College alone these days is very expensive. Now, add grad school on to that, and I don’t care what you are going to make in the profession in which you were just trained, you are going to be in a whole lot of debt when you get out of school. Then, you have to go through the whole resume, interview process. And let’s face it, that is no fun. Which is why I think the teenager in the following story has the right idea: just skip the schooling portion of job placement. And while you are at it, just skip through the whole application process too. How do you do that? Just show up to the place you want to work, and blend in. Probably no one will ask you if you are supposed to be there.

Courtesy of Giphy.

To learn more, let’s examine St. Mary’s Medical Center in, of course, Florida–because that is where all these stories happen. A young doctor was recently escorted out of the building by security because, well he wasn’t actually a doctor so much as a teenage boy wearing a doctor’s coat.

Ok. Well, he tried and didn’t succeed. The way security is these days and the importance of safe hospitals means you couldn’t get away with such a scam for very long.  I mean, like in this story, the kid only got away with posing as a doctor for about 20 or 30…days. That is right. A month.

To be fair to the hospital, he didn’t actually work with patients in his month on staff. In fact, it was when he stepped up his game and actually went into an exam room, with a stethoscope around his neck and a mask on his face, and introduced himself as Doctor Robinson (and didn’t follow it with “I’m not a doctor, I only play one on TV”), that he got caught.

One of the real doctors noticed him and thought something wasn’t right. So he called security, who was surprised that the kid was faking it–as they had seen him around the last few weeks and thought he belonged there.

Here is the thing about this story that makes me feel a little bad about making fun of it: the kid, according to his mother, had an illness for which he had stopped taking medication. And I cannot joke about that. However, here is the part that make me feel perfectly fine joking about it: we know the kid’s excuse for doing this. What was the hospital’s excuse for not catching this kid faster? That I can make fun of.  And that is probably a big part of why the center will not be pressing charges.

This story has been told far and wide, and there is a good chance you have already heard about it. So you might be asking yourself just why I didn’t make that one obvious connection that everyone is making. And I will tell you why. Because everyone is making it, and I want to be a little more unique than that. So I will not say a word. I’ll just leave you with this picture, which will say a thousand words for me:

Courtesy of FanPop.

Ashley Shaw

Ashley Shaw is an Alabama native and current New Jersey resident. A graduate of both Kennesaw State University and Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, she spends her free time reading, writing, boxing, horseback riding, playing trivia, flying helicopters, playing sports, and a whole lot else. So maybe she has too much spare time. Contact Ashley at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Doctor Who? Teen Tricks Hospital For an Entire Month appeared first on Law Street.

Hey y’all!

Remember when Neil Patrick Harris played Doogie Howser, M.D in the early 90s? A teenager who was so brilliant that he had gone through medical school and was practicing medicine by age 14, but also went through two occurrences of pediatric cancer.

Recently a 17-year-old boy in Florida posed as a doctor for about a month without anyone even noticing. According to reports, a patient at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach informed staff that a juvenile was dressed in a lab coat and was inside an OB/GYN exam room. The young man was not in the exam room alone, he was with a patient and another doctor. My first question is why did this other doctor allow him in the room? Shouldn’t the real doctor know the other doctors in the department? If I were that patient I would feel really violated and consider suing the hospital.

I’ve spent my fair share of time with doctors and whenever one has someone tag along at an appointment, he introduces me and explains why the other doctor is in the room with us. It’s usually an intern or a new doctor to the department who is being trained to work with patients. This was not one of those instances, this was no Doogie Howser!

The mother of the young man posing as a doctor states that her son is under the care of a doctor but is not taking his medication; his illness is undisclosed.

Police in West Palm Beach have opted not to charge the young man with anything. Not much information can be released due to the boy’s age and I am sure there is a great reason for not charging him but I would certainly have an issue with that hospital.

What’s even more interesting is that another 17 year old, Matthew Scheidt, was charged and found guilty of impersonating a physician’s assistant and practicing medicine without a license back in 2012, also in Florida. That teen was convicted and faces up to 25 years in prison.

In both situations the teenage boys were said to have mental illness, so why did one get off scot-free and the other didn’t?

Allison Dawson

Allison Dawson was born in Germany and raised in Mississippi and Texas. A graduate of Texas Tech University and Arizona State University, she’s currently dedicating her life to studying for the LSAT. Twitter junkie. Conservative. Get in touch with Allison at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Florida Teen Who Pretended to Be a Doctor Won’t Face Charges appeared first on Law Street.