Sneak Preview: Prescription for Pain by Philip Eil
The local freelance writer tells the story about a massive “pill mill” scheme in southern Ohio that was run by his father's former classmate, Dr. Paul Volkman.
Author Philip Eil. Photo by Cat Laine.
Providence-based freelance journalist, Philip Eil (who has written for this magazine), spent years looking into his father’s old classmate from college and medical school — who was also a high school valedictorian — Paul Volkman. Volkman was a doctor who came under fire for several malpractice suits, then became the central figure in a massive “pill mill” scheme in southern Ohio. His pain clinics accepted only cash, employed armed guards and dispensed opioid painkillers that were linked to the overdose deaths of at least thirteen patients. Here, Eil shares how his book (to be released in April from Steerforth Press) came together.
How did you come up with the idea for your book?
Back in 2009, when I was twenty-three years old, I learned that one of my dad’s med-school classmates had been charged with a massive prescription-drug-dealing scheme. His name was Paul Volkman, and for nearly three years in the mid-2000s, he had worked in a series of cash-only pain clinics in southern Ohio, near the Kentucky border. Volkman was one of the country’s top prescribers of opiate painkillers and, when he was federally indicted in 2007, prosecutors alleged that his prescribing had led to more than a dozen overdose deaths. When I learned about the case, I was immediately fascinated. What on earth had happened to this guy? My dad had fallen out of touch with Volkman after medical school, and he had few answers about what had happened in the decades since then. It was a mystery. And as a hungry young journalist, I was motivated to learn more.
What made you want to investigate further into Dr. Volkman and what did you discover that hasn’t been told?
On paper, Volkman and my dad are quite similar. Both are nerdy, Jewish guys from the East Coast with MD/PhDs from the University of Chicago. But at some point, their lives diverged dramatically. My dad went into medical research and, later, pivoted to a private endocrinology practice here in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Volkman, meanwhile, became a convicted drug dealer who is now spending four consecutive life terms in federal prison. At a basic level, I wanted to understand how two guys with such similar backgrounds could wind up in such different places. To your second question: before this book (and my 2017 article about the case in Cincinnati Magazine), the Volkman case was only lightly covered in the press. So I’d say that most of the story hasn’t been told, including a thorough narrative of Volkman’s biography before his criminal activity, a detailed accounting of his crimes and the people who were impacted, and an in-depth look at his criminal trial in federal court in 2011.
How long did this reporting take you and how many people did you interview?
By the time the book comes out, I will have spent fifteen years on this project. Though I wasn’t working exclusively on the book during that time; I’ve done a lot of other things professionally since 2009. I spent eighteen months working full-time as the news editor and staff writer at the Providence Phoenix. As an adjunct English and writing instructor, I taught classes at various local colleges for almost a decade. And I’ve also done a lot of work as a freelance journalist, including contributing to Rhode Island Monthly. But with that said, I have spent a lot of time on this project. I’ve been to Ohio ten times to report on the region where Volkman’s crimes took place. I’ve tracked down thousands of pages of documents from various points in Volkman’s career. And I interviewed more than 150 people, including Volkman, his two grown children, multiple former classmates, numerous experts on pain treatment and addiction, trial jurors, law enforcement officials and dozens of family members of Volkman’s deceased patients.
How did you track down your sources and fact-check information?
I used every available tool to track down sources for this book. I called county clerks to get records from Volkman’s malpractice lawsuits that preceded his criminal activity. I combed through online newspaper archives. I downloaded thousands of pages from PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), the online database for federal court documents. I used Facebook, LinkedIn and Ancestry.com. I sent old-fashioned “snail mail” query letters. And all of this was in addition to old-fashioned “shoe leather” reporting, which involved traveling to southern Ohio and elsewhere, conducting interviews and asking my interviewees, “Who else should I talk to?” In terms of fact-checking, in many ways this book is one long fact-check. I had no shortage of Volkman’s version of the story: transcripts from over fifteen hours of our in-person interviews, hundreds of pages of written and emailed correspondence, and other things he has said or written over the years. But he is a deeply unreliable narrator. And all of the other reporting I did — the archival research, the interviews, the traveling and more — was an effort to piece together an independent, comprehensive account of his actions. Throughout the book, I tell my readers Volkman’s version of a particular event, and then I share what I learned from other documents and people, which was often strikingly different.
How did you get engaged in a FOIA battle with the Drug Enforcement Administration?
Volkman’s trial took place in federal court in Cincinnati, from March to May 2011. Eighty witnesses testified: seventy for the prosecution and ten for the defense. Prosecutors also submitted hundreds of exhibits, including photos and videos from the clinics, prescription slips, death certificates, autopsy reports and records of Volkman’s interactions with patients. I eventually got my hands on a transcript, which was more than 4,000 pages. But accessing the evidence turned out to be much harder. When the trial ended and I asked to see the evidence, I was repeatedly told “no.” Court clerks, the prosecutor and even the judge all denied my request to see the evidence. Eventually, it became clear that the Freedom of Information Act was my only option. So, in early 2012, I submitted a request. The Drug Enforcement Administration — the agency that investigated Volkman — took years to fulfill the request and withheld or redacted most of the material I was seeking. I’m sure my colleagues in the Rhode Island media will remember how eager I was to talk about this unfulfilled FOIA request. Because I was so invested in this project, and because I was only seeking evidence that had been previously shown in open court, I wasn’t willing to accept “no” for an answer. And when I reached out to the Rhode Island ACLU for help, they agreed that it was unacceptable, and connected me with two pro bono attorneys, who helped me sue the DEA in federal court here in Rhode Island. In time — nothing moves quickly in the world of FOIA — our lawsuit pried loose thousands of pages of trial evidence, and those documents were vital to writing this book.
After writing your book, what is your opinion about Dr. Volkman and why he did what he did?
Volkman maintained his innocence throughout our years of interviews and correspondence. But I didn’t find much evidence to support these claims. Nor did I find him, overall, to be a very sympathetic person. He’s certainly a smart man. But he’s also angry, bitter and cynical; quick to blame other people for his problems; conspicuously lacking in empathy; and prone to grandiosity. And I think when you combine his personality traits with the ability to prescribe controlled substances and a desperation to make money — which was the case in 2003 when he first started working in cash-only pain clinics — then you can understand why the judge in his case called him a “truly dangerous man” at his sentencing. I might have been interested in this story as a stand-alone character study. But what further held my attention for all of these years was the context of Volkman’s crimes. His crimes mostly took place in a town — Portsmouth, Ohio — that, even before his arrival, had earned the nickname the “OxyContin Capital of the World.” And Volkman was also working in an era when the medical community was bullish about treating pain with opiates. As we now know, and as popular shows like “Dopesick” (on Hulu) and “Painkiller” (on Netflix) depict, a lot of people made money at this time by doing unscrupulous, dangerous things in the name of pain treatment. Paul Volkman was one of them. philipeil.com
Prescription for Pain is scheduled for release on April 9, 2024. Pre-order the book from any local, independent Rhode Island bookstore or on Bookshop.org.
