A former vice dean of USC’s Keck School of Medicine testified Tuesday that he feared the school’s then-dean, Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito, “could be doing drugs” and expressed concerns about his general well-being to the university’s No. 2 administrator before Puliafito abruptly left his job in 2016.
This photo shows the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. (Credit: Robert Gauthier)
Dr. Henri Ford’s testimony at a hearing of the state Medical Board marks the first suggestion that any USC administrator had suspicions about Puliafito’s possible drug use before he stepped down. A Times investigation in 2017 found Puliafito led a secret second life of using illegal drugs with a circle of young criminals and addicts. The ex-dean testified about his behavior at the hearing Tuesday, saying he took drugs with one young woman on a weekly basis.
Ford said he decided to alert USC Provost Michael Quick after receiving reports in early 2016 that Puliafito was partying in hotels with people of “questionable reputation,” and that he came to worry about his mental stability.
Ford said he did not have “prima facie evidence of anything.” But if his concern “was credible in nature, then something needed to be done.” He did not detail his conversations with Quick but said he asked the provost “to verify everything with my sources. I know he did.”
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