Florida fake nursing diploma scheme resulted in 7,600 fraudulent degrees

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Dustin, Jan 26, 2023.

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  1. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

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  2. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    It might suck even worse to be a hospital patient and be "treated" by one of the fake grads. :(
    The only good news here is that some people who deserve to, may go to jail.
     
  3. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Legitimate grads out the front door, fake diplomas out the back.

    But what about the licensing exam? Well, it's not much of a stretch for a medical assistant to fake being an LPN, or an LPN to take being an RN. I doubt if even a performance exam would be sufficient to weed out all the frauds. That's why this is a crime.

    I'm no lawyer, of course, but I wonder if any of their business crossed state lines? If so, perhaps our law enforcement buddy, RICO Federale would get a shot at this?
     
  4. siersema

    siersema Active Member

  5. JoshD

    JoshD Well-Known Member

    Healthcare is the most important industry (with Finance being a close 2nd) in which trust is absolutely necessary. When I have gone to the hospital or doctors office, I have gone trusting that the MD, DO, RN, etc. were all properly trained.

    It is instances like this that cause the public to have distrust.
     
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  6. siersema

    siersema Active Member

    Perhaps not a ton of comfort, but if they used RN they at least passed the nursing board exams. The article says that’s true for about 2,400 of the 7,600 students.
     
  7. JBjunior

    JBjunior Active Member

    The math presented in the article works out to $15K per person, which appears to be more than the “usual” for a diploma mill. I wonder what the people, I won’t call them students yet, thought they were paying for and what they were actually provided.
     
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  8. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    I imagine they were professionals in their home country (Haiti in this case, if one French-language news source was correct) who maybe thought they were completing a fast-track nursing program. Especially given that many of them passed the NCLEX and went onto clinical practice.
     
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  9. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    The posts from the duplicate thread have been copied over here.
     
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  10. newsongs

    newsongs Active Member

    So if someone is licensed (after the degree), do they remain licensed? Able to practice? Reading the article, I assume the fraudulent activity nullifies these graduates.
     
  11. newsongs

    newsongs Active Member

    I reread this and other articles; it's surprising the licensing boards had not heard from other students' experiences. Its a lot to sort out in Florida.
     
  12. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Revocation of a license is a separate process and it would have to be done on an individual basis. Basically, the licensing board would first have to open an investigation and gather evidence and then can take action to revoke, suspend or censure a license holder.

    Unless the entire operation was a scam and not a single legitimate graduate emerged from it it's very likely people will remain licensed especially if they have been practicing without incident.

    The fact of the matter is, the RN license is more of a wild west than people care to admit. "You need a bachelors....or sometimes an associates....and the people who had the diploma (still available in some parts of NYS) are also good to go." And in the midst of a shortage I suspect they would only revoke the licenses of nurses where there is a clear line of fraud of misrepresentation.

    It's also Florida so they might just...not do that.
     
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  13. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    I loathe scams that prey on immigrant communities.
     
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  14. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Do they prey? Or are the possessors of the fake certificates co-conspirators?
     
  15. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    Like degree mill degrees, I'm sure it's a little from column A and a little from column B.
     
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  16. Rachel83az

    Rachel83az Well-Known Member

    Considering that accreditation and licensing works completely differently in the US than it does in most other countries, I would say that foreign students were more likely to have been taken advantage of than to have been co-conspirators.

    You've finished nursing school in your home country, such as it is, and now you want to move to the US. Only, you start looking, and you find out that your perfectly legit diploma is invalid for work in the US. It looks like you'll have to start over from scratch! But then you find a "school" that says you'll be able to essentially "convert" your diploma to a valid U.S. one that will allow you to work. Maybe a friend has tried it already and told you about it. You don't look into it too hard and you do it yourself. And it works! Now you can move to the US and maybe support your family back home.
     
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  17. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    As both Dustin and Rachel said, it can depend.

    Some people buy degrees from mills and know full well what they are doing and intend to deceive.

    But mills also prey on ignorance. They target groups where they know degrees are sought such as the military. The Navy, when I was in, promoted heavily the notion that your training would earn you "college credits" but gave no guidance to explore the Big Three. The result was we all found many traditional B&M schools wanted nothing to do with our 9 credits of seamanship or 12 credits worth of nautical navigation. So when an online school with a slick looking website, sometimes looking more professional than those of accredited and legitimate schools, offered to "accept" those credits and award you an associates or maybe even a bachelors? Total win.

    Many went in in good faith thinking that they simply found a school that recognized their military training.

    I can't speak for how the Navy is today but in the early 2000s it was behind the Air Force by miles in terms of providing useful guidance to students on college education. Even the Army, in many ways, was ahead of what the Navy was doing. If I saw a dozen I have to imagine there were many more good people who were duped by misleading claims.

    The line between conspirator and victim can get hazy, especially when it comes to fraud, but we shouldn't discount the reality that there were, indeed, victims who thought they were doing the right thing and got burned.
     
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  18. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

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