Woman may have aided alleged medical fraud charges
against son
By Christina Littlefield
<clittle@lasvegassun.com>
LAS VEGAS SUN

The mother of a 35-year-old Henderson man charged with
practicing medicine without a license may have helped
her son commit the alleged fraud.

The Nevada attorney general's office includes a letter
in court documents that Phyllis Ries wrote on behalf
of her son, Andrew Elias Michael, to St. Luke Medical
School falsely confirming he had completed a six-month
radiology diagnostic clerkship at Meadows Diagnostic
Medical Imaging Center in Henderson.

Michael was serving as president of Meadows Diagnostic
at the time. Authorities allege he was passing himself
off to employees as an established surgeon while in
reality he was just taking correspondence classes
through an off-shore medical school whose program is
not accredited wit! h the American Medical Association
or the Nevada Board of Medical Examiners.

Authorities allege Michael also gave medical advice to
staff and patients and supervised "potentially
dangerous radioactive contrast (ink) injections on MRI
patients," injections that require a physician's
supervision.

His 2001 admission to medical school may also have
been granted on fraudulent transcripts and degrees
attained through another Internet-based school in
Wyoming known to be a diploma mill, Chief Deputy
Attorney General Gerald Gardner wrote in a past motion
to raise Michael's bail.

Ries noted that she was the chief operating officer
and director of facility education for Meadows when
she wrote the letter to St. Luke.

Ries is the defendant's mother and "has zero
qualifications to direct any medical education
program," Gardner said in his motion.

Michael's mom also spelled "January" and "diagnostic"
wrong in the! certification letter.

She is not charged in the case, Gardner said, but she
was "definitely an integral part of his businesses."

Ries also encouraged employee Gayle Raveling "to talk
to Dr. Michael about (a proposed heart surgery) if I
wanted comfort," Raveling testified to the grand jury.

Raveling said Michael looked over her medical records
and, using a model of a heart, told her left coronary
artery was 90 percent closed and she definitely needed
the surgery. Her heart doctor had not told her that
much, Raveling said. Michael then praised her surgeon,
calling him a "good guy."

Raveling said she took it as a second opinion at the
time, as she believed Michael's claim that he was an
esteemed cardiothoracic surgeon, specializing in the
heart and the lungs.

"So I got the great impression that not only did he
know he was a great doctor, but to move forward with
this procedure as well," Raveling said.
A Clark County grand jury indicted Michael in October,
five months after his initial arrest for practicing
medicine without a license in May. The grand jury
transcripts document several instances of this act,
but Gardner said the attorney general's office chose
to treat all instances as part of an "ongoing offense
rather than individual crimes."

At the time of the indictment, Michael was
accompanying physicians on hospital rounds for
cardiothoracic patients at a Lexington, Ky., hospital
as a fourth-year medical student even though he had
purportedly attended St. Luke Medical School for two
years. The hospital, Central Baptist, dismissed
Michael from rotations after Kentucky media reports
about his pending criminal prosecution in Las Vegas
led them to look at the indictment.

Ruth Ann Childers, a spokeswoman for Central Baptist,
said nothing like this has ever happened in the
50-year history of the hospital.
The hospital received a letter of recommendation and a
letter verifying Michael's enrollment from St. Luke
and never had any reason to doubt he was a fourth-year
student until the media reports.

Childers said Michael, like all other students
accompanying hospital rotations, never did more than
observe the physicians making the rounds.

"(Students) don't do patient care or patient
procedures or any of those types of things," Childers
said.

Michael was observing rounds in a pediatric clinic in
Las Vegas when authorities arrested him in early
November based on the indictment, Gardner said in
court documents. It was the same charge he had been
arrested for in May 2003.

Radiologists and other employees also testified before
the grand jury that in addition to allegedly posing as
a medical doctor, Michael said he had a doctorate in
business administration, was a former Marine pilot
with a current commercial lice! nse and was wrapping up
work on a law degree -- all by the age of 34.

The surgical specialty Michael claimed takes at least
12 years to complete, radiologists said, and Michael
did not even know things as basic as how to position
himself to take a chest x-ray or read an x-ray.

"Things began to pile up where he did not know things
that a surgeon/medical doctor should know,"
radiologist Douglas Howard testified. "And I just
began to question in my own mind what was really going
on."

Gardner wrote that what was "most disturbing" about
Michael's conduct is that he supervised approximately
a dozen ink injections for MRI and CT scan patients
and refused to hire a radiology nurse because he said
he could take care of any emergencies that might
arise.

Deborah Dort, one of the radiologists who testified
before the grand jury, said that although it is rare,
some patients can have severe allergic reaction to the
! injections. That's one of the reasons a physician must
be present. There is a risk of anaphylactic shock,
heart attack or even death.

Another employee with Meadows' parent company, North
American Medical Company, chief financial officer
Marti Myers-Garver, said she knew Michael was not a
medical doctor but told her he asked to be addressed
as Dr. Michael because of his PH.D. in business.

"He would wear a stethoscope into the office, (to)
project that he was a physician on a couple of
occasions," Myers-Garver testified. "He had
specifically told me at social occasions not to tell
specific people that he was not an M.D."

Myers-Garver said no one ever asked her and she never
told anyone he wasn't a medical doctor.

Practicing medicine without a license is a felony in
Nevada punishable with a prison sentence of one to
four years, Gardner said. Michael is currently out on
$1,000 bail. The case goes to trial Feb. 2! 3.

District Court Judge Valerie Vega denied the state's
recent request to increase bail but did order Michael
to report the indictment to any current or potential
employer in the medical field and banned him from
working anywhere that involves contact with patients
seeking medical care.

Michael's defense attorneys, Bill Terry and Linda
Novell, declined to comment. Both Michael and his
mother were also unreachable.

Las Vegas Review-Journal
Monday, December 08, 2003

ELABORATE CON ALLEGED: Man pretended to be a doctor,
prosecutor says

35-year-old indicted on charge of practicing medicine
without license at Henderson office

By GLENN PUIT
REVIEW-JOURNAL


Andrew Elias Michael
Scheduled to go on trial in February in District Court





At his Henderson medical office, Andrew Elias Michael
told his employees he was an esteemed surgeon capable
of performing complex operat! ions.

In this capacity, authorities allege, Michael
supervised numerous patients while they received
injections during medical procedures.

And he also gave medical advice.

But the Nevada attorney general's office says Michael
was never a doctor, just an old-fashioned con man.

"In short, (his) entire academic credentials are
founded on fraud," Nevada prosecutor Gerald Gardner
wrote in legal papers stemming from Michael's arrest
earlier this year.

There's no mention of any motive in Michael's court
file. Prosecutors have declined comment, as have
Michael's Las Vegas attorneys, Bill Terry and Linda
Norvell.

In October, a Clark County grand jury indicted the
35-year-old on a charge of practicing medicine without
a license. By that time, he was already out on bail
after his initial arrest. After the indictment,
Michael turned up in Kentucky as a fourth-year medical
student accompanying physici! ans on hospital rounds for
cardiothoracic patients.

When a media outlet in Kentucky reported on Michael's
pending criminal prosecution in Nevada, Michael was
dismissed from the medical student program at Central
Baptist Hospital in Lexington.

"We have been here for 50 years, and this is the first
time we've ever had a problem," said Ruth Ann
Childers, a spokeswoman for Central Baptist. "We have
since changed our policies."

Michael has pleaded innocent to the charge, and he is
scheduled to go to trial in February in District
Court. He is currently free on bail.

According to court records and grand jury transcripts,
Michael was the president of a Las Vegas company
called North American Medical Company in 2001 and
2002. The company ran Meadows Diagnostic Medical
Imaging Center, 35 S. Gibson Road in Henderson.

Listed phone numbers for both businesses are now
disconnected.

Appearing before the! grand jury in October, local
radiologist Deborah Dort said she was hired at Meadows
Diagnostic by Michael in 2002.

"He told me he was a surgeon, a cardiothoracic
surgeon," Dort said. "Specifically, he told me he had
done his surgical training at Johns Hopkins
University."

A cardiothoracic surgeon performs heart surgeries such
as bypasses and T-valve replacements.

Dort said that during her job interview, Michael also
claimed to be a former military pilot who was on the
verge of obtaining a law degree. Dort said Michael
produced a business card identifying himself as a
doctor and a member of the Fellow of the American
College of Surgery, an esteemed organization for
surgeons.

Another radiologist hired by Michael, Douglas C.
Howard, told a similar account.

"He held himself to be a cardiothoracic surgeon and
trained at Johns Hopkins," Howard told the grand jury.


After being hired at Meado! ws Diagnostic, the
radiologists noticed some curious behavior by Michael.
In one instance, Dort said, Michael was present as she
read a chest X-ray of a patient.

"I said, `Would you like to see the chest X-ray?' "
Dort recalled. "And I put it up, and he made some
statement about, `Oh, she's the patient (with) such
and such mass in her lung,' which she did not have.

"This was my first week there, (and) I thought, `Oh,
he's got her confused with someone else,' " Dort said.
"But it did strike me that a chest surgeon wouldn't
know how to read an X-ray."

Howard said Michael once came into the office to have
his own chest X-rayed.

"He did not know how to position himself to take a
chest X-ray," Howard said. "Kind of basic."

Dort said on certain occasions, Michael actually
supervised patients.

In December 2002, she said Meadows Diagnostic was
going to have to cancel a CAT scan on a patient
becau! se a doctor would not be present to supervise a
special type of injection necessary for the procedure.


The injection, in extremely rare cases, can cause an
anaphylactic reaction, heart attack or even death.

Dort said Michael later showed up and supervised the
injection.

"He showed up with a stethoscope around his neck,"
Dort said.

In another instance, during a doctors' meeting, Dort
questioned why Meadows Diagnostic did not have a
radiology nurse on staff.

"He (Michael) mentioned that if we ever got in a
severe situation ... and we called 911 and the patient
is crashing, that I can always call him for guidance
on what to do before ... the ambulance arrive(s),"
Dort said.

Another employee of Michael's, Gayle Raveling, told
the grand jury she was scheduled to undergo a medical
procedure on her heart in November 2002 at another
facility. She said Michael spoke to her about her
heart condi! tion and actually produced a replica of a
heart for reference as he discussed the upcoming
procedure.

"He was advising me that my left coronary artery
appeared closed, 90 percent closed," Raveling
testified. "My cardiologist hadn't told me that much
information.

"He said, `Yeah, you do need to have this procedure,'
" Raveling said.

Gradually, employees at Meadows Diagnostic became
suspicious. Dort said a private investigator in
January showed up in the business parking lot and told
an employee Michael wasn't a doctor.

Dort said she checked with Johns Hopkins and found
Michael had not studied there, according to court
documents. She immediately called the Nevada State
Board of Medical Examiners, and the agency started an
investigation.

Lynnette Krotke, chief licensing specialist for the
board, told the grand jury that the requirements for a
doctor being licensed in Nevada are extensive. But the!
agency's files showed Michael had never even applied
for a license.

An investigation by the attorney general's office now
indicates, according to court records, that Michael
supervised as many as 11 injections of patients during
imaging procedures. In a motion to increase bail for
Michael filed in November, the attorney general's
office reported that at the time of his arrest,
Michael "was conducting rounds at a pediatric clinic
in Las Vegas under the pretense that he was a
third-year medical student."

Gardner stated in court documents that authorities
learned Michael is enrolled at St. Luke's Medical
School, a private institution in Liberia, Africa.

St. Luke's worldwide office is in Los Angeles, but the
school is not accredited by the American Medical
Association and does not qualify in Nevada for
licensure, Gardner said.

Gardner also wrote in his bail motion that Michael's
admission to St. Luke'! s was based on his "purported
degree from Hamilton University, a Wyoming-based
Internet institution that has been described as a
`diploma mill' in recent national news stories."

In addition, Gardner wrote Michael was once the
subject of a criminal investigation in 1993 amid
allegations he submitted a forged University of
Nevada, Las Vegas transcript to the Nevada State Board
of Nursing in an effort to obtain a fraudulent nursing
license.

The Review-Journal was unable to locate any evidence
of charges being filed in that case.

Michael made an unsuccessful run for a state Assembly
seat in 1996 as a Republican candidate. "We need to
get Nevadans off of welfare and back into the work
community," he said in an interview before the
election.

The allegations against Michael may resemble a movie
script, but they're not unique. In one case documented
by the San Francisco Chronicle, a man posed as a
physicia! n in California for nearly 20 years.

The newspaper reported the man falsified the
credentials of a pharmacist and adopted the identity
of a Stockton, Calif., surgeon. He was sent to prison
five times but, upon release, resumed the con, the
newspaper reported.

The Connecticut Post also detailed the case of a man
accused of posing as a doctor at a clinic. The man,
arrested in April, required young patients to have
gynecological and breast examinations before they
received methadone for drug addictions, the paper
reported.

Dale L. Austin, senior vice president of the
Federation of State Medical Boards in the United
States, said Nevada and other states across the
country do a good job of enforcing laws relating to
doctor licensing, but he said when someone is intent
on deceiving the system, they can be difficult to
detect, especially when they do not apply for a
license.

"An individual who isn't licens! ed by the medical board
of a state doesn't normally come under the
jurisdiction of the medical board," he said.

Austin said detecting fake doctors requires diligent
regulation, public awareness and immediate reporting
by medical professionals who are suspicious of a
colleague's credentials.

"It all comes down to patient care and patient
protection," Austin said.

__________________
Moderator - State Licensing Forum

Still skeptical after all these years.
This is it. There are no hidden meanings.WYSIWYG

http://www.internetmedicalschool.homestead.com

http://www.chiropractormds.homestead.com/index.html

"(Students) don't do patient care or patient
procedures or any of those types of things," Childers
said.

Right. Sure. uh-huh.

Too bad for St. Lukes. Gotta hate guys like that making it tougher on us straight-shooters.

__________________
Saba Forum Moderator
Saba University School of Medicine, MSIV
Interests: Pediatrics, Psychiatry