And, unless I really had no other options, would definitely NOT pretend to be able to fly a plane.
But Captain William Hamman, a senior jumbo jet captain for United Airlines, has apparently been doing both. He really is a pilot.
At the same time (sort of like in Catch Me If You Can) he's been passing himself off as a doctor. Not just any doctor, but a cardiologist. And he's done training courses for the AMA, American College of Caridiology, and FAA. He's done CME lectures at accredited training programs.
Guess what? After many years of doing this, he turns out not to be a doctor at all! He never did residency, or fellowship. He briefly attended medical school in the late 1970's, but dropped out and never graduated.
And it took 30 freakin' years for someone to realize this!
Here's the story.
Thank you, Don.
18 comments:
"A hospital? What is it?"
"It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now."
In the good old days before medical regulation (mid 1900s), all you had to do was hang up a shingle. No actual degree was required.
Which explains a lot about why the mortality rates started plummeting right around the mid-1900s.
Can you do a post on how you and Mrs. Grumpy met?
Wow, my mother always wanted a doctor in the family and now I are one---that simple.
Grumpster. Round my neck of the woods they are always closing down garage dental offices.
Gee, I never thought about taking up medicine as a hobby, but it might be fun. Especially writing prescriptions!
"Caridiology"; the diagnosis of heart disease by examination of the iris?
This woman passed herself off as a nurse and a teacher, while being neither!!
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2010/11/22/calgary-brigitte-marier-nurse-teacher-impersonation.html
Will he be arrested for what he did? It seems it ought to be against the law.
Amazingly he pulled this off for so long..just exactly what did he hang in his office!?pictures of hearts and stuff? High school diploma? Took them long enoug for someone to check his dress!
I concur. Wait a minute... should I concur? Dammit. I should have concurred.
Are you a cardiologist? No, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night....
These kind of stories show up every few years and usually include a comment from a patient stating, "He was the best doctor I ever had."
Maybe I should have saved a lot of time and money by just hanging out a shingle instead of bothering with med school and residency.
Grumpy, it's too late for us now, but if your kids want to be doctors, you can save a lot of college and med school costs by taking that route.
....and then we have people flying jets without licenses as well:
http://www.thelocal.se/25330/20100303/
Considering I have to surrender my maiden name, license numbers for all states I am licensed in and my birthdate to get my CE credits to print out, the level of deception these guys manage is incredible. Almost like a completely different personality.
WV: Glyzest. Sounds like a diabetic medication that smell like citrus. Instead of gym locker or 'blackberrries'......
That's even worse than a Mongolian yak herder pretending to be a neurologist :-P
I have to say this however, that sometimes we make certain assumptions based on past presentations: Think of this..I have been giving flu shots offsite at all sorts of places of business, nursing homes, etc for several years. Not ONCE has anybody at any site asked me for any kind of credential or identification. They have made an assumption because I work for X company as a pharmacist that I must BE a pharmacist and perfectly legal to go into their place of business and stick holes in their arms and inject stuff. So may it be with this guy. Where-ever he got into FIRST never checked HIS cred's and it opened doors at other places that made the assumption that because he worked at A, he must be ok to work at B...
ps. I always carry my cred's...
The weird thing is that I am sure by now he knows a lot about cardiology!
Somewhere down near the bottom of that article, it said he didn't actually see patients, but gave seminars, wrote journal articles, and the like. I don't think you need a genuine doctorate to do that. He's still impersonating a licensed professional, though.
I note also that before all the publicity on this hit, the AMA was going to let him complete the last seminar he was signed up to give; they merely reprinted the course material with the word "Captain" instead of "Doctor". That didn't happen once word got out.
Favorite quote: "I couldn't handle a full-time cardiology practice." Well, no kidding...
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