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Man pretending to be doctor arrested at hospital

Healthcare Security Weekly, June 9, 2008

Police arrested a 27-year-old man who posed as an emergency department physician at a Georgia hospital.

The man, who even fooled his wife into believing he was a doctor, was arrested May 18 at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. The man’s wife told WSB-TV Channel 2 that her husband told her he was a doctor, as well as an electrical engineer. The wife dropped the man off at the hospital in the morning from March until May after he told her he had gotten a job in the emergency department.

He was arrested after a nurse, acting on her suspicions, reported him to hospital security, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Security officers confronted him in the emergency department where he was dressed in surgical garb. He had been a fixture at the hospital for at least six weeks, hanging out in various waiting rooms, doctor’s lounges, and in the doctor’s library, the newspaper said.

"It's very clear he was here to hit on women," a Piedmont spokeswoman told the newspaper. When caught, he was wearing an official badge that was stolen from a doctor, on which he had taped over a picture of himself. He possessed other stolen hospital property that would help him look the part of a physician, including a cellphone, a doctor's on-call pager, an electronic door swipe card, and vial of medicine, the report said.
He was charged with identify fraud, receiving stolen property, and credit card theft. The hospital told Channel 2 that there was no evidence that the man ever came into contact with patients.

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