Doctor Fakes Medical Council Registration Certificate in Bengaluru Fortis Hospital

BENGALURU:
Karnataka Medical Council (KMC) has approached the Puttenahalli Police Station against Dr Ravi Patil, former resident medical officer at Fortis Hospital, Bannerghatta Road, for using another doctor’s KMC registration number and working at the hospital.
He had resigned when the hospital found out there was another doctor registered against the same number. On August 10, Fortis Hospital Zonal Head, Human Resource, A V Balaji Babu, in a letter to KMC registrar, said, “While verifying the registration number in the KMC website, the name of another doctor showed up. When we enquired with Dr Ravi Patil, he informed us that there was a mistake from the KMC. He thereafter immediately resigned.”
Dr Veerabhadrappa H, KMC president said, “We do not want him to join some other hospital. This is a case of impersonation and creation of fake documents. They get hold of some doctor’s registration certificate and superimpose their picture on it and create a fake document.”
This case reiterates the importance of doctors renewing their registration with KMC. Those registration certificates issued before 2011 have been deemed invalid by the council.
“We have started digitising our documents where the picture and thumb prints are taken right then. So there is no question of faking documents. About 10,000 doctors are yet to get their registration renewed,” Veerabhadrappa said.
Officials of KMC said this was the first case of doctor impersonation that the council has come across. “His KMC registration certificate is dated September 21, 2012. But as on that date only 97,197 doctors were registered with us, so that number couldn’t have been generated, hence his registration certificate is fake,” a KMC official said.
The Fortis management refused to divulge how long Dr Patil worked in the hospital or other particulars like when he joined. When asked if his clinical prescriptions were investigated by the hospital in the interest of patients’ safety, they maintained that patients’ safety was not jeopardised because as an RMO he did not see patients directly and was working under a senior consultant.
In a statement, Fortis Hospital said, “Dr Ravi Patil had joined Fortis Hospital as a resident doctor. We found that there was a discrepancy in the KMC number. We asked him to share all the relevant documents. When the doctor did not share the required credentials, we asked the doctor to leave immediately. We informed KMC about this,” the statement said.