My school was notorious for cutthroat pre-meds who stole practice exams from the library reserves and purposely gave out wrong answers to problem sets. It got so bad that our organic chemistry department had to stop giving grades based on yields because people would sabotage each other's labs. Sound familiar?
Also, I read this article a while ago... this is totally shocking to me. The abridged cut and paste is below:
Man is accused of lying his way into surgical residencies and medical jobs before a background check revealed a history of deceit.
June 3, 1998
BY DAVID MIGOYA
AND JOE SWICKARD
Free Press Staff Writers
Dennis Roark was living his dream.
Fascinated with medicine since he tried to piece together an animal skeleton as a child, Roark set his sights on becoming a doctor.
Roark left Garden City West High School in 1976, and told beaming parents that he attended Wayne State University, earning undergraduate degrees in chemistry and biology in 1981.
The next step was Rush University Medical College in Chicago. For four years, the Roarks faithfully put their son on the Chicago-bound train and met him when he said he was returning on breaks.
Armed with his 1986 Rush diploma, he claimed he dazzled in postgraduate research, earned a doctorate and did residencies in Ohio, Michigan and Canada, where he participated in or observed hundreds of procedures ranging from amputations to heart bypasses.
In late 1997, Roark -- now married with an infant daughter -- sought membership in a Lansing surgical practice.
But Roark's dream life came undone when Dr. Linda Nash looked over his application to the Lansing practice and picked up a telephone.
Instead of a job offer from the practice, Michigan State Police Detective Jerrold Williams delivered an arrest warrant through the door of Roark's modest Sterling Heights town house in May.
After nearly 20 years, Roark's carefully crafted career lay shattered and exposed as a vast concoction of deceit, exaggeration and deception that could put him in prison for 14 years, authorities charge.
Instead of an honored healer, authorities now think that Roark, 39, is a college dropout who used a bogus medical degree and doctored records to fool his family, state officials, hospital training programs and patients.
"It seems," said Nash, "that he had perpetuated a rather long-standing hoax."
Roark's undoing
Dr. Linda Nash, a physician with the center, took Roark's application and began to verify it line by line. Three hours of telephone calls undid Roark's years of alleged sham.
Alarm bells started going off with Nash's first check -- Roark was not on a computerized roster of medical school graduates.
But, Nash said, she knew that glitches can happen so she dialed up Rush Medical College and spoke with registrar Joe Swihart.
No Dr. Roark graduated in 1986 or any other year, Swihart told her.
"So I faxed a copy of his diploma to Rush and the registrar called back and said this clearly was not authentic," Nash said.
She next called McKenzie in Canada at a number listed on Roark's application and left two messages on an answering machine.
Something was clearly amiss, and Nash notified Attorney General Frank Kelley's office.
The next day, Nash said she learned that Roark had called, saying he was withdrawing his application to accept a job in Ohio.
When McKenzie failed to return her calls after three days, Nash decided to try him at the school rather than the number on Roark's resume.
She got right through to him.
"He told me he did not have voice mail" and knew nothing of the phone number listed on Roark's application, Nash said.
After months of investigation, the Michigan Attorney General's office obtained a warrant for Roark's arrest, charging him with forgery and fraud in connection with this medical licensing.
Last month, Detective Williams arrested Roark at his home as his stunned wife, Deborah, holding their infant daughter, begged and cried for an explanation.
Roark was quiet. The dream was over.
so lets hear your stories!
