For November, a new doctor was added to City Weekly’s Doctor Discipline Database—Joseph Berg, the Orem physician who wrote 29 prescriptions for himself and was witnessed by staff taking “handsful of pills” and falling asleep standing up.---

City Weekly’s database of all discipline notices for bad doctors in the state of Utah since 2000 received two new notations for November.

David Max Anderson’s file was updated to note that he is on probation for the next five years for abusing controlled substances in October 2011.

New to the database is Orem plastic surgeon Joseph Berg, who had his license to practice and administer controlled substances revoked during an emergency meeting on Nov. 30. According to the order, Berg was arrested on Nov. 6, 2011, for having gagged and tied up an individual in his walk-in closet. Police later discovered that Berg had written 29 prescriptions for himself and was seen by staff swallowing large quantities of pills and taking syringes into the bathroom. During the summer, staff noticed his behavior had become increasingly erratic. According to the order, he would even “fall asleep standing up and his eyes would roll backwards into his head.”

He began ordering drugs that weren’t even used on patients from a medical center, including nitrous oxide tanks. One patient who came in May 2011 for a follow-up to a tummy-tuck procedure she worried was not healing right even discovered Berg passed out in the hallway.

Berg’s license to practice and administer controlled substances will remain suspended at least until the Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing can convene a formal meeting on the matter. To see what your doctor’s discipline history might be or to browse the database, visit cityweekly.net/doctors