Australian woman convicted after pretending to be doctor on social media

∟⊔⊤∦∣≶@lemmy.nz to World News@lemmy.world – 460 points –
Australian woman convicted after pretending to be doctor on social media
stuff.co.nz

I HAVE TO BE SPECIAL!!! PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEEEE!!!

59

The crime imho is not cosplaying as a doctor on Instagram but applying for medical jobs with a fake resume with fake degrees

I see nothing wrong on the screenshots of the now deleted Instagram profile, she's doing paid modeling "this nail polish is so pretty", "this scrub is so comfy" or saying the usual bullshit "remember to eat 2 fruit a day" but nowhere where she's claiming to be a doctor or giving dangerous medical advice. Less dangerous than "doctor" Oz in the States.

if you get a job as a project manager in an hospital just because you knew that they didn't check and lied to have 3 medical degrees, that's a worse problem

the Facebook post has definitely got some misleading wording, though. "Trust me I know many physicians delay self care when we have 100 items on our plate", for example, sounds like she's trying to imply that she's one of the physicians without explicitly saying it.

Yes, but the point is that, afaik, that is not a crime, no?

Misrepresentation membership to a professional organisation that's regulated (in this case, Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency regulates it) is illegal.

Doctor Oz is actually a doctor though, despite everything. Used to be one of the most respected cardiothoracic surgeons in the world. Then his tv show happened...

While that is different... That is much more frightening to consider.

It kinda is. The dude could probably take out your lungs and heart with his eyes closed. But he got corrupted.

The dude could probably take out your lungs and heart with his eyes closed.

To be fair, so could I.

Reminds me of a great pair of line from a Warren Zevon song: "I can saw a woman in two, but you won't want to look in the box when I'm through."

From one Australian woman to another, she should have used that energy and tried acting instead.

Everybody plays a character of the person they want to present to the world on social media, so there needs to be more awareness that even if you can see their faces and hear their voices, you still can't blindly trust people to be who they claimed to be online, and you should always exercise a healthy dose of skepticism on what you read or watched.

Trust me, after all, why would Academy Award nominated character actress Margot Robbie ever lie to you?

You were still great in that thing. I think you were a doctor. I dunno.

I'm not a doctor, I just played a clown doctor on TV.

Don't go takin' medical advice from me on anythin' now.

I want to believe

It would be hilarious if it were her, but it's not lol

Every molecule in my brain screams about it's not. But there's still that tiny little comedian in my brain that goes, "what if there were a dinosaur in that lake?"

Are you calling me the Loch Ness Monster? Gasp.

Anyways, I would need about 3 dollars and 50 cents from you, please.

Here's your tree fiddy

Wait a minute, now I realise you're a 200 feet tall creature from the mesozoic era!

Because it is funny.

Messing with tech nerds IS really funny.

(I still 💖 you guys though)

You can't even trust those are the actual people you see with deepfakes becoming more popular.

There are a ton of people pretending to be doctors on Tik Tok. Anybody wearing scrubs and a stethoscope at home is LARPing.

I always wonder when scrubs go on / get swapped out for normal atire.

"Defence barrister Erasmus Lovell-Jones said his client had an underlying psychological fragility which made it difficult for her to say no in social situations.

He said Karezi – who was studying a bachelor’s degree in health science – met a person who believed she was studying medicine, and when she did not correct them it spawned a misunderstanding that opened doors for her."

What kind of horse shit defense is that? Someone should check if this defense attorney has underlying phycological fragility themself.

His job is to defend her to the best of his ability. If there is no good defense for what she did then he is obligated to make a bad one as long as that defense doesn't involve direct lies.

Sounds more like she saw a golden opportunity for her fraudster mindset.

I have a psychological fragility that makes it hard for me to not steal spirits from the liquor store and I demand justice.

I recommend getting your spirits from the local graveyard, it's free there.

I’ve tried this but the fermentation process didn’t go well and it tasted funny

underlying psychological fragility

Jesus Christ.

It's things like this which gives ammo to conservatives to call the next generation weak.

In their defence, this is their only legal defence so they’re basically trying to worm their way out getting in trouble for being a liar so I’m not too sure they’re concerned about using made up and exaggerated statements for things that are subjective. It’s also a lawyer saying this, I’d argue that lawyers lean conservative but have no idea really. Also, from what I’ve seen when a liberal does this they’re weak and when a conservative does this it’s smart or playing the system, it’s always been a bad faith argument anyway

Oof. She is a student of health science. I wonder if her school will kick her out, because she didn't just lie a few times, she went 80 posts deep and even took sponsorship deals during the pandemic.

Ooof. I wonder if she was going to try to be a doctor.... and I wonder how ethics boards and such will view actions like these. Probably just blew up her entire career with some stupidity.

classic case of turning one lie into a full blown personality you can't find an easy way out of

She even applied for jobs, what is wrong with these people? It's not only tik tok, but didn't any family member saw her? And stop her? They should also start asking for certification copies.

More than ask for certification copies, which can be easily faked, setup a way for hospitals to check degrees on an online database. We're not in the 1960s anymore

@Moonrise2473 i

I thought there was? The universities here have online databases where you type in the person's name and it tells you their degrees from that university.

Isn't there? My university has a simple site to check if diploma/degree numbers are real, and I got mine a pretty long time ago.

You don't need someone to tell you don't pretend to be a doctor. Maybe you do need to tell people not to be a piece of shit, but let me help.

Stop being pieces of shit.

What about free speech? /s

If you're taking doctor advice on social media, you're the problem.

Ironically, measures like this just serve to reinforce people's trust in social media as a legitimate source of information.

No, both sides are. It's not okay to pretend to be a doctor and masquerade paid product promotion as medical advise.

But it's also inherently not okay to look at TikTok (or something comparable) for medical advise, that's just obvious bullshit. And any even remotely reasonable person should intuitively know that.

You see you went wrong when you assumed there aren’t lots of unreasonable people who don’t intuitively know that

The internet is too much for humans. It's our downfall accelerated. We were already probably doomed. This cranked it up to certainty.

If it’s any consolation we only need a few individuals making progress for humanity. We have always had a large percentage of people that don’t add value and we are still making progress

Australia is a hoax though most Australia co actors who play Australian doctors have real medical skills and training.