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'Psychiatrist' Zholia Ameli Caught Out After Twenty-Two Years

Eponastill

Eponastill

Justified & Ancient
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They were talking about this on the PM programme (Radio 4) this evening. It's about 27 to 32 minutes in:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00017r2
or you can read about the case here for example https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ew-foreign-doctors-commonwealth-a8640981.html
She had done a year of medical training in NZ but then come to Britain and got a job claiming to be a doctor. And only got caught out because they were investigating her for fraud (involving someone's will) 22 years later.

The newspaper article doesn't reflect it, but I thought they captured quite a fortean slant in the radio interview, because the interviewer asks whether some professions are easier to get away with. (He mentioned that surely a surgeon or a welder would soon be exposed). Partly his point was that because lots of what goes on in psychiatry is between the doctor and the patient, that no-one else might notice. But the guy being interviewed wasn't really having this, he put forward that most people who want a kick out of faking stuff would rather be in a 'glamorous' job like a surgeon. So then the interviewer raised the idea that wine experts that can't always tell the difference between a super expensive wine and a cheaper one... because (unspoken) that there isn't an objective difference because some of the matter is - I don't know... culture? or bunk?? - that psychiatry (at least perhaps the counselling side of things, rather than the prescribing medical side - I inferred that's what he meant) has elements of Emperor's New Clothes?

I thought it was an interesting angle to take. You may think 'ah that's not fortean' but I thought he was trying to expose a fuzziness of psychiatry, an inconvenient interpretation of the situation. Or as Mr Fort would put it, that "I conceive of nothing in religion, science or philosophy that is more than the proper thing to wear for a while".

[clarification: I don't know anything about psychiatry]
 
Eponastill said:
They were talking about this on the PM programme (Radio 4) this evening. It's about 27 to 32 minutes in:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00017r2
or you can read about the case here for example https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ew-foreign-doctors-commonwealth-a8640981.html
She had done a year of medical training in NZ but then come to Britain and got a job claiming to be a doctor. And only got caught out because they were investigating her for fraud (involving someone's will) 22 years later.

The newspaper article doesn't reflect it, but I thought they captured quite a fortean slant in the radio interview, because the interviewer asks whether some professions are easier to get away with. (He mentioned that surely a surgeon or a welder would soon be exposed). Partly his point was that because lots of what goes on in psychiatry is between the doctor and the patient, that no-one else might notice. But the guy being interviewed wasn't really having this, he put forward that most people who want a kick out of faking stuff would rather be in a 'glamorous' job like a surgeon. So then the interviewer raised the idea that wine experts that can't always tell the difference between a super expensive wine and a cheaper one... because (unspoken) that there isn't an objective difference because some of the matter is - I don't know... culture? or bunk?? - that psychiatry (at least perhaps the counselling side of things, rather than the prescribing medical side - I inferred that's what he meant) has elements of Emperor's New Clothes?

I thought it was an interesting angle to take. You may think 'ah that's not fortean' but I thought he was trying to expose a fuzziness of psychiatry, an inconvenient interpretation of the situation. Or as Mr Fort would put it, that "I conceive of nothing in religion, science or philosophy that is more than the proper thing to wear for a while".

[clarification: I don't know anything about psychiatry]
Click to expand...

Interesting slant and you could be right. I wonder about her patients over the years though - have they actually been helped by her, or not?

(And if they have been helped, does this mean that psychiatry is somewhat on the fuzzy side?)
 
This is a common theme in literature and drama, where someone pretends to be far more qualified than they are. The medical profession is usually the setting.

There was a TV series a year or so ago about it in which an experienced nurse moved from England to Scotland and posed as a doctor friend who'd emigrated. You'd think she'd soon be rumbled and she was, but the bloke who saw though her also fell for her so, y'know, it was complicated...

Anyway I expect it happens now and then.
 
In the early 2000s I had the misfortune to encounter a Psychologist who was very odd... far 'odder' than me and I was the one receiving 'treatment'!

He asked me some very personal questions about my sex life with my then-husband that didn't seem pertinent to the mental health treatment then occurring. At that time I did not have the courage or self-confidence to raise this with anyone his senior.

He was later struck off for plagiarism and for serious misconduct in 2010.

Mental health patients are more vulnerable than some when encountering rogue medical staff as they don't usually ask for a chaperone to sit in on appointments, which are normally one-to-one and if they do raise concerns, are often not believed because of their MH diagnosis.
 
Xanatic* said:
Aye, but it doesn't tend to take 22 years for them to be caught out.
Click to expand...

Nope, not in fiction/drama because there'd be no denouement!

However, there are probably rucks of fake medics around that we have no idea are dodgy.
 
Xanatic* said:
I didn't mean in fiction. There has been a number of fake doctors, I just don't know of any that managed anything like 22 years.
Click to expand...

Good point. For one thing, if they're good enough at it we'd never know. (Like the perfect murder.)

For another, there might be vested interests who'd like to keep a thing like that quiet in certain places. It doesn't look good if vetting is poor, for example.

Also, in some circumstances a fake medic may seem like better than nothing, awful as that is.

We don't know though.
 
Psychiatry as a placebo? Interesting idea Scargy and not without merits. The opportunity of just talking to someone and offloading problems will certainly have helped some. Maybe the imposter showed huge empathy and understanding, offering sensible advice and pointing people in the right direction. The Samaritans are another great example of this. Self-awareness and a feeling of "a problem shared" etc.
 
escargot said:
However, there are probably rucks of fake medics around that we have no idea are dodgy
Click to expand...
I tread very cautiously with what I'm about to say here (because I will defer to @escargot's expertise, with her as both a professionally-trained medical person and as someone who who's had the unpleasant personal experience of being at the mercy of a flawed psych), but; speaking as someone who has a graduate psychologist in my immediate family, to me, the biggest mystery in the OP's story is that it reports of someone who was a comprehensively-convincing fake psychiatrist, and not a convincing simulated psychologist.

My point is: notwithstanding the fact that the perpetrator did possess a year's-worth of unspecified medical training, it should've been much-easier to uncover an unqualified practising psychiatrist than an artificial psychologist (and- this is not to denigrate or detract from the noble science of psychology in any way, but: it should've been a damn-sight harder to fake it as a psychiatrist than it appears to have been).

Psychiatrists are meant to be clinical medical health professionals, constantly crossing into areas of neuroscience, pharmokinetics, relative-benefit therapy decisions, intervention pathways, and collaborative treatment approaches. They are meant to be, intrinsically, medical doctors who specialise in mental health.

This 22yr con-trick makes me wonder if (in some instances) there is not really as much of a gulf between psychiatry, and clinical psychology, as is claimed by psychiatrists.

This interesting tale also makes me speculate as to whether some (officially-qualified) psychiatrists are able to coast along in their careers in a fairly non-clinical mode, whilst not really utilising the attuned medical foundations they are theoretically required to possess.

There should not be any derivative corollary imputed from all of this that absolutely-anyone could become a fake non-clinical psychologist (if I were to say/think this, someone I know very-well would beat me over the head with some heavy textbooks) but I strongly-suspect that the supposed gulf between psychiatrists and psychologists is (in many practical instances) not nearly as great as is professed.

@escargot do you agree with my hypothesis? Or am I off-beam?
 
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A counsellor/talk therapist doesn't necessarily do much talking (varying depending on their training background), the client does the vast majority. So "faking" that in terms of the contact time wouldn't necessarily be hard., though I am not a trained person so no expert.

As Ermine said actually psychiatrists are medical doctors, they can subscribe medication and so on. They and clinical psychologists are the only people who can make a metal health diagnosis for a particular condition. Much harder to fake and far more worrying, that said, didn't someone fake being a GP despite not having the relevant qualifications or possibly any medical qualifications? I remember it being on the news many years ago.
 
I think if the NHS were to have a good dig into the backgrounds of everyone they employ there would be a few surprises there.

In Germany Christian Eberhard faked qualifications and performed 190 surgeries and I remember an Italian Heart surgeon who used to be a pig butcher and who skill rose him to prominence (and there were moves to reinstate him after he got caught out) sadly I can't find him on google as another Italian surgeon is drowning out the search results.
 
I did a course in Counselling many years back and the Lecturer wanted me to study further and qualify but I wasn't interested as I thought it was a doddle sitting there making empathetic nods and noises. I have since encountered Counsellors/ Therapists/ Psychiatrists/ Psychologists etc that have been either mad as a box of frogs, or totally out of touch, totally out of their depth or inhabiting another planet. I do think that there are some good ones. However from the rogue ones I have experienced I get the feeling that somehow it might be possible to get away with being a fake if you manage to get into the system as a Psychiatrist is held in high regard and never questioned they wield a lot of power. So who would question them? A patient certainly couldn't! Also it is not unknown for people to fake qualifications and CVs and who knows how much they are checked out?
 
Just reminded me of something my Dad used to do many years ago and it worked but couldn't be done now for obvious reasons. He always kept an empty file in the boot of his car and if he felt like going inside somewhere for a nose around he would put it under his arm and march into wherever and never got challenged. He told me as long as you look very worried, keep your head down and say a brusque greeting if you risk being approached as well as adopting an air of worried responsibility or authority you are in. Or just look hopelessly lost and ask for someone ( make up a name) if you really are challenged then apologise and leave. Just goes to show appearances can be deceptive and can carry you through a lot.
 
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