Faking a medical degree
- Thread starter MonaLeigh
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I hear of it happening on the news every now and again, so it must be possible. There was some guy a few years back in the NYC area who was giving people lipo and other kinds of plastic surgery without a degree.
I think it would be very hard in modern times. In every state, you have to have a license to practice medicine. The state board, which issues the licenses, checks qualifications carefully, including I.D. and transcripts. Hospitals, clinics, etc. would check the license before hiring a doctor.
I guess you might get away with not having a license in a private practice, but I suspect not for very long.
The only way I can figure for this to happen in modern times is identity theft. If Joe Schmoe is a doctor, and you steal his identity, then his credentials would check out and you might be successful. At least for a time.
I guess you might get away with not having a license in a private practice, but I suspect not for very long.
The only way I can figure for this to happen in modern times is identity theft. If Joe Schmoe is a doctor, and you steal his identity, then his credentials would check out and you might be successful. At least for a time.
Yes, I was going to suggest that or something similar as well. It very definitely does happen in this day and age and they don't check qualifications all the time. In the past year there have been two different investigative programs that profiled specific cases where this occurred. I'm sure some of them will pop up with Google or www.dogpile.com or http://www.metacrawler.com/
Good luck,
Diane
PS: I also tried your terminology in a search at metacrawler.com using "faking medical degree" and came up with a whole new set of responses you may also find helpful.
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I have the dubious honor of living in the city where the comatose woman gave birth, following a rape by a nursing home orderly who'd been among the staff caring for her. (She has since died.)
It came out during the trial that the rapist ran a gynecological clinic from his home. He had a table with stirrups and everything. He did exams and counseled about birth control methods. (He performed no procedures, including pap smears and abortion, and gave no prenatal care, thank god.) What amazed me was that it was a thriving business, with a waiting list of women who wanted appointments.
An orderly. Not even a nurse.
Maryn, shaking her head
It came out during the trial that the rapist ran a gynecological clinic from his home. He had a table with stirrups and everything. He did exams and counseled about birth control methods. (He performed no procedures, including pap smears and abortion, and gave no prenatal care, thank god.) What amazed me was that it was a thriving business, with a waiting list of women who wanted appointments.
An orderly. Not even a nurse.
Maryn, shaking her head
There was a short story that goes into detail about this in a recent issue of McSweeney's. It's fiction, obviously, but worth a read. It was called "The Strange Career of Doctor Raju Gopalarajan."
This happened here in NY, too. An orderly raped a comatose woman and got her pregnant. I'm not sure what happened to the woman after she gave birth.