Yuvaraj Krishnan Photo: RNZ / Rowan Quinn
A "bogus doctor" who faked his way to a job Middlemore Hospital had tried to get other jobs too, Googling how to remove moles and make cuts in skin.
Yuvaraj Krishnan, 31, was sentenced to three and a half years jail in the Manukau District Court today.
He got the job as a respiratory fellow at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, faking a practicing certificate, references, CVs and academic records.
It was largely research based but he also wrote prescriptions and made referrals, seeing 80 patients in total.
He was found out when a colleague recognised his name and remembered him from an earlier incident where he had pretended to be a medical student for two years at the University of Auckland even though he never got in.
He later started a medical degree in Poland, but never finished, and used that as the basis for fake qualifications.
It emerged he had unsuccessfully applied for several other jobs between 2020 and 2021 pretending to be a doctor.
For one, at a dermatology clinic, he Googled how to carry out procedures.
Krishnan's lawyer Steve Cullen said the man had a "perverse compulsion" to work as a doctor and underlying psychological problems.
His brothers went to study in the United States at Harvard and Princeton Universities and he felt emotional pressure being left at home - and to keep up with their success.
But the prosecution said the deception was sophisticated, happened many times, and involved vulnerable patients.
Judge Nevin Dawson said Krishnan has a distorted sense of self entitlement and put patients at risk.
The bulk of the offending could not be blamed on psychological problems and family pressures, he said,
"People thought they were being seen by a suitably qualified medical professional. They were not and their on going health was compromised because of that," he said.
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