George C. Nichopoulos

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George Constantine Nichopoulos (1927 -) also known as "Dr. Nick" was an American doctor, of Greek descent. He is most well known as Elvis Presley's physician.

He was said to have pumped Presley so full of prescription drugs in his later years that it ruined the singer's health and eventually killed him^{[citation needed]}, though Dr. Nichopoulos himself claims that he had tried his best to reduce the amount of drugs administered to Presley.

In 1977 alone, Dr. Nick had prescribed 10,000 hits^{[citation needed]} of amphetamines, barbiturates, narcotics, tranquilizers, sleeping pills, laxatives, and hormones for Presley. Dr. Nichopoulos claimed he had tried in vain to reduce Elvis' dependency, even going so far as to manufacture one thousand placebos for Elvis^{[citation needed]}, but to no avail. Elvis had a multitude of other doctors all too willing to fill his prescriptions, and many times Dr. Nichopoulos reportedly tried to stop this.

1 Career
2 Legal Battles
3 Trivia
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Career

Dr. Nichopoulos earned his MD at Vanderbilt University Medical School in 1959. He began treating Elvis in 1967, and took it on as a full time job in 1970 until Elvis' death in 1977. He returned to practice after his legal trial, and in 1985, he started a solo practice called We Care, Inc. After he was stripped of his credentials in 1995, Dr Nick worked for a short time as Jerry Lee Lewis's road manager. He later took a job evaluating medical insurance claims by FedEx employees, where he still works today, paying off his many legal bills.

[edit] Legal Battles

In 1980, he was indicted on 14 counts of overprescribing drugs to Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, as well as twelve other patients. The district-attorney ruled out murder charges because of the conflicting medical opinions about the cause of death of Presley. The jury concluded that he had tried to act in the best interests of his patients. He was acquitted on all counts. Also in 1980, the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners found him guilty of overprescription, but decided that he was not unethical. They gave him three months' suspension of his licence and three years' probation.

In 1992 his license was to be revoked, but due to a long court case it wasn't until three years later that he had his license permanently suspended by the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners, again for overprescription. Dr. Nichopoulos claimed it was for patients that suffered from inoperable chronic pain, but he was unsuccessful in his defense. During his many appeals, Dr Nick admitted to the board that he had overprescribed. 'I cared too much,' he told them. During his court cases many friends supported him, raising money and holding benefits to pay for court costs.

[edit] Trivia

The character of Dr. Nick Riviera, from The Simpsons, an unscrupulous and unqualified doctor, is said to be loosely based on him.^{[citation needed]}
A fundraiser for his legal costs was to be headlined by his former patient Jerry Lee Lewis, but Lewis never showed up.