Woman faked qualifications and worked in uk as a psychiatrist for 20 years

All you need is to be full of BS and have the brass neck to spout it.

 

It says they didn't vet her properly. This is not unique to psychiatry, many people have been found out and had their lives destroyed by their own latent lies

 

This is extraordinary. 20 years. There is something seriously wrong in this profession if this went undetected for so long. Did she not have regular professional conversations with her seniors, those in charge, her colleagues nurses etc.? Her not being properly vetted doesn't come anywhere close to an explanation for this. Methinks there is something rotten in the state of psychiatry.

 

There is no one 'senior' to a consultant as far as i'm aware. But certainly her colleagues & others should have known.

 

Think I recall a story about a nurse doing something similar?

This is worse though. Ppl may have died, had inappropriate treatment, been sectione, etc. probably didn't look any different to normal because psychiatrists wield too much power based on flimsy or non-existent evidence.

 

Well and who remembers Gert Postel.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gert_Postel

Gert Postel went to Hauptschule and finished his training as a mail carrier. Postel himself said that his mother died because of a maladministered depression treatment and that he himself had briefly been in a juvenile ward. From these events, he claimed to have gained the motivation to expose and embarrass psychiatry.

In September 1982, Postel successfully applied for the position of assistant public health officer in Flensburg using the pseudonym of "Dr. med. Dr. phil.Clemens Bartholdy". When asked about his dissertation's subject, he reportedly replied "On Pseudologia phantastica[with regard to] the example of the character Felix Krull from the homonymous novel by Thomas Mannand cognitively induced distortions in stereotypical judgment".[1]

Due to coincidence, his true identity was discovered in April 1983 and Postel had to leave his position in public service. In 1984, he received a suspended sentenceand was placed on probation for multiple instances of forgery of documents, unauthorized assumption of academic titles and forgery of health certificates. Also during the eighties, by his own account, he lived seven years in a partnership with a judge.

Other employments as a medical doctor followed, e.g. in a private clinic and as a surgeon major with the Bundeswehr.

 

Hehe, finally in UK, too. Here we already had several cases.
It says everything.

 

Appalling, but not surprising...given the status quo.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation TV program, Marketplace article last Fall, talked about fake degrees, and how there is a fake MD, and counselors operating in Canada:

https://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/epis...es-exposing-canadians-with-phoney-credentials

 

Plot twist would be if fake psychs were on average actually genuinely helpful for patients because they didn't undergo traditional training and just applied common sense and looked up meds on wikipedia between appointments. Because the few I have seen very evidently didn't do either of those things and made up their expertise as well despite - to my knowledge - being traditional MDs with proper training and all that stuff.

Probably doesn't apply to the woman from the article though, preying on demented patients is, like, totally not cool man. There is no effective psychopath screening for jobs in general, no?

 

My significant other said "Clearly, there is no discernible difference."

 

Well, out on a limb here but the fact that the person didn't have the degree while not a good thing it doesn't mean they didn't know what they were doing IMO. People can learn outside the classroom (where they pick up bad habits) and can learn as they go from their peers.

There are some job situations that make this dangerous but if they were very good at their job (which I think is at least possible) they might have avoided all the numbing stupidity that gets inculcated like it's written on stone tablets never to be revised).

The learning/work environment some professions are entrenched in can have a feed back of stifled thinking.
That said, if a person doesn't want to get caught out they may keep their head down so to speak and not rock the boat so who knows.

I'm just not convinced that going to school and writing the tests is what makes for a good . . . whatever.

 

That seems to be the case for Gerd Postel, from what I have heard.

 

It's all about 'foreign' doctors on the BBC though isn't it? And the GMC are as bad. Looks to me like this was only discovered because of her later actions and the GMC are only reviewing current 'foreign' doctor registrations because of media campaigns:

 

Kind of makes you wonder what difference the qualifications make. (Sorry to all those good psychs - it's a tongue in cheek comment).

 

I once worked with someone who faked being an enrolled actuary for several years. Finally someone noticed his enrollment number was missing a digit or two. For years people just assumed it was an older number.

 

You'd think that performance reviews and CPD accreditation and other training she received might have indicated she wasn't qualified. But then as she wasn't for example performing surgery - where I assume the chance of mistakes being noticed is higher - perhaps with things like psychology and psychiatry, once you are in the door nobody really notices? Very worrying.