NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Women thought he was a doctor who would treat their infertility issues to have children.

However, a NewsChannel 5 investigation revealed that he was not a doctor – in fact, he did not have a license to practice medicine.

But the Tennessee Department of Health decided not to take any enforcement action against the man who called himself a doctor, saying it did not have sufficient evidence that what he did was illegal.

Today, former patients like Lauren Miller are confused and angry.

When Miller was trying to get pregnant last year, she had three separate appointments with Farere Dyer.

“When he walked into the room, he said, ‘Hey, I’m Dr. Dyer,’ and then he sat down in one of those little rolling chairs,” Miller said.

And she wasn’t the only one.

When we met with former patients of the now-closed Reproductive Health Center this summer, we asked the room full of women: “OK, first question. By a show of hands, how many of you were patients of Farere Dyer?”

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The hands then went up.

Bethann Daugherty was one of the women at that meeting.

“He introduced himself as Dr. Dyer and everyone called him Dr. Dyer at the clinic,” Daugherty said.

Dyer had worked at the Center for Reproductive Health for four years.

But after the Nashville fertility clinic abruptly closed last April, our investigation initially revealed that Dyer was not a doctor or any other licensed health care professional.

“I really felt like I had been betrayed,” Miller said, remembering how she felt after seeing our initial report.

She said she immediately filed a complaint with the Tennessee Department of Health, as many other Dyer patients have done.

“Has anyone from the Department of Health ever contacted you? Called you to ask what Farere Dyer did to you (after you filed your complaint)?” we asked Miller.

“No,” she told us.

Yet six months later, the Department of Health has just sent a form letter to the women who filed complaints, saying its investigation found “there was insufficient evidence to conclude that Farere Dyer was practicing medicine in Tennessee without a license.”

The Tennessee Department of Health further explained in the letter that it had decided to “close (the investigation) without further action” against Dyer.

“I didn’t understand how that was possible,” Miller said.

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Patients like Miller cannot believe the Tennessee Department of Health’s findings because according to the Department of Health’s online license search portal, Farere Dyer does not and has never had a medical license from the Tennessee.

And according to the patients’ medical records, he was their “doctor.”

“To me it seems quite black and white. You (Dyer) were treating us, at least me in particular. You (Dyer) were treating me. So how can you (the Ministry of Health) say that you (the Ministry of Health) of Health) didn’t do it. “Didn’t I find out that he was treating patients without a license?” Miller wondered.

But the Tennessee Department of Health defended its decision by citing Tennessee Medical Board policy that allows doctors with Tennessee medical licenses to delegate certain services to employees who are not licensed physicians.

That policy also stated that these delegated tasks were to be “routine technical services,” things like “taking vital signs, histories, assisting with minor procedures, and responding to patient calls.”

“When you take us into a room and you go over our results with us and you say, ‘OK, this is what’s happening here, and this is how I’m going to help you deal with this’ ( as Miller suggested Dyer did), it’s a whole other level of practice for me,” Miller said.

Dyer also performed intrauterine inseminations on women as well as even more complex procedures, according to medical records of other patients,

Earlier, we asked Sarah Davis, another former patient of Dyer, about her experience.

“How many IUIs did you have there?”

“Two,” she replied.

“And who performed them?” we asked.

“They were both Dr. Dyer,” Davis told us.

Another former patient, Mary Schacher, described another experience to us that included putting her to sleep.

“Dr. Dyer ‘put me to sleep’ during my first IVF egg retrieval, so that’s like invasive and such in itself, and putting catheters in and putting someone under.”

As we reported, the Davidson County Prosecutor’s Office was considering criminal charges against Dyer for his actions, but sources tell us the reason charges were never filed was because the Department of Health of Tennessee asked prosecutor Glenn Funk to drop the case.

“At what point is Dyer going to be held accountable for what he did? His role, you know, in knowingly treating these patients without authorization? Where is that accountability?” » asked Miller.

Miller added that the Tennessee Department of Justice’s decision in this case sets a “very bad precedent,” and she wonders what would stop anyone else from now presenting themselves as a doctor as Dyer did.

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“It’s like he’s walking free from Scotland,” Miller said.

The Tennessee Department of Health declined our request for an interview, but in its letter to patients it stated that Dyer’s actions were not his fault, but rather the fault of his boss, Dr. Jaime Vasquez, the medical director of the fertility clinic who delegated the tasks to Dyer.

The department said its investigation into Dr. Vasquez continues.

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