of California said Kern has no current license to provide psychiatric care. Qualls said that Kern had previously been licensed to practice but had let the license lapse.

In a telephone interview Friday, Kern said he was licensed as a psychiatrist in the state in 1963, but he acknowledged that he let his license lapse more than five years ago because of financial and medical troubles. However, he said, he has continued to treat a handful of longtime patients.

Kern, who answered his phone identifying himself as a doctor, said he has medical disabilities, which he described as both physical and mental.

“I fall down a lot,” he said. “Also, I can’t complete things. A letter that most people would deal with quickly I would have a difficult time with. It doesn’t interfere with my treatment of patients. It interferes with my ability to collect money. I’ve treated a lot of people for free. You might call it a hang-up of mine.”

The charges against Kern grew out of a Medical Board of California investigation triggered by a complaint about Kern from the American Narcolepsy Assn. The details of the complaint were unavailable Friday.

According to a city attorney’s statement: “Investigators subsequently determined that Kern had been treating a Van Nuys man for schizophrenia over a period of years, during which he had written a number of prescriptions” for psychotropic drugs that the unnamed patient used at local pharmacies.

Kern is scheduled to be arraigned on the charges Aug. 13 in Los Angeles Municipal Court.

Kern said the charges involve a patient he has treated for 27 years. He said he agreed with investigators to stop prescribing medication and also scratched the word “Psychiatrist” and “MD” off the door to his office and home.

However, he said, he will continue to work as a counselor to his longtime patients, calling the charges against him technical violations of the law. He said he will attempt to renew his license to practice. Of state license examinations, he said: “I think my chances of passing are excellent.”