18-year-old Malachi Love-Robinson of West Palm Beach, Florida was arrested this week for practicing medicine without a license. The teen recently opened the New Birth, New Life Alternative Medicine and Urgent Care Clinic, a “high-quality Holistic and Alternative Medical care” facility where police say he misled patients into thinking he was a licensed medical doctor.
On his Health Grades profile, Love-Robinson—or “Dr. Love,” as he’s known to his fake med school friends—claims to be 25 years old and to specialize in neuropathy. He was previously busted in 2015 for posing as a doctor in a pregnant woman’s exam room at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach. The hospital ultimately did not press charges as Love-Robinson did not treat any patients.
Local ABC news affiliate WPBF began investigating Love-Robinson in January of 2016, after learning that he had opened his own clinic.
“So many physicians speak to me and they’re just in awe,” he told WPBF reporter Terri Parker last month. “And it’s not because I’m a great person and not because I’m some miracle from heaven sent. It’s just because I have a passion for helping people.”
Too bad the Department of Health doesn’t share these physicians’ sense of wonder. Love-Robinson was arrested this Tuesday following an undercover operation by the DoH, which determined that the young man—who’s previously defended himself by claiming that he’s a naturopathic doctor, not a medical doctor (NDs do not need licensing in Florida)—was willfully presenting himself as an MD to patients.
His arrest occurred on Tuesday, WPBF reports, after “Love-Robinson took [an undercover Sheriff agent’s] temperature, blood pressure and listened to her lungs with a stethoscope on her back, and assured her she was not sick. She said he also gave her medical advice.”
“I’m hurt because of all of these allegations,” he told WPBF as he was led out of the building. “This is not the first time I have been accused, and I will pursue this.”
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Images via Facebook/WPBF Sheriff’s Department.
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