Doctor who? | 27 June 2019

Last October, Phil Coleman, a journalist on the Carlisle-based News & Star, went to cover the trial of Zholia Alemi, a 56-year-old consultant psychiatrist who was accused of forging the will of an 84-year-old dementia patient in an attempt to inherit her £1.3 million estate. During the trial, Phil realised this complex scam could not have been the work of an amateur fraudster, and suspected previous mischief. How right he was. It turned out that Alemi had been practising in the NHS for 23 years without a medical qualification.

Originally from Iran, Alemi moved as a young woman to New Zealand where she claimed she had graduated in medicine from the University of Auckland in 1992. Yet Phil’s enquiries to the Medical Council of New Zealand confirmed that she had never qualified. After a staggered student career, Alemi had dropped out of medical school during her clinical training. Nevertheless, she went on to present forged papers to the General Medical Council (GMC) to obtain UK registration. At the time, there was a loophole which allowed certain graduates from Commonwealth countries to register with the GMC without taking our certifying Professional Linguistics and Assessment Board exam, which is designed to test knowledge, skill and competence.

Alemi was found guilty of fraud, and imprisoned for five years. But the matter must not be allowed to rest there. The GMC and the Royal College of Psychiatrists must be held to account for their part in the scandal. How could these two prestigious bodies, who are responsible for safeguarding medical standards in the UK on behalf of the general public, possibly have allowed a spoof doctor with forged documents to have deceived them for more than two decades? Not only did they register her as a medical practitioner in UK but they also let her train and take the key postgraduate examination, which allowed her to practise as a consultant psychiatrist.