Thursday, December 16, 2010

William Hamman: Wisconsin’s flying fake cardiologist sailed past many who easily could have caught him | Reporting on Health

How did William Hamman, the United Airlines pilot who faked being a cardiologist, get away with it?

By speaking with authority and knowing that nobody, including the Wisconsin Medical Examining Board, was going to bother to fact-check his résumé.

Hamman, 58, did have a license to fly. But he did not have a medical degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as he had claimed, nor any certification in cardiology. Marilynn Marchione at the Associated Press reported that he had been faking his cardiology credentials, prompting a lot of powerful people to say, basically, “He seemed so smart.”

Well, smart doesn’t give you the right to practice on people. And he could have been stopped a lot sooner.

Great reporting job by William Heisel.

Posted via email from Jack's posterous

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