← Previous Post: | Next Post:

 

Come lie with me

You and I have tracked many American fakes over the years — people running around with pretend diplomas or no diplomas — and we have been impressed by the willingness of just as many American universities to overlook their fakery. Why check credentials?

Thus Western Michigan University hired William Hamman – broad-shouldered pilot of jumbo jets, MD, AND PhD! – to direct its couldn’t-be-better-named Center of Excellence for Simulation Research.

Hamman simulated being an MD and a PhD so excellently that many other organizations – the American College of Cardiology, the American Medical Association, yadda yadda, gave Hamman high-paid gigs to do his thing, which seems to be using what he learned as a pilot on doctors… I dunno. Doesn’t matter….

So, you know, finally after years and years the hospital where he worked checked up on the guy:

In checking a grant proposal he wanted to submit in late spring, the [hospital] staff discovered the lack of an M.D. degree… [Nor did he have the] fellowship, doctoral degree or the 15 years of clinical experience he claimed.

Muy grande liar! I like the way he threw in a PhD. What the hell.

Margaret Soltan, December 12, 2010 3:32PM
Posted in: professors

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=28207

2 Responses to “Come lie with me”

  1. Chas S. Clifton Says:

    I concur.

  2. DM Says:

    I was told that in the old days, in Italy, universities would require that applicants got their list of alleged publications certified by a librarian. This sounded over the board to me… but…

    I don’t quite understand how people still manage to pull of such stunts in academic jobs: lists of publications are publicly available. I suspect this has to do with people claiming “industrial experience”, which is often largely unverifiable.

Comment on this Entry

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

Archives

Categories