California Man Posing As Doctor Treated Patients For Years Before Being Caught

Every now and then, you hear of cases like this. Nurses have also been impersonated. In some cases, the deception goes on for a surprising amount of time before the fraud is exposed. Some fraudulent “practitioners“ are self-taught, and may have enough medical knowledge to pass for a time. Police officers have also been impersonated. You wonder what drives the person posing as what they are not, possibly a desire for power or control over others. There’s also the money and prestige factor…
 
First off I am not defending this person.

But , The fact that this person was able to stay "in business" for such a long time, as have others ..... kind of makes me question the medical profession even further.

There are some knowledgeable people right here in our group, and some intelligent folks as well. That .... If they put there minds to it , they could read medical jourrnals,books , watch training videos and so-on. And .... become fairly well trained on just about anything .... including medicine. So, this person might set-up an official looking office , hang a few [fake] certificates on the wall and away we go. Most scripts are sent electronically , and many pharmisist are so busy that they might not question a new name.
 
Back in the early 1980's, we had a case here in my area about a doctor who became head of the gynecology department at one of our hospitals and was getting accolades from all sides for his work.

It turned out that he wasn't a doctor; he hadn't even graduated from college, never less medical school. He was just really good at faking credentials.

It was a "troubled" hospital on the verge of losing their certification and I guess they were so excited about getting someone with his sterling qualifications that they were dazzled.
 
These turkeys can get away with impersonating MDs, because the majority of medicine is rather routine. Anybody can put a Band-Aid on a boo-boo. But these quacks shorten people's lives, because they don't know what they are doing. Years ago, at my hospital, there was a resident, who was ordering bazar tests, inappropriate meds, etc. Then he was just let go, nobody knew why. 6 months later, he was on CNN in an expose of fake docs.
 
I think that if one looks closely, there's apt to be quite a difference, state to state. Some states are more lackadaisical regarding supervision of licenses as such and in many cases there populations like it this way.

If the occasional "phony" gets by without proper credentials, they assume that they, personally, won't be harmed by it. I, myself, prefer a more rigid system that I can have confidence in, more often than not.
 

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