Russian Doctorates for Sale--Just Bring Plagiarized Thesis

Engineering degrees are not objects of luxury consumption, and I'd say they still have some integrity (depending on school). What the article discusses, and Dissernet focuses on, is degree titles arranged for various leaders (nomenklatura), with thesis usually ghostwritten and often plagiarized. These are mostly in the soft subjects ("economic sciences", law, political sciences, education, history). Due to the fact that the pipeline is clogged by the privileged, these titles (Kandidat and up) are pretty thoroughly discredited.
Terrifyingly, there are suggestions that many theses in Medical Sciences are manipulated. The article gives example of the dissertation on breast cancer that was manufactured by mangling a dissertation on stomach cancer. In turn, that stomach cancer dissertation was produced by taking work on rat and mice models and instead suggesting the results were obtained in human trials. This is not just degree fraud - this is polluting primary literature with made up science. As a small consolation, you have to be a qualified doctor to get into these programs.

 

I think the good thing that we have in the US is that foreign educated MD's need to study for board exams and then undergo internship.
Usually the fakes fail the board exams and I also know a lady who as far as I know earned legit medical doctor degree overseas she passed the exams but couldn't find internship, she offered a lot of money to get in to internship it took years.
She gave up on becoming a MD in US.
She became a RN and I'm told she is now a Nurse Practitioner.

So we have a third system to validate foreign MD's.
In Russia I think the Diploma states that it gives the right to the person to practice their profession.
AT least the one that I seen is in Engineering states that a person can practice the profession of Engineer.
So its sort of a license.

 

A person isn't going to know the difference, unfortunately. And the true victims end up being the people who actually put the work in. In certain licensed professions you gain some credibility if you secure a license in another country. But even then there can be bias.

My kids' first pediatrician went to medical school in Mexico. He wasn't Mexican. Was he unable to get into a U.S. Medical School? Did he just want the adventure? No idea. What I do know is that he did his residency at Case Western Reserve which is ranked fairly high as far as residencies go. Still I had friends and family who would say "You go to Dr. X? Didn't you know he went to a Mexican Medical School?"

Mexican Medical Schools don't have the reputation of, say, Israeli medical schools in the U.S. But I'm certain that Mexico does have some fairly competent doctors. But people carry these sort of biases.

My suspicion is that if a Russian academic develops a solid global reputation they will continue to operate unfettered by this sort of thing (unless they get identified as someone with a plagiarized dissertation). But if an American with no apparent connection to Russia suddenly starts boasting a Russian PhD? Yeah, that might raise a few eyebrows on a good day and with this it might come off a bit questionable.

Of course, people might snicker at the pediatrician's college and yet, he's still a physician licensed in the state of New York and he makes much more money than the people who ignorantly mock his credentials. I don't know if a Russian engineer or astronomer would be so fortunate.

 

I think medicine is a racket. It's run by a union called the AMA. Having said that, I have seen many naturopaths that knew their stuff and even did online kind of ND work. I've seen a few from Cali that knew medicine very well...better than many MDs I've come across.

So, having your children's doctor go to school in Mexico is a non-event. What they knew and how they practice are the keys.